It is a human weakness of ours to be always crying out for complete novelty ...

It is a human weakness of ours to be always crying out for complete novelty, an entire disservice from our past. Our old traditions have become so dusty with neglect, so rusted with abuse, that we are for casting them on the scrap-heap and forgetting that they ever existed. The Church conserves; she bears traces still of the Jewish atmosphere in which she was cradled; traces, too, of the old heathen civilization which she conquered. And in her own history it is the same; nothing is altogether forgotten; every age of Christianity recalls the lineaments of an earlier time. People think of her as if she kept a lumber room; it is not so; hers is a treasure-house from which she can bring forth when they are needed things old as well as new.

Ronald Knox, Captive Flames