Editorial

Keeping the Lord’s Day holy

“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 day to the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work” (Ex 20:8-10).

Now that we are about to conclude the 10th National Eucharistic Congress, which is being held at Lucas Oil Stadium and the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis on July 17-21, it’s especially important for us to appreciate the significance of the Lord’s Day.

Gathering together each week to keep holy the Lord’s Day is a great privilege. It’s also what is expected of each one of us as members of the body of Christ, the Church.

Sunday Mass should not be a burden. Celebrating the Sunday Eucharist with our parish community and, indeed, with the whole Church, allows us to worship God, to learn about our faith, to open our hearts to the word of God, to receive the Bread of Life at the table of the Lord, and to be strengthened for the work we must do during the coming week as missionary disciples of Jesus Christ.

The Sunday eucharistic celebration, which may begin with the anticipated Mass on Saturday evening, is at the heart of the Church’s life. Sunday is that special day when we celebrate the Lord’s passion, death and resurrection (the paschal mystery) until he comes again. It is here that we are fed with the Bread of Life. It is here that we prepare ourselves for discipleship and service during the coming week. When we worship God on the Lord’s Day, we fulfill our baptismal promises, and we receive the grace we need to carry out our responsibilities as disciples and as stewards of the mysteries of God.

What could be more important than being with the Lord, and with our parish family, on the first day of each week? What a marvelous gift we have been given—the opportunity to hear God’s word proclaimed and to receive Christ’s gift of himself in the Eucharist!

When we fail to take advantage of this opportunity without a valid reason, we let the precious gift of faith slip through our fingers, and we are unworthy of our calling as faithful missionary disciples of Jesus Christ.

There are many places throughout the world where the Sunday Eucharist cannot be offered every week because of a shortage of priests or the inaccessibility of churches in remote rural areas. Here in central and southern Indiana we are blessed to have Mass available on Sundays and holy days of obligation in all of the 126 parishes that make up our archdiocese.

Unfortunately, our contemporary culture makes Sunday a day with no special significance. Now, most retail businesses are open on Sunday, and as a result many people have to work on the Lord’s Day.

This has had a profound impact on family life. It’s hard enough these days to gather the family together for meals and for family time. Now even Sunday dinner is disappearing as an anchor for family life.

The Church teaches that God’s action is the model for human action. If God rested and was refreshed on the seventh day, we should do likewise. We should make sure that the poor, and those who work to provide for our basic needs and for the luxuries we enjoy, also have the opportunity to rest and be refreshed.

In the Jewish and Christian traditions, the Sabbath (the Lord’s Day) exists to bring everyday work to a halt—reminding us that there is more to life than working and earning our daily bread. For us, the Sabbath is, or should be, a day of protest against the servitude of work and the worship of money and material things (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #2172).

The Sabbath (the Lord’s Day) is a gift from God that provides us with wonderful opportunities to be refreshed and renewed as we face life’s difficulties. That’s why our Lord, who performed miracles of healing on the Sabbath, said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mk 2:27). Jesus reminded the Jewish leaders, and all of us, that the Sabbath is a gift to be cherished and enjoyed as we worship God together and as we let him strengthen us in his service.

During this time of Eucharistic Revival, let’s remember to keep the Lord’s Day holy—for the good of our souls, our families, our society and our Church.

—Daniel Conway