Kevin Mowad
19th July 2010, 10:25 PM
Hey there guys! Just wondering what sources do we have that back up the rule that Sunday's is to be kept for God and family.
Also is it right to be doing seperate things on Sunday's to the rest of our family or should we always make sure that everything we do is together?
DavidObeid
19th July 2010, 11:00 PM
Hi Kevin,
This is from Lumen Verum's "Defend the Faith":
Our Lord Jesus Christ declared that He was Lord of the Sabbath and that its observance was at His disposal: St. Matthew 12:1-8; St. Mark 2:24-26; St. Luke 6:5; St. John 5:10-11. As a consequence, the early Church, in order to distinguish itself from the worship of the Synagogue, was free to depart from the Jewish Sabbath and worship God on another day of the week. This is evident from the words of St. Paul to the Colossians: “Therefore do not let anyone condemn you in matters of food and drink or of observing festivals, new moons, or sabbaths. These are only a shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ” (2:16-17). There is no command or injunction in the New Testament that the followers of Christ must continue to observe Saturday.
If Christ Himself had the power to “dispose” of the Sabbath, so too does His Church which is His Body. The power of the Church to make such a change is specifically found in Our Lord’s words to St. Peter: “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (St. Matt. 16:19).
From the outset of the Church’s history Christians replaced the Sabbath day with a new day of public worship in commemoration of Christ’s resurrection from the dead––the Day of the Lord. This day is Sunday, the first day of the week:
“But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb” (St. Luke 24:1-2).
“Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb” (St. John 20:1).
The official “birthday” of the Church, Pentecost Sunday, also fell on the first day of the week: Acts 2:1.
The early Christians celebrated the public worship of the Mass on Sunday:
“On the first day of the week, when we met to break bread...” (Acts 20:7).
Collections in support of the Church were gathered on Sunday: “On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that contributions need not be made when I come” (1 Cor. 16:2).
St. John received his Revelation on Sunday: “I, John, your brother who share with you in Jesus the persecution...was on the island called Patmos...I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day...” (Rev. 1:9-10).
...
Finally, it is important to note that, in changing the Sabbath law, the Church did not make a change in the divine law obliging men to worship God but merely a change in the day on which it was to be offered. That is, only a change in the positive ceremonial law. The law obliging men to worship God is a law based both on God’s own nature and ours, as Creator and creature respectively. As natures cannot change, natural laws are irrevocable. Not even God can alter them. On the other hand, all divine positive laws are based not on God’s nature but on God’s will, and hence can be altered or revoked by God directly or through His Church according to changes in time, circumstance or place.
I would emphasise that while these passages show the pre-eminence of Sunday they do not expressly shift the Sabbath observance from Saturday to Sunday. The express shift came about through the extra-Biblical (but not un-biblical) authority of the Apostles and was then practiced throughout the Church's history. St. Ignatius of Antioch (a disciple of St. John the Apostles and who was martyred very early in the 2nd century) wrote:
Those who lived according to the old order of things have come to a new hope, no longer keeping the sabbath, but the Lord's Day, in which our life is blessed by him and by his death.
You can find this quote and more in the Catechism here: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P7O.HTM#
We aren't strictly obliged to do things with our families on Sundays, but we should be careful to cultivate our family life and not let other things as a rule interfere with that cultivation too often.