Remembering the Day of the Lord

by Fr. Michael Sweeney, O.P., Director

Every now and then I am ambushed by something that I have completely overlooked, something that ought to have occurred to me, but didn't. G. K. Chesterton, for example, develops one of his Father Brown mystery stories around a crime committed by the postman. Because everyone was used to seeing the postman, no one had noticed him enter the building that was the site of the crime. Familiar things, things that we grow accustomed to seeing, very quickly become invisible to us.

So it is with Sunday. Pope John Paul II has just issued an apostolic letter to the Church entitled Dies Domini, "The Day of the Lord." Because we are so very familiar with the precept to attend Mass on Sunday, his topic might strike us as dull or uninteresting. We might expect that he is simply restating our Sunday obligation. This was, I must confess, my suspicion as I began to read the letter. Instead I was ambushed by things that have never occurred to me, but should have. So, for example:

"In those early Christian times, the weekly rhythm of days was generally not part of life in the regions where the Gospel spread, and the festive days of the Greek and Roman calendars did not coincide with the Christian Sunday. For Christians, therefore, it was very difficult to observe the Lord's Day on a set day each week. This explains why the faithful had to gather before sunrise" (Dies Domini, 22).

Of course! I had always sleepily assumed that the first Christians gathered before sunrise on Sunday due to their heroic piety (which those of us who dislike mornings may have difficulty not resenting, let alone emulating). But no—they gathered early in the morning because later they had to go to work! They had to insist upon a day that would be their own in the face of a society that was not only unsympathetic, but hostile to them. Before Sunday could ever become something that we take for granted—and therefore something that we completely overlook—it first had to be an accomplishment, something deliberately intended.

My music teacher used to scream at me, "Wake up and die right!" The Day of the Lord is a wake-up call addressed to the Church. The very purpose of Sunday is, in fact, an awakening to all that the Lord has done for us. And so, for me, a second ambush:

"The commandment of the Decalogue by which God decrees the Sabbath observance is formulated in the Book of Exodus in a distinctive way: `Remember the Sabbath day in order to keep it holy…' (20:8). Before decreeing that something be done, the commandment urges that something be remembered. It is a call to awaken remembrance of the grand and fundamental work of God that is creation, a remembrance that must inspire the entire religious life of man and then fill the day on which man is called to rest" (Dies Domini, 16; the emphases are those of the Holy Father).

We are commanded to remember, and therefore to rest! Why has the relationship of resting and remembering never occurred to me, especially in relation to the third commandment? I have often preached that the Sabbath is a call to rest: that the third commandment really is to rest in the Lord. But it required the Holy Father (and, therefore, through his office, the Holy Spirit) to point out that the substance of our resting is actually a remembering.

Remember, and rest. This makes wonderful sense when we realize that the things that most trouble us have the character of future contingents: the things that might happen. What if the economy fails? What if our business plan collapses? What if my health fails, or the health of someone I love? What if I am left alone? What if…? These are the concerns that rob us of our rest, that render us, literally, restless. But God is never to be found in a future event which might occur; he is only to be found in what does occur. Given that we are not privy to the future, the place in which we can best seek God is in what has occurred. We remember.

The Holy Father suggests that there is a rhythm to our remembering, and therefore to our resting: we recall the things that God has done for us; we savor his presence to us; we anticipate what is to come.

We recall what God has done. When a friend enters the room, our first relationship with our friend is through remembering. We enter together into a common place built upon all of our past encounters; we recall all that has occurred, and we recognize our friend. In such a moment we also recognize ourselves: we recall the things that are important to us; we remember what it is that we seek, the reason for our work. Our friend calls us forth. So it is with God. We enter into the place that he has made for us; we recall the things that he has done; we recognize ourselves. There is no threat in this encounter; there is only the insistence that we must be ourselves.

We savor all that God has done. The one thing that we can do with a friend that we cannot do with any one else is to celebrate. With others we can work, plan, complain, commiserate. But we really cannot be truly festive with anyone but a friend. Therefore, if we are sane, we celebrate with our friends. We observe rituals (or, at least, I hope we do): we tease, tell our stories (old stories, familiar to both of us are the best), revisit familiar places. With our friends, and with them alone, we can be at play. So it is with God. We savor our presence to him by celebrating. This is what we do at mass: we remember his words, his gestures; we re-live our own relationship with him. We celebrate our friendship: just as I knelt before him as a child of six at mass with my Dad, so we meet again, with all of the familiar gestures, words and music. We celebrate, and take our rest.

We anticipate what is to come. It is only when we are centered in relationship—when we have recalled and celebrated with another—that the future can be happily anticipated, rather than dreaded. When we remember and celebrate with our friend we begin to insist upon a future together, for love always seeks a future. Love invites us, once again, to enter into all that we can do and be and become. Our future is not dark or ominous, precisely because it is to be the occasion for the unfolding of all that we have claimed together. So with God: we recall all that he has done for us, most especially the sacrifice of Our Lord; we celebrate his presence, and then, nourished by him, we are sent forth to claim our future.

"Sunday is the proclamation that time, in which he who is the Risen Lord of history makes his home, is not the grave of our illusions but the cradle of an ever new future, an opportunity given to us to turn the fleeting moments of this life into seeds of eternity. Sunday is an invitation to look ahead; it is the day on which the Christian community cries out to Christ, `Marana tha: Come, O Lord!'" (Dies Domini, 84).

If we are truly to take up the office to which our Lord has called us—if we are truly to transform the world in the image of the Son—then we will observe the Sabbath: we will rest in the Lord. Our resting will not be a passive thing, but a remembering: we will recall, savor, anticipate the whole of our relationship with God, and all that he can accomplish through us.