How do you keep Sunday? What makes Sunday different from the other six days of the week for you and for your family? Our prayer group has been reading Pope Saint John Paul II’s Dies Domini at our Sunday evening meetings since Easter. Dies Domini is a relatively short, easy to read apostolic letter written by Pope Saint John Paul II in 1998. Dies Domini means “On Keeping Sunday Holy.” It has been a delightful and enlightening study. You can find it in English here.
Today’s scripture readings encapsulate several main points of Dies Domini, so I’d like to look at them through that lens.
Phillip and the Eunuch
In today’s first reading we see Phillip evangelizing an Ethiopian eunuch who was reading the prophet Isaiah as he traveled home to the Upper Nile region from Jerusalem. My study sources say that he could not have been a Jew if he was a eunuch. However, he must have been interested in the Jewish faith since he had come to Jerusalem to worship and was reading Isaiah while he traveled. Gentiles could worship in the outer courts of the temple.
He is reading Isaiah, but he has no context to understand what he is reading. God (and Luke, the author of Acts) uses the situation to begin to shift the story of Christianity from proclamation to Jews in Jerusalem to conversion of the Gentiles. As is always true with conversion, GOD INITIATES the conversion. He calls to Phillip through an angel and tells him, “Get up and head south on the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza, the desert route.”
God didn’t tell Phillip why he should go there or what he should do. Apparently, that didn’t matter. Phillip went. As he approached the Ethiopian’s chariot from behind, Phillip got the next part of his directions, this time through the Holy Spirit, “Go and join up with that chariot.” Phillip RAN up to the chariot. He heard the eunuch reading, started a conversation, got into the chariot, engaged in dialogue that used the eunuch’s question as an opportunity to evangelize, and baptized the eunuch before the afternoon was over.
Wow! I would love to have an experience where conversion happened so readily! Must admit, that’s not been my lot, but it is good to know it could happen that easily and quickly.
Back to looking through the Dies Domini lens.
How important is God’s Word in how you keep Sunday? Do you read the Sunday readings ahead of time? Do you approach mass wondering what Father or Deacon will say about them? Do you read reflections here at A Catholic Moment or from other sources? Do you puzzle in prayer, study, or conversation about parts of the readings that are unclear to you? Does discussion of the Sunday readings enter into Sunday dinner conversation?
Pope Saint John Paul II makes the point in paragraphs 39-41 that God’s word is an important part of the Sunday Christian feast. He recalls that Vatican II emphasized the importance of proclamation of God’s Word at mass. He notes, “It is Christ who speaks, present as he is in his word ‘when Sacred Scripture is read in the Church.’” (paragraph 39)
It was God’s word who prepared the eunuch for conversion and which gave Phillip a means to share faith with him. Every Sunday we have readings rich in resources for both personal conversion and witness.
Gospel of the Eucharist
Pope Saint John Paul II makes the point that for the Catholic, “in every Eucharistic celebration, the Risen Lord is encountered in the Sunday assembly at the twofold table of the word and of the Bread of Life.” (paragraph 39) He continues:
“The table of the word leads naturally to the table of the Eucharistic Bread and prepares the community to live its many aspects, which in the Sunday Eucharist assume an especially solemn character. As the whole community gathers to celebrate “the Lord’s Day”, the Eucharist appears more clearly than on other days as the great “thanksgiving” in which the Spirit-filled Church turns to the Father, becoming one with Christ and speaking in the name of all humanity.” (paragraph 42)
John’s Gospel puts discussion of the Eucharist in Chapter 6, with the Feeding of the 5000. Today’s Gospel is a portion of that discussion. The people were attracted by the multiplication of the loaves and fish. Jesus tries to help them see Feeding the 5000 was about more than satisfying physical hunger. “I am the bread of life,” he says. “Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my Flesh for the life of the world.”
This passage is one of the readings for taking communion to the sick. So often when I use it with someone who is getting close to death, there is a look of glory as those words are heard. What an assurance!
We hear the words of the Eucharistic prayers so often that it is easy to let their wonder and the wonder of God coming here to us, in this place, to be here…now..with us, in us roll over us. God comes EVERY SUNDAY to our mass and your mass and every mass, to be with his people, to offer himself to the Father and to us again. He comes because “He is risen!”
As you hear the Eucharistic prayers and receive communion or blessing, how precious are the words? How precious is the visit?
Mass and Eucharist: Center of Sunday, Center of Community, Center of Life
Pope Saint John Paul II goes on to say, “It is also important to be ever mindful that communion with Christ is deeply tied to communion with our brothers and sisters….and “Receiving the Bread of Life, the disciples of Christ ready themselves to undertake with the strength of the Risen Lord and his Spirit the tasks which await them in their ordinary life. “ (paragraph 44, 45)
“Sharing the Eucharist is the heart of Sunday, but the duty to keep Sunday holy cannot be reduced to this. In fact, the Lord’s Day is lived well if it is marked from beginning to end by grateful and active remembrance of God’s saving work. This commits each of Christ’s disciples to shape the other moments of the day—though outside the liturgical context: family life, social relationships, moments of relaxation—in such a way that the peace and joy of the Risen Lord will emerge in the ordinary events of life. (paragraph 52)
Resting in the Lord
As our prayer group approached Dies Domini most of our questions were about what you can and can’t do on Sunday. Pope Saint John Paul II makes this a minor point. He says clearly that the “Sunday obligation” still holds in our century. While Sunday Christian worship began spontaneously because people wanted to be together to praise, worship, and celebrate the Resurrection, from early centuries it was considered obligatory. As cultures became at officially Christian (and thus more cultural,) it was named a “grave matter” to miss Sunday mass without good reason.
The Holy Father mentions this Sunday obligation includes “refraining from work.” While the Catholic Catechism elaborates on what this means in paragraphs 2184-2188, Pope Saint John Paul II does not focus on it.
Instead he talks about the many joys of the keeping of Sundays, the celebration of Sunday as a “Little Easter” EVERY week, and the meaning of Sabbath in the Old Testament. He sees Sunday as a day to “rest in the Lord.”
Resting in the Lord is a matter of taking time to relax enough to enjoy the people, natural world, faith, and relationship with God that we have because of how good God is and how much he loves us. It is a matter of resting in the joy of salvation.
Today’s psalm is resplendent with that perspective: “Bless our God, you peoples, loudly sound his praise; He has given life to our souls, and has not let our feet slip.”
Reaching Out to God and Others
The psalm goes on, “Hear now, all you who fear God, while I declare what he has done for me. When I appealed to him in words, praise was on the tip of my tongue. Blessed be God who refused me not my prayer or his kindness.”
Pope Saint John Paul II makes two other points in Dies Domini. Good ways to keep Sunday are reaching out in works of charity, including traditional works of mercy and teaching others about the faith (as Phillip did), and spending some quiet time with God—as was the eunuch.
I could go on, but that can be a discussion for another day.
Prayer:
Lord, thank you for our weekly little Easter, our Sunday. Show me today, as I reflect on the readings, how my keeping of Sunday pleases you and how I might be missing its message. Lead me and guide me, to spend the day with you.
