If you are in the habit of praying the Liturgy of the Hours (Divine Office) each day you will be aware of the incredible
treasure trove contained therein. You will, like me, understand why it was that
Pope Paul VI said “and the laity, too,
are encouraged to recite the Divine Office (Liturgy of the Hours), either with
the priests, or among themselves, or even individually.”[1]
Today’s second reading,
for Matins, is from the Instructions to Catechumens by St Cyril of Jerusalem. I
was particularly taken with the very first line: “In learning and professing the faith, you must accept and retain
only the Church’s present tradition, confirmed as it is by the Scriptures.”
How willing are we to loyally, like little children, retain at all costs, the
Church’s Sacred Tradition? Why is it that so many Catholics are working so hard
to promote deviation from Sacred Tradition? We must firmly resist those who pressure us to change what the Church has faithfully handed down to us through the centuries!
Here is the entire reading from Matins for those who want to read it
and don’t have access to the Liturgy of the Hours.
“In learning and professing the faith, you must accept and retain only
the Church’s present tradition, confirmed as it is by the Scriptures. Although
not everyone is able to read the Scriptures, some because they have never
learned to read, others because their daily activities keep them from such
study, still so that their souls will not be lost through ignorance, we have
gathered together the whole of the faith in a few concise articles.
Now I order you to retain this creed for your nourishment throughout
life and never to accept any alternative, not even if I myself were to change
and say something contrary to what I am now teaching, not even if some angel of
contradiction, changed into an angel of light, tried to lead you astray. For
even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to
that which you have now received, let him be accursed in your sight.
So for the present be content to listen to the simple words of the
creed and to memorize them; at some suitable time you can find the proof of
each article in the Scriptures. This summary of the faith was not composed at
man’s whim, the most important sections were chosen from the whole Scripture to
constitute and complete a comprehensive statement of the faith. Just as the mustard
seed contains in a small grain many branches, so this brief statement of the
faith keeps in its heart, as it were, all the religious truth to be found in
Old and New Testament alike. That is why, my brothers, you must consider and
preserve the traditions you are now receiving. Inscribe them across your
heart.
Observe them scrupulously, so that no enemy may rob any of you in an
idle and heedless moment; let no heretic deprive you of what has been given to
you. Faith is rather like depositing in a bank the money entrusted to you, and
God will surely demand an account of what you have deposited. In the words of
the Apostle: I charge you before the God who gives life to all things, and
before Christ who bore witness under Pontius Pilate in a splendid declaration,
to keep unblemished this faith you have received, until the coming of our Lord
Jesus Christ.
You have now been given life’s great treasure; when he comes the
Lord will ask for what he has entrusted to you. At the appointed time he will
reveal himself, for he is the blessed and sole Ruler, King of kings, Lord of
lords. He alone is immortal, dwelling in unapproachable light. No man has seen
or ever can see him. To him be glory, honour and power for ever and ever. Amen.”
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