Keep Holy the Sabbath Day

Deus, in adjutorium meum intende. Domine, ad adjuvandum me festina.
O God, come to my assistance. O Lord, make haste to help me.

Why do we attend Mass on Sunday? In Exodus 20:8-11, we have the proof that the Sabbath was to be kept as a day of rest and to honor God. Yes, the Christian "Sabbath" (the word means "rest") is now Sunday, not Saturday, because Christ's resurrection was the culmination of the Passion weekend. His resurrection, His triumph,  is honored as the day to keep holy.

Here is part of the quote from Exodus: "Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy. For six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath for Yahweh your God. You shall do no work on that day,..... For in six days Yahweh made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that these hold but on the seventh day he rested; that is why Yahweh has blessed the sabbath day and made it sacred." It is, after all, the third of the Ten Commandments.

If the Jews considered the Sabbath to be ordained by God, mandated to be kept, how can we not follow that same commandment? The Catholic Church interprets the commandment the same way.  Attendance at Mass and abstaining from unnecessary work is the first of what are known as the "Precepts of the Church." I noted in the first of this series of posts, "Apologetics: Of Necessity," that the Apostles, and through them their successors, were given the order to preach to all nations, and that what they bound on earth would be bound in heaven. In other words, they had the Authority to set down rules and interpret God's laws for the faithful in Christ. It doesn't take much interpretation to read in the Third Commandment, "Thou shalt keep holy the Sabbath Day," and to advise the faithful that they are obliged to obey the commandment. All the Commandments are to be obeyed, and to willfully disobey any of them, realizing the seriousness of such disobedience, is a Mortal Sin. It is a serious offense against God to ignore the Commandments which He set down to be attended to until the end of earthly time.

St. Paul assembled faithful on the first day of the week "to break bread" (Acts 20:7). St. John called it the "Lord's Day."  St. Ignatius of Antioch, at the beginning of the second century referred to the change and "living the Lord's Day", a day of rejoicing, no fasting or penance. Before 100 A.D., in the Didache, XIV,1, the 'Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, the observation is expressed as mandatory.

Justin Martyr in the second century said that Sunday was the observed Lord's Day because it was the first day of God's creation, when He changed darkness and matter and created the world. A second reason was its being the day of Christ's resurrection, and the third because of the descent of the Holy Ghost on Pentecost Sunday. Eventually the Church made it a part of the Canon of the Faith, so that there could be no misunderstanding.

Sunday is the day to celebrate the paschal mystery, to receive the Eucharist and remember the passion and resurrection, our salvation, and to thank God. "Sabbath" meant rest. "Eucharist" means thanks. At Holy Mass we stand at the foot of the cross. We see bread and wine and know that by Christ's own words they become His Body and Blood for our souls' nourishment. Christ died only once, so we are not crucifying Him again. We are "re-presenting" His sacrifice in an unbloody manner, as He commanded at the Last Supper. It is the core, the center of Catholic life, to be called to partake in a mystery of faith, so solemn and yet so joyous. At Mass we adore, we give thanks, we make atonement, and we ask the Blessed Trinity to accept our sacrifice and hear our prayers of supplication. I can't explain it more than that.                    May 18, 2015