Holy Tradition is Life. Traditionalism is Death.

Once upon a time, yours truly, was a traditionalist Catholic at times accepting the Sedevacantist Thesis and even at one point entering communion with Pope Pius XIII aka Peter II aka Father Lucian Pulvermacher. My journey to the extreme fringe of traditionalist movements and groups was out of a desire to have the "purified" Church--one which was traditionalist and faithful.  I had grown weary of the so-called progressive or lukewarm Church, or what I had perceived it to be, and because I was a convert had the tendency to want higher levels of truth and was always dissatisfied with Churches which had become lazy over time or lost their identity seeking to look more akin to the world then any Church the Lord had established.  I had amassed a whole infrastructure of pride and self-delusion which blinded me to the fact that the "perfect" visible Church wasn't out there--in fact it didn't exist.  

I had also lost touch with my Byzantine Catholic roots and got mixed up in the ad intra ecclesial wars among Latin Rite Catholics--a reality which in essence has nothing to do with us, which is why you don't see hordes of Eastern Catholics becoming traditionalists or even Sedevacantists. In my experience as a convert for 18 years, some of our people go over to Orthodoxy or even Sede groups each year but most become inactive or go toward Pentecostalism or Evangelicalism.  

By rediscovering my Eastern Christian theology, I was able to understand 'Holy Tradition as the Life of the Holy Spirit in the Church' and not as a mere protection against modernization of rites, ceremonial, doctrine, praxis, ecclesial mentality, or ecclesiology (1), and being Catholic as a Way of Life in the Mystical Body rather then as being a mere canonical member of a perfect visible society, the institutional Church (See Cardinal Avery Dulles' Models of the Church).  I had discovered that Holy Tradition is Living and that it must be experienced in Community, a Living Community established by the Lord--a Community of any Catholic ritual Church or even by those separated from us through the sins of of our spiritual ancestors, such as Eastern Orthodox or Oriental Orthodox Christians.  

Holy Tradition in the Holy Community of the Lord gives His People True Life not the spiritual diseases caused by getting involved in ecclesial wars and endless discord--the spiritual disease of pride I now know was the cause of my doubting the Church and even leaving Her for a time.  With the help of the Lord, who is the Vine, I was finally able to experience the reality that traditionalism is dead, hollow, and lifeless while Holy Tradition is Life--a Life I now experience in Communion with the Church united to Francis, Pope of Rome, who presides in charity.

Have a blessed Holy and Great Lent!

(1).  Lossky, Vladimir. Tradition and Traditions. See: http://jbburnett.com/resources/lossky/lossky-trad%26trads.pdf