Nov. 16, 2006

Why does the Church teach that it is a grave sin deliberately to miss Mass on Sunday? Some people say that the Church does not teach this anymore. But that is not true. Here is what the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches (#2181), “The Sunday Eucharist is the foundation and confirmation of all Christian practice. For this reason the faithful are obliged to participate in the Eucharist on days of obligation, unless excused for a serious reason (for example, illness, the care of infants) or dispensed by their own pastor. Those who deliberately fail in this obligation commit a grave sin.”

What a difference a day makes

In contemporary society, many people are not earnest about making sure that Sunday Mass is a priority. This unfortunate reality is due to a variety of reasons, especially the following: a weakened understanding of the Eucharist, poor catechesis about the binding nature of the Sunday obligation, and a lack of appreciation of the multi-faceted richness of the Lord’s Day.

What a difference a day makes, especially when it is the Lord’s Day. This is what God calls to our attention through the third of the Ten Commandments: “Remember to keep holy the Lord’s Day.”

Every day, of course, belongs to God, as do all times and seasons. Yet, with extra reason, we can sing on Sunday with the words of Psalm 118: “This is the Day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

From the beginning, God set aside one day of the week to be different from the others. He called it the Sabbath; it was meant to be a day for rest and worship. Jesus Himself affirmed the value of the Sabbath, saying (Mk 2:27), “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. That is why the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

A question of time

In his Apostolic Letter Dies Domini, “The Day of the Lord,” Pope John Paul II invited us to think more deeply about time itself in order to appreciate God’s gift of the Lord’s Day. He writes (#7), “Do not be afraid to give your time to Christ! ...He is the One who knows the secret of time and the secret of eternity, and He gives us ‘His day’ as an ever new gift of His love. The rediscovery of this day is a grace which we must implore, not only so that we may live the demands of faith to the full, but also so that we may respond concretely to the deepest human yearnings. Time given to Christ is never time lost, but is rather time gained, so that our relationships and indeed our whole life may become more profoundly human.”

Only the Maker of time, the Eternal Son of the Father, can teach us time’s true meaning and fill every day with hope. And He will do this when we have the courage to place our days, especially our Sundays, in His hands with boundless trust.

In a media-hyped culture that pushes us toward frenetic activity rather than thoughtful, contemplative living, we have a great need to rediscover the meaning of time, and also to find again the discipline of using time wisely. How good for us, then, to rediscover the value of rest.

The day of rest

What a difference Sunday makes when it truly is a day of rest, a day to stop our labors and other unnecessary “busy-ness,” a day to accept Jesus’ invitation (Mk 6:31): “Come away... and rest a while.”

For centuries, Christian citizens have sought recognition in their respective nations of Sunday as a legal holiday, a day of rest from labor. This has been done, in part, by a concern for the rights of workers and their need for leisure. It was linked, at one stage, with movements to achieve a just wage, reasonable working hours and humane working conditions.

The Church lifts up the value of human work, seeing in it an imitation of God in His work of creation. At the same time, she insists on the need and the right to rest and on the right to have time for family and for worship.

In our present age, a new social phenomenon has emerged: the weekend, which has altered the very character of Sunday. The weekend’s impact on society has not been bad in all aspects, for it has brought opportunities for cultural and social events that, to some extent, can meet our human need for rest. But all too often our Sunday gets lost in the weekend. It gets left out of the planned activities or gets tucked in almost as an afterthought.

In regard to this problem, the late Holy Father wrote (Ibid, #4), “Unfortunately, when Sunday loses its fundamental meaning and becomes merely part of a ‘weekend,’ it can happen that people stay locked within a horizon so limited that they can no longer see ‘the heavens.’ Hence, though ready to celebrate, they are really incapable of doing so.”

When Sunday is forgotten, and we are left only with a weekend, events become strictly entertaining or just an extension of work. As one author has observed, we can end up “amusing ourselves to death.” We no longer rest in the Lord’s presence, we no longer keep the Lord’s Day holy; we just avoid boredom by incessant entertaining and a rat race of other activities.

Sundays, however, when preserved as days of rest, bring a healthy rhythm to our lives, remind us of the value of both work and leisure, and renew our eagerness for spending eternity with the Lord who made us.

The day of joy

Beyond being a day of rest, the Lord’s Day is also a day of joy. In this regard, John Paul II made an interesting observation about God “resting” on the seventh day, after completing the work of creation. Rest for God is something far different than rest for us creatures. God never gets tired, never grows weary and never needs to sleep.

Moreover, God’s creating never ceases; if it did, creation would go out of existence. So, after six days of creating, God did not stop creating and He was not tired. What, then, was His “rest”? Here is what the late Holy Father wrote (Ibid, 11), “The divine rest of the seventh day does not allude to an inactive God, but emphasizes the fullness of what has been accomplished. It speaks, as it were, of God’s lingering before the ‘very good’ work (Gen 1:31) which His hand has wrought, in order to cast upon it a gaze full of joyous delight. This is a ‘contemplative’ gaze which does not look to new accomplishments but enjoys the beauty of what has already been achieved.”

“A gaze full of joyous delight,” isn’t that a wonderful way to look at the created world? Sundays are intended to help us to do that. We take our eyes off our own work for a day and enjoy the beauty of God’s work in creation and redemption. Even more than being a day of rest, Sunday is a day of joy. Our human need for rest is far surpassed by our need for genuine joy that only God can give. Jesus promises His disciples that they will experience the fullness of His joy (Cf. Jn 17:13).

While Christian joy is not just for one day of the week, there is something exhilarating about the day Christ rose from the dead, breaking the chains of death, bringing an end to sin and bestowing the gift of peace. If we have lost a sense of gladness in life, or have forgotten how to rejoice in the Lord, perhaps we need to examine how we are keeping the Lord’s Day. What unfailingly marked the first encounters of the Risen Lord, as the Gospel accounts show, was a great overflowing of joy. St. John puts it very simply (20:20), “The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.”

In the next edition of The Catholic Sun, we shall continue our reflection on the Third Commandment, looking at how we moved from Sabbath observance to Sunday, when the Lord’s Day became Christ’s Day and the Church’s Day.