And what lessons do we derive from these two tales? Both stories strongly suggest to us the power and importance of tradition. In the story of the Austrian wall and the mosaic of Our Lady, we see how the tradition preserved a valuable core of piety even despite the people who had forgotten the rationale for it. Tradition is the best preservative available to humans. Catholic Tradition preserves important elements to our faith and hands them on, and it is capable of doing this even if people forget the reasons. A great example of traditional ecclesiastical architecture, which hands on a certain core of spiritual and liturgical principles, even if the average pewsitter is ignorant of them. When tradition is junked, we lose the ability to preserve elements of our religion and culture and wind up drifting loose.
In the second story, we see the other side of tradition - not as something that preserves a valuable core, but as something that defends us from evil, even an evil that we might not be aware of. The clearing of the caves was to keep the village safe, even though they villagers themselves did not understand the nature of the evil. Similarly, ecclesiastical traditions are in place for the purpose of protecting us from certain deadly errors, even if modern man thinks the tradition serves no "practical" purpose. Or, to put it another way, "Do not take down a fence if you don't know why it was put up."
Boniface, “Two Tales of Tradition”, Unam Sanctam Catholicam, IX-2014.
