THE SUNDAY HOMILY: Back to Basics - Living the Sabbath

By Fr. James Farfaglia
11/4/2012
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

We need to go to church every Sunday unless we are sick or the weather keeps us inside our homes. We need to dress appropriately for Mass, because the church is God's house. We need to worship at Mass with full and active participation. Punctuality is a must.

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CORPUS CHRISTI, TX (Catholic Online) - When I was growing up as a kid in Connecticut, Sunday was always lived as a very special day. Our parish was always at full capacity and every store was closed except for the newspaper store and the delicatessen, which both closed by Noon.

Something has changed.

It seems as if Sunday is just another day just like all of the other days of the week.

This Sunday's liturgy speaks to us about something which is fundamental for our lives as a Catholic people: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with your entire mind" (Matthew 22: 37).

One of the principle ways in which we live out these words of Jesus is through our celebration of the weekly Sabbath.

Let us recall the words of Sacred Scripture regarding the third of the Ten Commandments:

"Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your manservant, or your maidservant, or your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it" (Exodus 20: 8-11).

During his pontificate, Blessed Pope John Paul II wrote an excellent document on how we must live each Sunday.

Regarding the Third Commandment he wrote, "In setting this commandment within the context of the basic structure of ethics, Israel and then the Church declare that they consider it not just a matter of community religious discipline but a defining and indelible expression of our relationship with God, announced and expounded by biblical revelation.

But, man's relationship with God also demands times of explicit prayer, in which the relationship becomes an intense dialogue, involving every dimension of the person. The Lord's Day is the day of this relationship par excellence when men and women raise their song to God and become the voice of all creation" (Dies Domini; 13, 15).

I am sure that we will all agree that the Sunday that we lived as children is something of the past. However, I believe that as a Catholic people, we need to recuperate the real meaning of Sunday as the Lord's Day and witness to all those around us the proper way to live out the weekly sabbath.

Secularism and materialism are trying to eradicate all sense of God and true religious practices from our modern society.

A very well known businessman told me that one day he gathered all of his employees together for a short meeting. Even though he is a Muslim, he attends Mass every Sunday with his Catholic wife. He knows that most of his employees are baptized Catholics. He expressed his concern about the morals of many of his employees and he urged them to go to Mass every Sunday and get things right with God.

During the meeting, he asked his employees if they knew what Easter is all about. One girl said, "That's the day the Jesus was born." Filled with amazement, he then said to the group, "Tell me then, what is Christmas all about?" Another girl said, "That's the day when we give presents to each other."

If people do not know what Christmas and Easter are all about, how will anyone even grasp the meaning of Sunday? For all Christian people, Sunday is the weekly celebration of Easter. "Sunday is a day which is at the very heart of the Christian life" (Dies Domini; 7).

How then are we to live the Sabbath, the Lord's Day? There are two fundamental aspects to the Sabbath.

First, we need to worship at our parish and secondly we must refrain from all unnecessary physical work.

Regarding the first practical aspect of the Sabbath, Sunday worship must be at the very center of our lives.

Pope Paul VI once said: "The Mass is the most perfect from of prayer." Saint Gregory the Great wrote that "the heavens open and multitudes of angels come to assist in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass."

Saint John Vianney, the patron saint of parish priests said: "If we really understand the Mass, we would die of joy."

And the beloved Saint Padre Pio said that "it would be easier for the world to survive without the sun than to do without the Holy Mass."

We need to go to church every Sunday unless we are sick or the weather keeps us inside our homes. We need to dress appropriately for Mass, because the church is God's house. We need to worship at Mass with full and active participation.

Punctuality is a must.

The second aspect of our Sabbath is the prohibition from all unnecessary physical ...

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1 - 6 of 6 Comments

Theresa H
6 months ago
The 3rd Commandment, as Father L. said, forbids unnecessary work. Strolling the Malls and, generally, shopping on Sunday is not necessary--when we properly order our lives....If people would not shop, the Malls would close. No doubt, many of us are oblivious of the Commandments today and, consequently, we have allowed ourselves to be engulfed by a "culture" that acts as if God does not exist....There is a huge need for Catechesis among adult Catholics, today. For a couple generations the teaching of the official "Catechism of the Catholic Church" has still not reached most Catholics--and there is little interest in places where a Study of the CCC has been/is offered!
Fr. James Farfaglia
6 months ago
KarlVDH

Thanks for your comment, but you failed to read the text and you jumped to conclusions based upon unfounded opinion. I made that point clearly. There is a distinction between work that is necessary and work that is not necessary. Without this distinction, we fall into two extremes. The first extreme is that no work can be done on the Sabbath, even washing dishes or making a bed. This would be the extremism of the Pharisees typified in different gospel accounts. The second extreme would be the murky relativism that you suggest in your comment. Such relativism is so prevalent in modern day Catholicism and thus the state of confusion that I was trying to correct in my text.

Read the text correctly and then comment.
Paul-Emile Leray
6 months ago
Very practical and timeless wisdom. Thank you. Often, what appears as 'less' to some outward perspectives looking in is in reality 'more'. Less frenetic busy-ness, more meaningful activity. As someone who was insanely busy until my early 40s, also living in a culture filled with cell phones, trains, subways, neon signs, millions of people literally running to catch trains to then sardine themselves into them; I often find myself telling people the following: a dog chasing his tail is busy, working hard, motivated, focussed, disciplined, burning lots of energy, has goals (the end of his tail) and is using means (spinning in circles) to attain his end (tail) and for what? To hurt himself if ever he does succeed in catching it! Frenetic busy-ness. So busy riding the bicycle that there is no time to put air in the tires or check the brakes. This is often society at large, in industrial countries. Why? What for? A healthy, balanced, centered Sunday is pure joy! Mass, prayer, reflection, numerous dialogues with people from various cultures, some faith sharing, perhaps 10-30 pages of spiritual reading, a few coffee shop dialogues with people after Mass and/or inbetween Mass and the afternoon faith sharing, for example; it is so refreshing. There is prayer present, dialogue, friendship, relationships, reading, discussing, reflection, introspection, harmony and balance; what a gift and joy it is to live a Sunday like this. Then, in the evening, some solitude in a little chapel (perhaps to also spiritually and mentally review the past week and prepare for the upcoming weeks); the setting of one's dairy/schedule planner for the upcoming week(s) then becomes very natural and focussed, balanced. There is a deep inner peace, balance, a quiet joy inside. Sundays are so beautiful. If they are lived properly, the energy levels present for the upcoming 6 days more than make up for what secular society might view as a lost day. Once again, dogs spinning and spinning are very busy and focussed doing a meaningless activity. How many of us go through life like this, only to tire ourselves out to later realize that much of it was senseless activity? Secular society does NOT want people to think and be highly aware. If they have awareness, they would STOP with much of the nonsense. Then? Then, they become truly free and therefore less manipulated by society. Therefore? Less controlled. Prune the tree. Streamline. Get rid of the noise. Then? The artesian well in the depths of the soul will work more effectively. Efficiency will naturally follow, with much less effort. Christianity is not there to enslave us, as some seem to view it as, it exists to liberate us and free us. It is a gift. It's wonderful! It is liberating, individually and collectively. It has far reaching political economy potential logical consequential outflows as well. All, for our own good. Instead of running away from it, in states of frenetic busy-ness, we ought to SIT still in silence and learn to accept the graces and say 'thank you'. Watch a bear as he is fishing. He simply positions himself properly, for the most part. For deep prayer, when taking place in solitude, we need silence and stillness. The mind can not possibly be silent if the body is hyper stimulated running around like a madman. I enjoy reading these no-nonsense articles written by Father Farfaglia. The timeless wisdom is just that, timeless and always in style, even if sometimes out of fashion in secularized cultures.
Paul-Emile Leray
jh
6 months ago
Timely and important. Thank you, Father.
KarlVDH
6 months ago
What of people whose jobs, by their nature, require them to work weekends? healthcare, for instance. patientts requiring 24 hour care can't simnply do without so we can observe a proper Sabbath, can they? is it somehow wrong to engage in these professons? I think not. We need to remember balance... yes, the Sabbath is important... but it is the SPIRIT of the Law, not the LETTER of the law that matters most. remember "honor the Sabbath," of course, however, also remember Christ's admonition that the Sabbath was made for Man, not Man for the Sabbath. And in illustration, our Lord Himself healed on the Sabbath.
Kathleen
6 months ago
Father, You are so right! I was doing well in this and have fallen by the wayside but just today on the way home from mass, I turned off the radio/news and decided not to get on the computer right away. I went outside in the sunshine and walked in my flower garden to pick off some dead ends and heard the still small voice, ya know the one we normally can't hear because we bombard ourselves with everything else.
The gentle breeze that came took me back to my childhood and as I closed my eyes I said " yes Lord I do remember how it used to be". That was a brief moment that has sustained me all day. I still envision my Sunday dress my mother had made with such love, the white gloves for mass and of course my mantella, which If I do not wear one now I wear a hat.
We must get back to what is suppose to be on the Lord's day, as he says we should be more concerned what he thinks, than what others think.
May God Bless You

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