'Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.' (Exodus 20:8),
'Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. For six days you shall labour and do all your work.But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.' (Deuteronomy 5: 12-15),
'For six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even in ploughing time and in harvest time you shall rest.' (Exodus 34:21).
The Catholic Church added to the meaning of the Lord' Day and teaches us in its first commandment that on Sundays and on days of obligations (solemnities which are spelled out in the liturgical calendar) every faithful must attend the Holy Mass (see the Catechism of the Catholic Church here).
To me, to keep the Lord's Day holy means three basic things:
1. Meeting with Living God in living community of the faithful - which is simply taking full participation in the liturgical service in the church. Full participation includes bringing to the altar all good and bad things I've done throughout the whole preceding week, burning the trash in the flame of God's love and connecting all my worthy spiritual offerings - prayers, good deeds, thoughts, prayers, small victories over temptations, along with my whole self, dreams, desires, intentions, plans, charisma, everything that constitutes me and springs out of me - with the sacrifice of Christ on the altar. Ps 42:7 teaches me to do so: 'Deep calls to deep at the sound of Your waterfalls' ...
Thus, filled and connected in a mystical way with the Living God - fortified by His Living Word and the Eucharist, helped by the prayers and the Liturgy of the whole Church, understanding clearly that all this is happening in the midst of the community I belong to, I can go back home to sanctify the world I live in and work, go back to my community to serve and to do God's Will, taking part in His ongoing Creation and Salvation...
2. The Lord's Day is not mine. It is His. It is holy. I have no power to alter its meaning and its purpose. I have six days to prove my worth and to utilize the immense power given to me on Lord's Day by meeting the Living God in His house in the midst of my community, which very presence reminds me that I should remember that He is Our Father, not only mine... So, if God wants to set me free from a total enslavement to work and production, thus losing my dignity and purpose of life, if He wants me to rest completely, even in times of harvest, hectic schedules, important duties, it is only because He knows me well and knows that only by resting once a week in His arms and in His presence, I will keep myself free from the enslavement, I will keep myself also in optimum health, shape and fitness - spiritual, mental and physical, as a complete human being is a union of three worlds - spirit, mind and body. So complete rest means resting all three worlds in the Lord's Day. Not only physical rest! In my parish I discourage even organizing meetings on Sundays as it is mental work and as such, it violates the rest of Lord's Day too.
3. To keep the Lord's Day holy we must not commit sins on Sundays, simple as that! To commit sin on Sunday means to sin twice - by committing the sin itself and by violating the holiness of the Lord's Day.
I don't intend to go deep in the theology and praxis of the mystery of the Lord's Day, the New Sabbath, but I just want to ask one simple question.
Do we keep these days the Lord's Day holy in the full meaning of this word or do we simply attend the Sunday service for the sake of mere attending and fulfilling the first Church commandment (with no deeper connection with the meaning of my life - deep calling the deep...) and do with the rest of the Lord's Day whatever suits us, including work and sinful activities? Because it seems we know better what is good and suits us well... so, we destroy first ourselves, then our families (not even having time for the loved ones one day in a week!), becoming slaves of time and work...and turning our people - families, employers, people depending on our decisions - into slaves as well...
When People of God did the same things with the Sabbath back then, they destroyed themselves, their freedom and lost their independence, taken into slavery to Babylon (Nehemiah 13: 17b-18 - 'What evil thing is this that ye do, and profane the sabbath day? Did not your fathers thus, and did not our God bring all this evil upon us, and upon this city? yet ye bring more wrath upon Israel by profaning the sabbath.' ... They destroyed the holiness and the meaning of the Lord's Day and deprived themselves of the sanctifying and redeeming power springing out of proper keeping it holy...
I reckon we, modern People of God, are on the same suicidal path... Time to wake up and celebrate the Lord's Day the way our Father wants us to - for our true good!
By the way, don't you feel sorry for all those poor souls who have no Lord's Day?
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