Sunday, November 19, 2017

Youcat commented through CCC – Question n. 364 – Part II.



YOUCAT Question n. 364 - Part II. Why do Christians replace the Sabbath with Sunday?


(Youcat answer) Christians replaced the celebration of the Sabbath with the celebration of Sunday because Jesus Christ rose from the dead on a Sunday. The Lord’s Day, however, does include elements of the Sabbath.    

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 2175) Sunday is expressly distinguished from the sabbath which it follows chronologically every week; for Christians its ceremonial observance replaces that of the sabbath. In Christ's Passover, Sunday fulfills the spiritual truth of the Jewish sabbath and announces man's eternal rest in God. For worship under the Law prepared for the mystery of Christ, and what was done there prefigured some aspects of Christ (Cf. 1 Cor 10:11): 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  (St. Ignatius of Antioch, Ad Magn. 9, 1: SCh 10, 88).   

Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) The Christian Sunday has three essential elements: (1) It recalls the creation of the world and communicates the festive splendor of God’s goodness to the passage of time. (2) It recalls the “eighth day of creation”, when the world was made new in Christ (thus a prayer from the Easter Vigil says: “You have wonderfully created man and even more wonderfully restored him”). (3) It includes the theme of rest, not just to sanctify the interruption of work, but to point even now toward man’s eternal rest in God.

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 2176) The celebration of Sunday observes the moral commandment inscribed by nature in the human heart to render to God an outward, visible, public, and regular worship "as a sign of his universal beneficence to all" (St. Thomas Aquinas, STh II-II 122, 4). Sunday worship fulfills the moral command of the Old Covenant, taking up its rhythm and spirit in the weekly celebration of the Creator and Redeemer of his people. 

(The next question is: How do Christians make Sunday “the Lord’s day”?)

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