Wholly Holy

What is the foremost, primary holy day?

Need some hints?

It’s not Good Friday or Christmas or even Easter.

This holy day occurs more than once a year.

It occurs 52 times.

… It’s plain old Sunday ...

Canon Law and the Catechism call Sunday the primary and foremost holy day of obligation.

They say other holy days of obligation are to be observed in the same manner as Sunday.

Sunday is our Sabbath, as Saturday was, and still is, the Jews’ Sabbath.

It’s a day of rest set aside for worship, family, and spiritual development.

It’s a holy day of obligation because we’re obliged to observe rules regarding the day.

We’re obliged to participate in the Mass.

We’re obliged to avoid unnecessary work—by ourselves or by others.

In our modern, secular culture, Sunday can easily seem pretty much just another day.

In the US, only one in four Catholics regularly attends Sunday Mass.

Many people do get off of work on Sunday, and some do spend more time with family.

But the old traditional Sunday family dinners and get-togethers are nearly a thing of the past.

So, conditioned as we are by our culture,

Doing a little work on the Sabbath seems like a pretty trivial offense to us.

Why would the Pharisees even bother nit-picking about this with Jesus?

To us, they seem pretty hard-up for an excuse to go after him.

But today’s Gospel makes it clear that violating the Sabbath is shaping up as their big issue.

For the Pharisees, working on the Sabbath was a very serious offense.

They had two strong rationales for the obligation to rest.

First, God’s laws, given to Moses, commanded them to rest on the Sabbath.

And second, they realized that God was always active—constantly giving life to his creations.

So God was clearly exempt from his command to rest on the Sabbath.

God and God alone.

So, anyone ignoring the command was, in effect, acting like they were God.

Jesus readily admitted that he was acting like God,.

He said, My Father’s at work and I’m at work.

The work of healing and curing and restoring life.

He was not breaking the rule of the Sabbath, he was exempt from it.

We’re not exempt.

Although we do have many liberal exceptions to strict adherence to the rules.

We should all want to follow those rules.

The Sabbath was made for us, not us for the Sabbath.

We should all welcome a day to rest and devote time to God and family and spirit.

It’s a gift from God.

Those of us here are in that minority of people who have found that gift.

What can we do to share it with those who haven’t?

Tuesday, Fourth Week of Lent

Jn 5:1-16           Read this Scripture @usccb.org