Can We Exist Without the Lord’s Day?
By Fr. John Roderick, F.S.C.B.
September, 2023
Over the past few months, I have been pondering what I sometimes hear in the confessional when someone says that they skipped their Sunday (Holy Day) obligation to attend Mass. Often, they feel like it is a heavy obligation that the Church imposes. If they don’t follow the rule, it is a grave sin, and they are not permitted to receive Holy Communion until they go to confession. This legalistic vision of Sunday Mass attendance always leaves me feeling sad. I always say to myself: “If people only knew what is really taking place during the celebration of the Eucharist, they would never think of going to Mass as an obligation but as a great gift.”
Recently, I read a very interesting statement in a book of reflections by Benedict XVI: “We learn what a man thinks, who he is, from that for which he has time.” He was describing how in the western world we have gradually lost the meaning and important observance of the Lord’s Day. Instead of having time for God and fellowship with the Christian community, many people nowadays have made the Lord’s Day a time for sports and recreation, for shopping, for outings and tourism, for work and getting ready for the upcoming week. Do not get me wrong, all these things are good in and of themselves and we must take care of the needs of our families, but without giving space for the memory of God and the celebration of the Eucharist, we can easily make false idols of these things and lose the greater horizon which holds everything together.
Why would God command us to keep holy the Sabbath Day? Why would He ask us to have a day of the week dedicated to the memory of His saving work in history? A day different from the other six days?
In this reflection, I want to invite us to consider the place of the Lord’s Day in our lives. I will share a story from the early Church, as well as a summary of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) that invites us to keep holy the Lord’s Day, and some personal experiences, in the hope that they will help to rediscover this great gift of God.
Experience of the Lord’s Day in the early Church. It was the year 304, during the Diocletian persecution in North Africa, when Roman officials surprised a group of fifty Christians celebrating Sunday Eucharist to take them into custody. The transcript of the interrogation was preserved. The proconsul said to the priest Saturninus: “By gathering all these together here you have acted against the orders of the emperors and the Caesars.” The Christian writer adds at this point that the priest’s response was inspired by the Holy Spirit. The priest replied: “Unconcerned about that, we have been celebrating what is the Lord’s (dominicus).” “What is the Lord’s” – that is how I translate the Latin dominicus. It’s complex meaning can hardly be translated into English. It denotes the Lord’s Day, but at the same time it refers to the content of this day, to the sacrament of the Lord, to his Resurrection and his presence in the Eucharist, His ongoing presence in history. Let us return to the transcript. The proconsul insists on knowing why. The superb response of the priest is as follows: “We have done this because that which is the Lord’s cannot cease.”
Emeritus, the owner of the house where the Sunday celebration of the Eucharist took place, was also interrogated. “You had to forbid them entry,” the proconsul said to him. “I couldn’t,” answered Emeritus: “Quoniam sine dominico non possumus – for without the Day of the Lord, the mystery of the Lord, we cannot exist.”
“Without the day of the Lord we cannot exist.” What an amazing self-awareness! For the early Christians the Lord’s Day and the celebration of the Eucharist were the sustaining foundation of one’s very existence. It was the life-giving personal encounter with the Risen Lord. For them, the Lord’s Day was so important that it appeared senseless to them to pursue survival and apparent peace by renouncing the Sunday Mass, which was the foundation of their lives. For them it was a case not of choosing between one law and another, but of choosing between the meaning that sustains life and a meaningless life.
A day to enter the rest of the Lord. The discussion of the Lord’s Day in the Catechism of the Catholic Church is very rich. I can only share with you some key points here: rest, memory, and the Eucharist. The Catechism begins its teaching on the Christian sabbath with recalling God’s invitation: “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy” (2168). Every Sunday we are invited to celebrate the great mystery of God’s creation, that God created the whole world and rested on the seventh day. Today, each of us, each family, is invited to enter into the rest of the Lord on Sundays. The Church also invites us to live this as a day of memory. It is a day to remember God’s incredible action in salvation history when He liberated his People from the slavery in Egypt and led them to freedom through the parting of the Red Sea to the Promised land (2170).
By the second century the Christian celebration of Sunday took the place of the Jewish Sabbath. The first Christians celebrated Jesus’ resurrection from the dead “on the first day of the week.” They understood this first day to also be the “eighth day,” the first day after the sabbath, which symbolized for them the new creation ushered in by Christ’s resurrection (2174). The Church desires to invite us to participate in the definitive liberation over death and sin on the Lord’s Day through the celebration of the Mass.
The Sunday celebration of the Eucharist is at the heart of the Church’s life (2177). In the Sunday Eucharist we are invited to celebrate with our parish community the paschal mystery of Christ. This is the mystery which holds the rest of our lives together, which orders our work, our loves, our joys, and our sufferings.
How to live the Lord’s Day? The Church invites us to refrain from engaging in work or activities that hinder the worship owed to God (2185). It is a day to practice Christian charity through service to the sick, poor, and the elderly (2186). It is a time for reflection, silence, and meditation (2186). With this in mind, we can see how the Sunday obligation is a gift, an invitation to put our lives in the right order so that we might truly live and be happy. The celebration of the Sunday Mass with family and friends at the local parish should be the heart of Lord’s Day.
I invite you to consider how you and your families might enter more into the mind and heart and rest of God on Sundays. How can we experience that it is a day set apart? I have fond childhood memories of my oldest sister making nice spaghetti dinners and sitting down together as family every Sunday night. It was a day for visiting my grandparents after Mass. A day for a walk, reading, or a drive in the country. It was a day when we were not running here and there. Can it be a day with less time on the computer or phone? For the family to do something together? Can you visit a lonely friend or relative? Can you make more space for God by meditating on the readings together before Mass? Let us ask God how he desires for each of us and our families to remember Him, so that, like our forefathers, “that which is the Lord’s” may continue to radiate through our small Christian community and give life to all of those around us.
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Photo by Joshua Kettle on Unsplash, St. Anthony's Pilgrimage Church, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany
