Msgr. Peter J. Vaghi
Title of Series: "Moral Life: Living the Hope Within Us"

Part 3: "The Third Commandment: A Day Set Aside for Love of God"

November 6th, 2008
First Thursday

I have entitled this November First Thursday/ Friday meditation: “The Third Commandment: A Day Set Aside for Love of God.” As is the approach that we started at the beginning of this series, I will treat, first, the Hebrew Understanding of the Commandment, then, the Effect of the Christ Event on the Commandment in Question and, finally, some Practical Implications for each of us.

l.) The Hebrew Understanding

There can be no better commandment than the third to demonstrate our love of God than to keep holy the Lord’s day. But to understand the depth of this commandment for the Jewish people, it is important to compare the text from Exodus with that of Deuteronomy. As you know, the commandments are set forth twice in the Old Testament -- each with a little different twist. Listen first to the text from Exodus:

"Remember to keep holy the sabbath day. Six days you may labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD, your God. No work may be done then either by you, or your son or daughter, or your male or female slave, or your beast, or by the alien who lives with you. In six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them; but on the seventh day he rested. That is why the LORD has blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.” Ex 20:8-11

Now compare the text of the same commandment with that of Deuteronomy:

“Take care to keep holy the sabbath day as the LORD, your God, commanded you. Six days you may labor and do all your work; but the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD, your God. No work may be done then, whether by you, or your son or daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or ass or any of your beasts, or the alien who lives with you. Your male and female slave should rest as you do. For remember that you too were once slaves in Egypt, and the LORD, your God, brought you from there with his strong hand and outstretched arm. That is why the LORD, your God, has commanded you to observe the sabbath day.” Deut 5: 12-15

In Exodus, the first text, we are told that God created the world in six days and on the seventh He rested. The seventh was the Sabbath. The Jews kept this day holy because God stopped creating for a time and they join Him in that period of rest. Exodus is thus linked to the creation. And the Sabbath is thus a rest from creation, from our participation in the creative activity of God. “It would be banal to interpret God’s ‘rest’ as a kind of divine ‘inactivity.’” ( Dies Domini 10) God’s creative power is unceasing. It is a kind of “contemplative” gaze on all He has done. So for Jew, and for us, the commandment highlights rest from our human creative activity so that we do not idolize work and make it into a god.

In contrast, the text of the same commandment from Deuteronomy, the second text, underscores that the Lord’s day is a memorial of Israel’s liberation from bondage in Egypt. “For remember that you too were once slaves in Egypt, and the LORD, your God, brought you from there with his strong hand and outstretched arm. That is why the LORD, your God, has commanded you to observe the sabbath day.” Deut 5: 12-15 God entrusted the sabbath to Israel to keep as a “sign of the irrevocable covenant.” CCC 2171

The emphasis here is not a rest from creation, and the need to contemplate what they had created, but a rest from the oppression of unrelenting human labor, an identification with a slave in need of rest. In breaking free from labor, the Hebrew people were challenged to remember God’s breaking them free from the hard toil and bondage in Egypt.

Creation and liberation are distinct yet closely linked. “The God who rests on the seventh day, rejoicing in His creation, is the same God who reveals His glory in liberating His children from the Pharaoh’s oppression....As certain elements of the same Jewish tradition suggest, to reach the heart of the ‘shabbat’, of God’s ‘rest,’ we need to recognize in both the Old and the New Testament the nuptial intensity which marks the relationship between God and his people,” I.e. His incredible love for His people. DD 12 This is the love that echoes from Mt. Sinai, a love that was at the heart of the Hebrew understanding the 3rd commandment and each and every one of them.

2.) The Effect of the Christ Event

For Christians, Sunday replaced the Sabbath. “This tradition goes back to the time of the Apostles.” USCCA 364 “The sabbath, which represented the completion of the first creation, has been replaced by Sunday which recalls the new creation inaugurated by the Resurrection of Christ.” CCC 2190 The Resurrection recalls the final and liberating victory of Christ over sin and death. Both the creation and liberation themes, found in the Hebrew understanding of Sunday rest, are carried over in a new, unique and definitive way as a result of Christ’s death and resurrection, as the Sabbath is replaced by Sunday, the Day of the Resurrection.

“In fact, in the weekly reckoning of time Sunday recalls the day of Christ’s Resurrection. It is Easter which returns week by week, celebrating Christ’s victory over sin and death, the fulfillment in Him of the first creation and the dawn of ‘the new creation.’” DD 1 The Resurrection of Jesus is the fundamental event upon which Christian faith rests. If Sunday recalls the resurrection, and it does, then that is why Sunday is at the heart and soul of every Christian’s spirituality.

Scripture reveals the importance of that “first day of the week” in the beautiful Easter readings. From Mark, Luke and John, we read the various accounts of the empty tomb--each with a little different twist. But what they had in common was that each took place “on the first day of the week.” (Mk 16:2, 9; Lk 24:1; Jn 20:1) That is the first day after the Sabbath (or Sunday). Remember also that most beautiful account about the journey to Emmaus. It also took place on “that very day” (on Sunday) when the Risen Lord joined them and they ultimately came to know Him in the breaking of the bread and while their hearts were burning when He broke open the scripture to them. (Lk 24: 13-35) Then again, the Risen Lord appeared to the eleven in the upper room “on the evening of that first day of the week.” (Jn 20:19; Lk 24:36)

As if to underscore the importance of the Jewish Sabbath and Christ’s own reverence for it in His day, speaking of relations between Christians and Jews, Pope Benedict, on his recent September visit to Paris (speaking to a Jewish group) said: “It is a happy circumstance that our meeting takes place on the eve of the weekly celebration of "Shabbat," the day that since time immemorial occupies such an outstanding place in the religious and cultural life of the people of Israel. Every pious Jew sanctifies the "Shabbat" by reading the Scriptures and reciting the psalms. Dear friends, as you know, Jesus' prayer was also nourished by the psalms. He went regularly to the Temple and to the synagogue. He spoke there on the Sabbath day.” (Address to Jewish People at Paris, September 12, 2008) “In Christ’s Passover, Sunday fulfills the spiritual truth of the Jewish sabbath and announces our eternal rest in God.” CCC 2176

3.) Some Practical Implications for Each of Us

But what should we do on Sunday? How then should we spend our Sundays if Sunday is the heart of our spirituality as it is? First and foremost, it is Dies Domini, the Day of the Lord, a day set aside for love of God. What does this mean for those of us who are fed on faxes, emails, voice mails, blackberries, meetings and endless driving? “Keeping the Lord’s Day holy can … serve as a helpful corrective for a ‘consumer’ society that tends to place value on people for their productivity and material possessions.” USCCA 368

Three points come to mind immediately. They are the basis of both Servant of God John Paul II’s Apostolic Letter Dies Domini and part of the Apostolic Letter of Benedict XVI, Sacramentum Caritatis.

First, the Eucharist is the heart of Sunday. Second, Sunday from the earliest times has been a day of rest, third and finally, Sunday is a day to spend with family, friends and those we love in acts of love and solidarity.

A.) The Eucharist is the Heart of Sunday

For us, Sunday should be a day of prayer and rest. Attendance at Mass on Sunday for Catholics is not optional. The catechism, citing canon law, clearly states: “‘On Sundays and other holy days of obligation the faithful are bound to participate in the Mass.’” CCC 2180

In Sacramentum Caritatis, Benedict XVI writes moreover: “The life of faith is endangered when we lose the desire to share in the celebration of the Eucharist and its commemoration of the paschal victory. Participating in the Sunday liturgical assembly with all our brothers and sisters, with whom we form one body in Jesus Christ, is demanded by our Christian conscience and at the same time it forms that conscience. To lose a sense of Sunday as the Lord's Day, a day to be sanctified, is symptomatic of the loss of an authentic sense of Christian freedom, the freedom of the children of God.” SC 73

Many reasons are given -- some good and some bad for the drop off in Sunday Mass attendance. Although there is reason for hope here in our country. The new adult catechism of the United States concludes that: “There are more Catholics at Mass on a single weekend than all the fans that go to major league baseball games in the entire season.” USCCA 370

I would argue, moreover, that the more we understand the great gift of the Eucharist and the more we are nourished and strengthened by the Word of God, the more likely are we to participate “fully, actively and consciously” in Sunday Mass and during the week. A whole new catechesis is required. We need to prepare for Mass as we would prepare for anything else worthwhile in our lives.

Why is this especially true for Sunday? Because of its special solemnity and the obligatory presence of the whole Catholic community, “each community, gathering all its members for the ‘breaking of the bread,’ becomes the place where the mystery of the Church is concretely made present.” DD 34 There is an old saying: the Church makes the Eucharist and the Eucharist makes the Church. That happens at holy Mass and Sunday in particular. The Eucharist is the heart of Sunday and the indispensable element of our identity as Catholics.

The Resurrection is the beginning of a new creation. That is what we ponder on Sunday. It is a day of faith. It is a day “when by the power of the Holy Spirit (first given us on Sunday) who is the Church’s living ‘memory,’ the first appearance of the Risen Lord becomes an event renewed in the ‘today’ of each of Christ’s disciples.” DD 29 For each of us, Sunday “is an indispensable element of our Christian identity.” DD30 And for all of these reasons, it should become clear to us why Sunday Mass is obligatory not so much under the penalty of sin but out of a desire to share the “memory” of the greatest victory of love the world has ever known with each other at least one time per week.

B.) Sunday is a Day of Rest

Sunday should also be a day of grace and rest from work after the model of God who rested on the seventh day. All unnecessary work should be avoided. This is not easy for most of us. The Second Vatican Council teaches us that “the institution of Sunday helps all ‘to be allowed sufficient rest and leisure to cultivate their familial, cultural, social and religious lives.’” CCC 2194

In Sacramentum Caritatis, Benedict XVI teaches: “…it is particularly urgent nowadays to remember that the day of the Lord is also a day of rest from work. It is greatly to be hoped that this fact will also be recognized by civil society, so that individuals can be permitted to refrain from work without being penalized. Christians, not without reference to the meaning of the Sabbath in the Jewish tradition, have seen in the Lord's Day a day of rest from their daily exertions. This is highly significant, for it relativizes work and directs it to the person: work is for man and not man for work. It is easy to see how this actually protects men and women, emancipating them from a possible form of enslavement. As I have had occasion to say, "work is of fundamental importance to the fulfilment of the human being and to the development of society. … it is indispensable that people not allow themselves to be enslaved by work or to idolize it, claiming to find in it the ultimate and definitive meaning of life." (209) It is on the day consecrated to God that men and women come to understand the meaning of their lives and also of their work.” SC 74

Sunday rest has biblical roots as we have seen. We know from the creation accounts that God rested on the seventh day. In the 3rd commandment, he ordered, not simply suggested, that we keep holy the sabbath day. It is a day blessed by God. It is God’s day. He links the sabbath day with a day of remembering. In the Exodus account, we read: “You shall 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 outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.” Dt 5:15

Can you see the link to Sunday? God commands the Israelites to keep the Sabbath holy by remembering the greatest of the saving works He accomplished for them -- delivery from slavery. For us as Christians, “what God accomplished in creation and wrought for his people in the Exodus has found its fullest expression in Christ’s Death and Resurrection.” DD 18 We remember that fundamental mystery of our faith on Sunday. And that requires “rest” in the Lord so that we keep His day holy and sacred.

Now I know that is a big challenge. No longer are there laws that prohibit commerce on Sunday. In fact, for many, Sunday becomes a day of shopping. For those of you with families and children, Sunday becomes a day of one sports game after another. “We must preserve the opportunity to go to Mass on Sundays without competition from sporting events, work, or other temptations.” USCCA 369 For many, who are overburdened at work, Sunday becomes a day to catch up at the office or prepare for the week -- a day of work not rest.

And yet God commands us to keep the Sunday holy. We simply cannot ignore His revealed word. It is perhaps as challenging as some of the other more difficult commandments for us. “Through Sunday rest, daily concerns and tasks can find their proper perspective: the material things about which we worry give way to spiritual values; in a moment of encounter and less pressured exchange, we see the true face of the people with whom we live.” DD 67 What a wonderful insight! How often do we simply live with our spouses and children or close friends and busyness prevents us from truly coming to know them as individuals? Sunday rest gives us that necessary opportunity.

“Rest is something ‘sacred’ because it is man’s way of withdrawing from the sometimes excessively demanding cycle of earthly tasks in order to renew his awareness that everything is the work of God.” DD 65 Note well that “there is a risk that the prodigious power over creation which God gives to man can lead him to forget that God is the Creator upon whom everything depends.” DD 65

On the seventh day, God rested and so must we. Sunday is the day of the new creation. It is our sabbath. Sunday is the day for Christians to remember, not the exodus, but the salvation which comes to us in baptism and which has made us new in Christ by Christ’s death and resurrection. At the same time, Sunday is more than a “replacement” for the Sabbath. It is its fulfillment, and in a certain sense, its extension and fullest expression in the ordered unfolding of salvation history which reaches its climax in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the new creation.

C.) Sunday is a Day for Acts of Charity

“To experience the joy of the Risen Lord deep within is to share fully the love which pulses in his heart: there is no joy without love.” DD69 The Sunday Eucharist commits us to acts of charity and love. In a word, it is what the dismissal means when we are told to go and live the Mass. The Eucharist is an eloquent sign of a total and free and generous love. It offers each of us the joy of His presence within us that makes it possible for us to love all the more after His example.

The Eucharist signifies an actual principle of life from which love results. It communicates the strength to imitate His life in our own lives. Through the Eucharist, the love of Christ comes to take over our very hearts in order that we might be committed more resolutely on the way of charity.

From the earliest of times, from Apostolic times, the Sunday gathering has in fact been for Christians a moment of sharing with the very poor. “On the first day of the week, each of you is to put aside and save whatever extra you earn” (1Cor 16:2) This refers to the collection for the poor churches in Judea. St John Chrysostom writes: “Do you wish to honor the body of Christ? Do not ignore him when he is naked. Do not pay him homage in the temple clad in silk only then to neglect him outside when he suffers cold and nakedness. He who said: ‘This is my body’ is the same One who said: ‘You saw me hungry and you gave me no food,’ and ‘Whatever you did to the least of my brothers you did also to me’...What good is it if the Eucharistic table is overloaded with golden chalices, when he is dying of hunger? Start by satisfying his hunger, and then with what is left you may adorn the altar as well.” DD 71

Dies Domini is quite explicit about how we are to live the Sunday Eucharist. “If Sunday is a day of joy, Christians should declare by their actual behavior that we cannot be happy "on our own". DD 72 They look around to find people who may need their help. It may be that in their neighborhood or among those they know there are sick people, elderly people, children or immigrants who on Sundays feel more keenly their isolation, needs and suffering. It is true that commitment to these people cannot be restricted to occasional Sunday gestures. But presuming a wider sense of commitment, why not make the Lord's Day a more intense time of sharing, encouraging all the inventiveness of which Christian charity is capable? It might mean inviting to a meal people who are alone, visiting the sick, providing food for needy families, spending a few hours in voluntary work and acts of solidarity. These would certainly be ways of bringing into people's lives the love of Christ received at the Eucharistic table. It might mean even bringing the Eucharist to someone on Sunday.

Lived in this way, not only the Sunday Eucharist but the whole of Sunday becomes a great school of
charity, justice and peace. The presence of the Risen Lord in the midst of his people becomes an
undertaking of solidarity, a compelling force for inner renewal, an inspiration to change the structures of sin in which individuals, communities and at times entire peoples are entangled. Far from being an escape, the Christian Sunday is a "prophecy" inscribed on time itself, a prophecy obliging the faithful to follow in the footsteps of the One who came "to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to captives and new sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord" (Lk 4:18-19). In the Sunday commemoration of Easter, believers learn from Christ, and remembering his promise: "I leave you peace, my peace I give you" (Jn 14:27), they become in their turn builders of peace.”

The Third Commandment, to keep holy the Lord’s Day, thus has clear implications for those of us who follow Jesus. Sunday, the Lord’s Day, the Day of the Resurrection, is at the heart and soul the spirituality of each of us. The Eucharist, rest and charitable solidarity! There can be no better formula to discover the Risen Lord in our lives and to share His love with others. Is that not what our faith is all about? Is not Sunday in effect a synthesis of the entire Christian life? Hopefully this meditation will challenge you this morning, as it does me, to examine your own life and the role Sunday, that third commandment, presently plays in your spirituality. You might even decide today to make some adjustments in how you will spend Sunday in the future. Easter Sunday is after all not the only day in the year for a family Sunday brunch or get together. Every Sunday is a celebration of Easter -- a day of the Eucharist, rest and works of charity -- a day set apart in love for the Lord.

Amen