Always Advent

To keep Sunday well, we start by making sure we are not scheduled to work on Sunday, nor do we bring work home from the office (part 1). We do not make individual commitments outside the family on Sunday; we socialize as a family or simply stay home together (part 2). We put aside the projects, repairs, chores, housework and yardwork, trying to avoid excessive physical exertion or busy-ness (part 3). We conduct our business, errands, and shopping Monday through Saturday so that on Sunday we can stay out of the stores, restaurants, and other places of commerce, which allows others to have their Sabbath rest, too, rather than spend their Sundays catering to us (part 4).

That’s a big not-to-do list. What in the world do we allow ourselves to do on Sunday?

My fifth suggestion for keeping the Sabbath holy is:

5 — Devote Sunday to prayer, rest, service, and building relationships.

Prayer:
Set the tone for the day with prayerful and attentive participation at Sunday Mass. Then think of something extra you could do to make Sunday more prayerful. This would be a great time to catch up on reading Sacred Scripture, the Catechism, lives of the saints, or other spiritual reading. Perhaps Monday through Saturday you are only able to grab a few moments at the beginning or end of each day to pray and settle your spirit. On Sunday, sit back with a seasonally-appropriate hot or cold beverage, put your feet up, and just be with God. Write in a prayer journal. Pray the whole Rosary. Go on a prayer walk with your family.

One family I know of, when their children were still at home, would set aside one Sunday a month and go to a peaceful natural setting, such as a park or forest preserve, and have everybody go off by themselves for half an hour. Each person, young and old, would devote 15 minutes to spiritual reading and 15 minutes to reflect on what they had read. Then everyone would report back and the family would discuss what they had read. Even young children can find this kind of prayer fruitful, and the whole family will benefit from the discussion.

I’ve quoted extensively from Andy Eells in this series. Here’s one more:

The devil is real, and has a real desire to keep us from prayer. The failure to restrict activity on Sunday results in an immense loss of prayer.

There is widespread disenchantment with the hectic pace of our society…The explanation is that our efforts to relax do not focus on the necessary source of peace. Isaiah instructed us: “Thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, ‘In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.’” (Isaiah 30-15)

Rest:
I suggested in part 2 that vegging out on the couch all day in front of the TV probably doesn’t count as “holy rest.” A certain amount of vegging out is good, but most moving visual images are designed to stimulate, not calm. Have you ever had the experience of spending the whole day in front of the TV and realized that you felt drained and exhausted afterwards? I have, so perhaps it would be wise to limit your screen time on Sunday. Perhaps a movie (rented or checked out from the library the day before, of course!) with the family after dinner is about right.

Other admirable forms of rest and relaxation on Sunday include naps (remember those?), walks or pleasant rambles outdoors, a day at the beach, an afternoon on a porch swing with a good book, going back to bed to do the Sunday crossword, playing catch in the backyard, a long soak in the tub, getting out some instruments and making music, pottering through our garden to admire and enjoy it, playing one of those marathon board games…

For several years now, I’ve been in the habit of enjoying activities like these on Sundays, and I have no real desire to go shopping, or to the movies, or to catch up on yardwork or chores, or eat out. The time I save by refraining from those “thou shalt nots” has become very precious and I don’t want to spend it on those hectic things if I can possibly help it.

Those who enter God’s rest also cease from their labors as God did from his. Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest. (Hebrews 4:10-11)

Taking Sabbath rest is a way for people of faith to imitate God and to experience here on earth what all souls yearn for: eternal rest with Our Lord.

Service:
The Church also teaches that “Sunday is traditionally consecrated by Christian piety to good works and humble service of the sick, the infirm, and the elderly.” (CCC 2186) The Pope recommends to the faithful that they “devote themselves to works of mercy, charity and apostolate.” (Dies Domini).

Since hunger, poverty, homelessness, and illness do not go away on Sunday, caring for the poor and for the sick and infirm is also an admirable use of our newly-found Sabbath time. Homeless shelters need help all year round, but especially in the winter months. The residents of nursing homes still enjoy visitors on Sundays. They and other shut-ins also need Jesus: perhaps you could volunteer to bring Holy Communion to people who can’t make it to Mass?

Make sure that you actually meet face-to-face with the people you’re ministering to, though. In other words, if your parish has a St. Vincent de Paul Society food pantry, use Sunday to make deliveries of the food and other items to people’s homes, not to attend a meeting of the Society. Administrative tasks can wait for the weekdays.

Building relationships:
Making sure the family does not fragment on Sundays, with each person going off alone to pursue his or her own agenda, is the first step to using the Sabbath to build relationships. We also should try to be present to our extended family, our neighbors, our friends, and to others who need our help. Take the children to visit the grandparents or their aunts & uncles. Host a simple Sunday brunch after Mass for your friends. Arrange a day at the park for a pick-up softball game, frisbee, or beach volleyball. Call some other “cold weather” people and go sledding or ice skating.

You get the idea.

It’s not complicated. Restoring the Sabbath takes commitment to a few ideals and principles, but it’s actually very simple. Remove the clutter from your Sunday schedule and give yourself and your family time…

…time to collect your thoughts…

…time to restore a sense of interior order…

…time to get to know one another…

…time to get closer to Our Lord.

Susan K. Rowland writes, in Make Room for God:

Why do we so blithely disobey one of the Ten Commandments today? Most of us would never dream of committing murder or adultery; we are even embarrassed to take the Lord’s name in vain. But we never protest our culture’s insistence on work, work, work–sixteen hours a day, seven days a week.

Our culture does not respect the Sabbath. With the god of productivity taking the place of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the idea of taking a whole day off to do nothing seems ridiculous. This is not what we do today. We must move fast to keep up. Information must be assimilated. Both parents work in most households. Corporate downsizing means may of us are doing the jobs of two or three. Our workweek is filled with obligations. We are allowed our weekends to get our shopping done, clean the house, pay bills and spend some time with family. On Monday we get back in the harness again. We cannot possibly take a day off.

Rowland goes on to insist that we must take a day off. When it comes to the Sabbath, Catholics must protest our culture’s insistence on non-stop work coupled with a tendency to waste precious free time on excessive shopping, TV watching, Internet surfing, and other useless and exhausting pursuits. We must become counter-cultural or we’ll get sucked into the gears of this unsympathetic world and the results will not be pretty.

I’ll finish with one more quote from Andy Eells:

There are numerous obstacles which have kept us from properly observing the holiness we are called to on Sunday. The cares of the world suggest that we just must have that day to make ends meet, or get caught up, or see that show, or make that trip. Still, our minds and souls desperately need the renewal which our Lord offers in His own way. We are afraid that His way just will not satisfy the demands upon us. In truth, it is our independence which prevents our fulfillment. When we submit to the requirements of God, we find they are not only possible, but easier than the demands of the world.

Come to me, all who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am meed and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28-30)

This concludes this series on keeping the Sabbath holy. I welcome your responses–this could be an interesting discussion! (Copyright 2007 by Clare Siobhan)

###

This series of articles is an expanded adaptation of a much shorter article I originally wrote for the National Catholic Register (July 18-24, 2004) called “Take Back the Sabbath”.
Subscribers can access the original article at this link:

http://ncregister.com/site/article/5383

When you go there, note the attempt to make “Siobhan” more pronouncable by changing the spelling. :)

###

Links:

Previous articles in the series:
part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4

The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights — http://www.catholicleague.org

The Thomas More Center — http://www.thomasmore.org

“Green Martyrdom” — http://claresiobhan.stblogs.com/2007/12/15/green-martyrdom/

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 2168-2195
http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p3s2c1a3.htm#I

Apostolic letter Dies Domini
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters  /documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_05071998_dies-domini_en.html

Apostolic letter Novo Millennio Ineunte
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters  /documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_20010106_novo-millennio-ineunte_en. html

“Take Back Your Time” Day website: www.timeday.org

Make Room for God by Susan K. Rowland. Available at St. Anthony Messenger Press:
http://catalog.americancatholic.org/product.aspx?prodid=I167 78&pcat=73
Clare’s review of the book is available at The National Catholic Register:
http://ncregister.com/site/article/3370
(If you already subscribe to the print version of the paper, you can log on and read it online. Otherwise, you will have to register/subscribe online.)

Note: Andy Eells’s booklet, The Catholic Challenge, appears to be out of print. It was published in 1990 by Max Cotto Books. I couldn’t find any resources on the internet, but the mailing address for Max Cotto Books is 2322 E. Oakland Park Blvd., Fr. Lauderdale, FL 33306. Don’t confuse this booklet with a similarly titled book by Thomas W. Rezanka: The Catholic Challenge: A Question of Conscience. Rezanka’s book promotes dissident Catholic ideology and the website for the book (thecatholicchallenge.com) links to dissident groups Call to Action and Voice of the Faithful.

Of all the topics related to observation of Sunday rest, my fourth suggestion is by far the most controversial and the one most likely to make people bristle:

4 - On Sunday, refrain from shopping, eating out, or engaging in commerce of any kind.

For Americans, this suggestion can seem ludicrous and unrealistic. But I’m not suggesting anything the Church has not already said: Sanctifying Sundays and holy days requires a common effort. Every Christian should avoid making unnecessary demands on others that would hinder them from observing the Lord’s Day. (CCC 2187)

Most stores and restaurants are open on Sunday, which is an invitation and a temptation to use the time set aside for rest in order to engage in commerce. By frequenting stores, restaurants, and other businesses on Sunday for our own recreation (or due to our own lack of planning earlier in the week), we are denying the owners and employees of those businesses their recreation.

Andy Eells discusses this convincingly and at length in his booklet, The Catholic Challenge, in an essay titled simply “Sunday”:

Personal shopping is an area which is almost entirely voluntary. Each of us can go a long way toward keeping Sunday holy — for ourselves and for others — by abstaining from shopping on Sunday. If we have to pay more for an item because we miss the Sunday sale, that is a sacrifice pleasing to God. It demonstrates concretely that we care more for God than money. The extra money spent is not really lost; it is exchanged for blessings of far greater value. If we suffer inconvenience by surviving without something we need until Monday, that is a sacrifice pleasing to God. If we must exert extra effor to provide for Sunday’s needs in advance, that is an exercise which will strengthen our basic orientation to God’s will.

A special type of Sunday work involves restaurant meals and commercial entertainment. When we avail ourselves of these services, we are obviously not working. Indeed, our purpose is to avoid work — that is, for ourselves. But we are responsible for the effect this has on those who provide the service. How many people are kept away from Church on Sunday because they work to supply food or recreation for others? Surely we must ask if we have created a great scandal by the combination of Sunday Mass with Sunday brunch.

I remember well a Mother’s Day several years ago: my brother treated our mother and me to brunch at a nice restaurant. Chatting with our waitress, we discovered that her husband and kids were home relaxing while here she was, working, on Mother’s Day, serving Mother’s Day brunch to us and hundreds of others. It made me sad, and I decided I didn’t want to participate in keeping families fragmented like that on Sundays.

Susan K. Rowland, in her book Make Room for God, also wrote extensively about the Sabbath. What we don’t do on Sunday must be as carefully considered as what we do:

There are a lot of “thou shalt nots” associated with the Sabbath, for a good reason. In order to become who we are, we must stop doing what we normally do. The Sabbath is a divine awareness of time. Nature cannot distinguish one day from another; a cow does not know when it is Sabbath. Therefore, if we are to observe the Sabbath, we must be intentional about it. We must STOP–stop working, cooking, sewing, shopping, eating out, running around. This leaves the Sabbath free–frighteningly free to most of us–to do as we please and to be our true selves. This is why God insists on it and why our culture detests it.

Here is a probably-not-exhaustive list of commerical activities I avoid on Sundays:

I don’t eat out at restaurants.
I don’t shop in any stores.
I don’t buy gas.
I don’t go to the library. (Even though this is not strictly commerce, my patronage of the library on Sunday still requires that the library be staffed on that day.)
I don’t go to commerical sporting events, movies, zoos, or other entertainments.
Even if they offer service on Sundays, I do not employ gardeners, repairmen, or other service workers.
I try not to travel long distances unless I can do so without needing to stop for gas.
I don’t rent movies.

Sometimes doing one of these things is unavoidable. I have been forced to buy gas a few times on a Sunday or risk not making it home. My family goes on an annual family retreat out-of-state, which takes place every October. It ends on a Saturday; since I have to be back at work on Monday and the children have to be in school, Sunday becomes a travel day, with frequent stops for gas and food. Last Sunday my youngest daughter was invited to a Laser Tag birthday party, which I allowed her to attend. These things are uncommon exceptions, though, and life is a journey toward perfection, not the attainment of it. We do our best to keep Sunday as holy and peaceful as possible for ourselves and for others.

Staying out of the malls and preparing a home-cooked brunch on Sunday instead of a restaurant meal could send a powerful message to our 24/7 culture. But even if it doesn’t–even if the commerce machine keeps on rolling unchecked–Catholics can still gain the benefits of the boycott, one of which is simply time–time to do what God intended for the Sabbath.

Now that we’ve covered what not to do on Sunday (in parts 1 through 4), check back tomorrow to find some suggestions for what to do with all the time you gain. (Copyright 2007 by Clare Siobhan)

Links:

“Green Martyrdom” — http://claresiobhan.stblogs.com/2007/12/15/green-martyrdom/
This refers to the idea of willingly suffering financial burdens and disadvantages as a result of following our Catholic faith, such as missing the Sunday sale or having to limit our commerce to what we can accomplish Monday through Saturday.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 2168-2195
http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p3s2c1a3.htm#I

Apostolic letter Dies Domini
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters  /documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_05071998_dies-domini_en.html

Apostolic letter Novo Millennio Ineunte
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters  /documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_20010106_novo-millennio-ineunte_en. html

“Take Back Your Time” Day website: www.timeday.org

Make Room for God by Susan K. Rowland. Available at St. Anthony Messenger Press:
http://catalog.americancatholic.org/product.aspx?prodid=I167 78&pcat=73
Clare’s review of the book is available at The National Catholic Register:
http://ncregister.com/site/article/3370
(If you already subscribe to the print version of the paper, you can log on and read it online. Otherwise, you will have to register/subscribe online.)

Note: Andy Eells’s booklet, The Catholic Challenge, appears to be out of print. It was published in 1990 by Max Cotto Books. I couldn’t find any resources on the internet, but the mailing address for Max Cotto Books is 2322 E. Oakland Park Blvd., Fr. Lauderdale, FL 33306. Don’t confuse this booklet with a similarly titled book by Thomas W. Rezanka: The Catholic Challenge: A Question of Conscience. Rezanka’s book promotes dissident Catholic ideology and the website for the book (thecatholicchallenge.com) links to dissident groups Call to Action and Voice of the Faithful.

Other articles in this series, 5 Things Catholics Can Do to Keep the Sabbath Holy:
part one: get Sunday off from work
part two: make it a family day, no individual commitments outside the family
part three: refrain from heavy housework or yardwork

###

This series of articles is an expanded adaptation of a much shorter article I originally wrote for the National Catholic Register (July 18-24, 2004) called “Take Back the Sabbath”.
Subscribers can access the original article at this link:

http://ncregister.com/site/article/5383

When you go there, note the attempt to make “Siobhan” more pronouncable by changing the spelling. :)

###

Most Catholics would agree that Mass and relaxed family gatherings are great positive steps for keeping Sunday well, but when you start talking about what to avoid, even people of good faith disagree and some people get a little touchy about the next two things I’m going to suggest. Nevertheless, I’m going to jump in with my third suggestion for keeping Sunday well:

3 - Avoid heavy housework or yardwork.

(Photograph copyright 2007 by Clare Siobhan)

Here’s Andy Eells again (see part one of this series) from his essay “Sunday” in his booklet The Catholic Challenge:

The Catholic Church teaches that the third commandment requires that we avoid unnecessary work on Sunday. Over the years, our pastors have tried to employ compassion and discernment in guiding our judgment about what work is necessary…Ever so gradually, through the process of accommodation and compromise, the original principles have completely vanished.

Our spiritual lives have suffered because of this. It has become urgent that we re-sanctify our Sundays, and thereby our weeks and all they include.

There are tremendous implications in the fact that we are told that God rested. Let’s not ponder theologically whether God had a need to rest. The relevance to us is that He did rest, thus giving us an example while directing us to do the same. The message is clear: this rest is beneficial to us; indeed, vitally so. The message has been reinforced by our own experience: we function better when we take time to rest. There is plenty of negative reinforcement as well: prolonged stress becomes distress.

It’s tempting to use Sunday to catch up on the laundry and the cleaning and the yard work and the home repair projects and on and on and on. It’s a temptation we must resist, otherwise our Sundays become just as exhausting as our regular days.

Granted, tossing in one load of laundry is hardly going to ruin anybody’s Sunday rest. But how much housework is too much? When do gardening, woodworking, painting, and other household projects cease to be relaxing and therapeutic pastimes and become actual labor? What about parents who must work on Saturday? When are they supposed to do their cleaning and household tasks?

How about Sunday dinner? You know, the kind of meal that takes poor Mom or Grandma all day to prepare, which means she doesn’t rest on Sunday, either.

Here are the guidelines I try to follow in my home:

I allow myself to potter in the garden a bit. Water the plants, pull some weeds, harvest things. But I try not to mow the lawn or do massive cleaning up or pruning projects.

I tidy up the house a little bit if it needs it, and I do the day’s dishes. But I don’t pull out the vacuum or do any dusting, Windexing, mopping, or other heavy housework.

I don’t cook a big Sunday dinner, except on special occasions, like a recent St. Nicholas Day party I had at my house on a Sunday afternoon. I spent the morning preparing for that, but a gathering like that only happens a few times a year, and not always on a Sunday. On regular Sundays I tend to cook very simply or not at all. The kids and I eat whatever falls out of the refrigerator.

I work every other Saturday morning, so if I have a large project I need to do I try to schedule it for all day on a Saturday I’m off from work or in the afternoon if I’m working that morning. The maintenance level, daily housework is done by the children on weekday afternoons when they get home from school. When necessary I’ll set aside a Saturday for a “deep clean.”

Check in tomorrow for part four and my most controversial Sunday suggestion. (Copyright 2007 by Clare Siobhan)

As far as cats are concerned, every day is Sunday!

That’s what I love about Sunday:
Sing along as the choir sways;
Every verse of Amazin’ Grace,
An’ then we shake the Preacher’s hand.
Go home, into your blue jeans;
Have some chicken an’ some baked beans.
Pick a back yard football team,
Not do much of anything:
That’s what I love about Sunday.

(“That’s What I Love About Sunday”, from the album My Kind of Livin’ by Craig Morgan)

Links:

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 2168-2195
http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p3s2c1a3.htm#I

Apostolic letter Dies Domini
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters  /documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_05071998_dies-domini_en.html

Apostolic letter Novo Millennio Ineunte
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters  /documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_20010106_novo-millennio-ineunte_en. html

“Take Back Your Time” Day website: www.timeday.org

Make Room for God by Susan K. Rowland. Available at St. Anthony Messenger Press:
http://catalog.americancatholic.org/product.aspx?prodid=I167 78&pcat=73
Clare’s review of the book is available at The National Catholic Register:
http://ncregister.com/site/article/3370
(If you already subscribe to the print version of the paper, you can log on and read it online. Otherwise, you will have to register/subscribe online.)

Note: Andy Eells’s booklet, The Catholic Challenge, appears to be out of print. It was published in 1990 by Max Cotto Books. I couldn’t find any resources on the internet, but the mailing address for Max Cotto Books is 2322 E. Oakland Park Blvd., Fr. Lauderdale, FL 33306. Don’t confuse this booklet with a similarly titled book by Thomas W. Rezanka: The Catholic Challenge: A Question of Conscience. Rezanka’s book promotes dissident Catholic ideology and the website for the book (thecatholicchallenge.com) links to dissident groups Call to Action and Voice of the Faithful.

###

This series of articles is an expanded adaptation of a much shorter article I originally wrote for the National Catholic Register (July 18-24, 2004) called “Take Back the Sabbath”.
Subscribers can access the original article at this link:

http://ncregister.com/site/article/5383

When you go there, note the attempt to make “Siobhan” more pronouncable by changing the spelling. :)

###

Americans always have to be doing something, which is perhaps why the concept of Sunday rest is so difficult. The American work ethic is apt to equate rest with laziness.

But sitting around like a slug all day is not rest. Lolling on the couch watching the football game while guzzling beer probably doesn’t count as holy rest, either. Holy rest is more deliberate and carefully chosen. It should reflect God’s intent for Sabbath rest.

Which is what?

According to the Church, the purpose of an instituted day of rest is to provide a respite from everyday work (CCC 2172) and time for reflection, silence, cultivation of the mind, and meditation, which furthers the growth of the Christian interior life (CCC 2186).

In short, the purpose of the Sabbath is intimacy with God and growth in holiness. Keeping Sunday properly means taking practical steps to make these spiritual benefits available for yourself, your family, and the people around you.

Prayerful and careful participation in the Mass is the first step.

(St. John the Baptist Cathedral, Savannah, Georgia. Click on the picture for a larger image. Photograph copyright 2007 by Clare Siobhan)

But what then? What can Catholics do to sanctify Sunday, and what should they not do in order to avoid profaning Sunday?

In part one of this series on keeping Sunday holy, I suggested making every effort to take Sunday off from work at your regular job, if at all possible.

The second thing Catholics can do to make their Sabbath days more fruitful is:

2 – Make it a family day.

For families with children in the house this means making sure the family stays home or does something together that day. It doesn’t have to be anything amazing. Go to the beach. Go for a hike. Stay home and barbecue. Get together with other families at someone’s home or at a park or forest preserve.

The most important rule for making this happen: no individual commitments outside the family on Sundays.

If you have girls of baby-sitting age, boys who do yard work for people, or older teenagers with part-time jobs, this might mean turning down work, but children need to learn to sacrifice their personal preferences and agendas for the good of the family. If Mom and Dad are forgoing the extra money they could earn on Sunday in order for the family to be together for a day, the children should also be willing to pass up money-making opportunities. We get enough rampant individualism in this society. These kinds of sacrifices are necessary.

Single people can live this aspect of the Sabbath, too. If you have extended family nearby, plan Sunday brunches, luncheons, picnics, and dinners on a regular if not weekly basis. My pastor spends every Sunday afternoon with his brothers and sisters and their families. If you don’t have extended family nearby, try to use Sunday as an opportunity to build important relationships. People who live alone need this connectedness to a community of some kind. If you know someone who lives alone with no family nearby, invite him or her to your family’s Sunday gathering.

Just hanging around with your family may seem far removed from the lofty goal of intimacy with God, but the Church teaches that devoting time and care to our families is an effective means of making Sunday holy. (CCC 2186). John Paul II, in his apostolic letter Dies Domini, reminds the faithful that “the relaxed gathering of parents and children can be an opportunity not only to listen to one another but also to share a few formative and more reflective moments.”

But what about the football game?

Okay, okay: go ahead and watch the football game. But watch it with your family. Invite another family over. Make an event of it. It may even become a family tradition.

Pass the chips, please. :) And check in tomorrow for part 3 of this series. (Copyright 2007 by Clare Siobhan)

(St. John the Baptist Cathedral, Savannah, Georgia. Click on the picture for a larger image. Photograph copyright 2007 by Clare Siobhan)

###

This series of articles is an expanded adaptation of a much shorter article I originally wrote for the National Catholic Register (July 18-24, 2004) called “Take Back the Sabbath”.
Subscribers can access the original article at this link:

http://ncregister.com/site/article/5383

When you go there, note the attempt to make “Siobhan” more pronouncable by changing the spelling. :)

###

Links:

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 2168-2195
http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p3s2c1a3.htm#I

Apostolic letter Dies Domini
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters  /documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_05071998_dies-domini_en.html

Apostolic letter Novo Millennio Ineunte
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters  /documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_20010106_novo-millennio-ineunte_en. html

“Take Back Your Time” Day website: www.timeday.org

Make Room for God by Susan K. Rowland. Available at St. Anthony Messenger Press:
http://catalog.americancatholic.org/product.aspx?prodid=I167 78&pcat=73
Clare’s review of the book is available at The National Catholic Register:
http://ncregister.com/site/article/3370
(If you already subscribe to the print version of the paper, you can log on and read it online. Otherwise, you will have to register/subscribe online.)

Mom, Dad, and the kids hurry in the front door and kick off their shoes. Three loads of laundry — which she should have done two days ago — are calling to Mom from the back room. After that there’s the week’s grocery shopping to do. Dad’s already at the computer, trying to get some work in on an eleventh hour proposal before hitting Home Depot’s “today only!” power tool sale. Their fourteen year old daughter hurries right back out for an all-day baby-sitting gig across town, and the twelve year old impatiently waits for his buddy to arrive–Halo V just came out on X-Box and he’s planning on playing ‘til he’s as bug-eyed as the aliens in the game.

It’s Sunday morning, and the only one resting is the 3 year old, who fell asleep in the car on the way home from Mass.

Is this any way for Catholics to spend their day of rest?

The Church would say no:

“On Sundays and other holy days of obligation the faithful are bound to participate in the Mass; they are also to abstain from those labors and business concerns which impede the worship to be rendered to God, the joy which is proper to the Lord’s Day, or the proper relaxation of mind and body.” (Code of Canon Law, 1247)

Most faithful Catholics understand and assent to the first part of this instruction and have little difficulty meeting the requirement. It’s the second part that trips us up, partly because the Church is necessarily vague on this point. But most of the time this second part of the teaching confuses us because we live in a culture that has forgotten what the Sabbath is. Americans know how to go to church, but we don’t know how to rest.

So, besides going to Mass, how can Catholics keep the Sabbath properly? Over the next five days, I’ll list and discuss 5 keys to living the Sabbath as Catholics. The first one is:

1 – Request Sunday off

Some occupations, out of charity, must continue on Sundays, such as doctors, nurses, people who care for animals, and those who ensure public safety and the smooth operation of societal infrastructure such as law enforcement, utilities and transportation.

But if you work in retail, the restaurant business, or other service industries, can you bring yourself to request Sunday off? If you work at a corporation, can you plan your workweek so that you don’t need to go in on Sunday or bring work home?

Andy Eells, in his excellent little booklet The Catholic Challenge, wrote, “Many people work on Sunday because their employer has scheduled them to do so. As employees, we should request Sunday off in deference to our religious convictions. Such consideration will not be granted if [it is] not requested, and the requests have been rare. Doing this may make us feel self-conscious, but shouldn’t we be more embarrassed about making no attempt to do God’s will?”

What if your employer threatens to let you go if you make such a request? Eells points out that employees who are dismissed for refusal to work on the Sabbath can take legal action to protect their rights. Organizations like The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and The Thomas More Center specialize in these types of cases. You could also consider this a type of “green martyrdom”—willingly suffering financial burdens and disadvantages for the sake of our Catholic beliefs.

Some companies do respect their employees’ wishes to have Sundays off. Consider making an extra effort to support these businesses, not only by your patronage but with actual words of encouragement.

Check out the motion picture Chariots of Fire, in which world-class runner Eric Liddell refused to participate in an Olympic race scheduled to take place on a Sunday, thereby losing his chance at a gold medal in that event. Would you be willing to do something like that?

What’s the second thing Catholics can do to keep the Sabbath? Check back tomorrow for part two of this series!
(Copyright 2007 by Clare Siobhan)

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This series of articles is an expanded adaptation of a much shorter article I originally wrote for the National Catholic Register (July 18-24, 2004) called “Take Back the Sabbath”.
Subscribers can access the original article at this link:

http://ncregister.com/site/article/5383

When you go there, note the attempt to make “Siobhan” more pronouncable by changing the spelling. :)

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Links:

The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights — http://www.catholicleague.org

The Thomas More Center — http://www.thomasmore.org

“Green Martyrdom” — http://claresiobhan.stblogs.com/2007/12/15/green-martyrdom/

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 2168-2195
http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p3s2c1a3.htm#I

Apostolic letter Dies Domini
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters  /documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_05071998_dies-domini_en.html

Apostolic letter Novo Millennio Ineunte
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters  /documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_20010106_novo-millennio-ineunte_en. html

“Take Back Your Time” Day website: www.timeday.org

Make Room for God by Susan K. Rowland. Available at St. Anthony Messenger Press:
http://catalog.americancatholic.org/product.aspx?prodid=I167 78&pcat=73
Clare’s review of the book is available at The National Catholic Register:
http://ncregister.com/site/article/3370
(If you already subscribe to the print version of the paper, you can log on and read it online. Otherwise, you will have to register/subscribe online.)

Note: Andy Eells’s booklet, The Catholic Challenge, appears to be out of print. It was published in 1990 by Max Cotto Books. I couldn’t find any resources on the internet, but the mailing address for Max Cotto Books is 2322 E. Oakland Park Blvd., Fr. Lauderdale, FL 33306. Don’t confuse this booklet with a similarly titled book by Thomas W. Rezanka: The Catholic Challenge: A Question of Conscience. Rezanka’s book promotes dissident Catholic ideology and the website for the book (thecatholicchallenge.com) links to dissident groups Call to Action and Voice of the Faithful.

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Found this article on Catholic Exchange a couple months ago and thought I’d pass it on. Here are the links to the article itself and to the Catholic Exchange front page:

Green Martyrdom
CatholicExchange

Here the article in its entirety:

Green Martyrdom
by Fr. Thomas Euteneuer
October 12, 2007

Fr. Tom Euteneuer is president of Human Life International.

“Whenever anything disagreeable or unpleasant happens to you, remember Christ crucified and be silent!” (St. John of the Cross)

So I go into the kitchen to prepare dinner and I find the following items:

about 1.5 chicken breasts worth of barbecued chicken from last night
1 large baked potato
1 tomato
8 slices of bacon
2 pumpkin muffins
3 or 4 plastic bags full of vegetables that were fresh when I bought them but are now rotten because I forgot about them. I hate it when that happens!

I threw the vegetables out obviously, and from what remained I served hash browns, bacon, tomato slices, warmed up barbecued chicken and the muffins.

Now, while I wouldn’t serve such a thing to a guest, I was gratified by the response I received, summarized by Number One son: “Mm. This is a good dinner, Mom.”

Squeaked in under the wire on that one, but I will have to go grocery shopping this weekend. Although I do see bread, eggs, and milk in the fridge…french toast for dinner tomorrow? Plus I have a huge container of leftover St. Nicholas Day borscht in the freezer. We can make it ’til Monday. :)
(Copyright 2007 by Clare Siobhan)

Couple more examples of meals that are just odd:
http://claresiobhan.stblogs.com/2007/12/05/yet-another-reaso n-to-eschew-divorceits-bad-for-the-environment/

The Rule of St. Benedict
edited by Timothy Fry, O.S.B.
Published by the Order of St. Benedict, The Liturgical Press, Collegeville MN, 1982

This is a readable translation of St. Benedict’s “little rule for beginners,” (Ch. 73) written presumably by Benedict himself sometime before his death in 547 AD. This is the second time I’ve read it and once again it overflows with practical wisdom not just for monastic abbots, but for leaders in general, especially parents, and for anyone who wants to live a more deliberate and fruitful Christian life.

Photograph copyright 2007 Clare Siobhan

The Prologue always consoles me. Benedict manages to soften one of the harshest and most unpleasant verses of scripture, Psalm 137:9, by offering an interpretation that I had never encountered before. He views it as an exhortation to deal proactively with temptations as soon as we become aware of them, by “dashing them against Christ.” (Prologue) He also reminds his readers of the gentleness of God: that, in his kindness, he keeps us alive in order to give us as much time as possible to repent, turn to him, and live. Benedict, too, is a tender father in the way he encourages his readers to arise from sleep and respond to God’s invitation to holiness. “What, dear brothers,” he asks, “is more delightful than this voice of the Lord calling to us?” (Prologue, line 19)

photograph copyright 2007 by Clare Siobhan

Once you get into the meat of the Rule itself, especially Chapter 2, Qualities of the Abbot, and any other section or chapter dealing with the way the abbot is to treat the monks, simply substitute the words parent, mother, or father for “abbot” and the word child or children for “monk”/”monks”, and you have an excellent parenting manual. He understood many basic parenting principles, some of which only dawned on me recently:

• It’s okay to treat each child differently. In fact, you must train, exhort, and discipline each child differently, according to his or her individual temperament and unique combination of gifts and defects. It would be more convenient if every child could be stamped out with a cookie cutter, but the reality is that parenting is not a “one size fits all” endeavor.

• Obedience only “counts” if “compliance with what is commanded is not cringing or sluggish or half-hearted, but free from any grumbling or any reaction of unwillingness.” (Ch. 5, line 14) Obedience also must be immediate, even leaving a task unfinished. I have a friend in California who read that when the monks heard the monastic bell, they were not even to finish forming a letter on a page. They were to drop their quill immediately and answer the bell.

• It probably doesn’t benefit children to allow them to talk too much. Nor does it benefit them to have parents talk too much at them. Some children are, in fact, immune to words and will only respond to good example and consequences.

• If people make use of the family’s things (tools and so on) they should treat them well and put them back when they are done. My children never put anything back. Perhaps I’ll make them lie prostrate before me until they make amends.

• Benedict warned abbots not to arrange life in their monasteries in such a way as to cause unnecessary difficulty that might lead to “justifiable grumbling.” So even though Benedict would tolerate no grumbling at all, he understood that sometimes a monk’s recalcitrance was the abbot’s fault for being too harsh. This is good for parents to remember. They, too, “must arrange everything that the strong have something to yearn for and the weak nothing to run from.” (Ch. 64, line 19)

After reading Benedict’s Rule, parents can also be confident that requiring the children to clean up the kitchen after meals is desirable and beneficial (Ch. 35), that it’s okay for the family to slow way down when someone is sick (Ch. 36), and that little children should receive plenty of leeway (Ch. 37). It’s also okay to send complaining children to bed without their dinner (Ch. 43, line 19). Scheduling time during the day for prayer, work, rest, and study is important (Ch. 48). Benedict also had a good idea for Lent: everyone should receive a book that he or she must read all the way through. Mom, Dad, or an older sibling can check on the younger ones to make sure they’re actually reading during reading time and not goofing off. (Ch. 48, lines 15-19)

One of my favorite chapters of the Rule is Chapter 4: The Tools for Good Works. Benedict flings open the door of his workshop and shows us all the tools that should be in it. As workmen for the Lord, we should use these tools well and “return them on judgment day.” (Ch. 4, line 76) This chapter deserves reading and frequent re-reading, as well as careful dissection, perhaps practicing one thing at a time for several weeks or months (years?) until it becomes habitual. Another good set of habits to work on one by one is found in Chapter 7: Humility.

If Benedict’s Rule is for beginners, one wonders what are the “loftier summits” he envisions: this Rule alone is such a complete treatise on holiness of life that if any Christian, young or old, studied and followed this little book alone, he or she would be well on the way to sainthood. (Copyright 2007 by Clare Siobhan)

I really enjoyed this blog–definitely worth checking out if you’re at all interested in science fiction/speculative fiction.

Something odd happened when I was there, though: I tried to leave them a comment, but every time I came near a link, it disappeared. (!) Oh well. I’ll try back later, meanwhile go here:

www.scificatholic.com