It’s Sunday, about 10am.
The weekend sports are in session, cafes are buzzing and shops are packed to the brim with eager customers. It’s all relief, recreation and release from the shackles of a full working week.
Yet a sudden errant thought fills my Catholic heart. When did our Sundays become so much about us; with often only a singular hour for Mass-attending Catholics, oriented completely toward God? (And that’s if you are one of the 8.2 per cent of Catholics nationally, on average, who actually attend every Sunday, according to the most recent 2021 National Church Life Survey.)
“Remember the Sabbath Day and keep it holy”, the Bible reads. Perhaps it’s time we unpack these words of the Fourth Commandment and what they mean for the Christian observance of a Sunday.
In this point of the Decalogue, God mandates rest and reverent reflection in a busy world. A world of action and anxiety. It strikes me with curiosity. Not only does this command mirror the Creation story, in which God himself rested on the seventh day and deemed it holy, but it stands as an opportune moment in our week to reset and renew. Something our Creator knew we needed.
Like anything societally, perhaps Sundays have been watered down in their religious value. We jam-pack schedules. We emphasise interests, tasks and hobbies on a weekend.
For so many Catholics, faith falls lower on the list of Sunday priorities. Society’s general emphasis on self and Sunday recreation hasn’t helped here.
It’s important to recall that we owe God – the Creator of everything – our loving worship in the Holy Mass, and, particularly on Sundays. This isn’t a burden; rather it is an opportunity to receive formation and reflect sincerely on our faith; on the Lord’s Day, the day of Christ’s Resurrection.
We are not merely asked, but commanded in love, to show him our joyful, obedient appreciation.
Christ died for us, and he instituted the Mass for a reason; He gave us the source and summit of life in the Eucharist as our daily bread. It’s no coincidence that Catholics are obliged to participate in the Mass, in which we memorialise his Passion and Resurrection every Sunday.
Honouring Sunday as the Lord’s Day is also about action for the good of others, as highlighted in Luke’s Gospel.
The Pharisees there chastise Jesus for healing on the Sabbath; in reply, Christ reminds them that seeing a need and doing nothing about it simply because it is a day of rest is, is in fact a sin of negligence.
This applies to our modern lives and our modern weekends. How often do we focus on our own needs, or use excuses when we could be using our time to assist others?
This is not a guilt trip; rather it is a point of humble reflection. Can we spend a small moment in loving charity to sanctify our Sunday? What makes our Sunday different and holy?
Sunday should be about sacrifice, reflection and rejuvenation. Walking the streets, standing in a shop and sipping a Sunday mocha, I return to the first observation I made here.
The Sunday moral seems to be this: weekends are not about balancing faith with fun and losing out on one.
It’s instead about orienting our lives around the love of God so we can truly rest in him. So we can truly honour him.
