Are we still bound by the rule to not work on Sunday?
Kelly,
The Catechism has some interesting words about the Sabbath; I don’t have the reference at my fingertips but you can look it up in the index. I’m still trying to figure out how it applies to working on the weekends.
- Liberian
CCC 2185 On Sundays and other holy days of obligation, the faithful are to refrain from engaging in work or activities that hinder the worship owed to God, the joy proper to the Lord’s Day, the performance of the works of mercy, and the appropriate relaxation of mind and body. Family needs or important social service can legitimately excuse from the obligation of Sunday rest. The faithful should see to it that legitimate excuses do not lead to habits prejudicial to religion, family life, and health.
If your job requires that you work on Sunday, then it’s okay. If you are working extra or want to go into work on Sunday to catch up or get ahead, then it’s not okay.
I know some will disagree, but the Church understands that we have to earn a living and sometimes we have to earn that living on Sunday.
Leah,
Not only do we “sometimes have to earn that living on Sunday,” our society needs some people working on Sunday in order to function. If my house catches fire on Sunday morning, I do NOT want to have to wait fifteen hours for the fire truck to show up.
- Liberian
if you work for the Church you will almost certainly work most if not all Sundays and Holy Days of obligation.
We should have rest and spend time with family but if it’s something important or work you want to do and enjoy (that isn’t really “work”) then I think it’s OK. Even work we enjoy shouldn’t be too strenuous and we shouldn’t spend too much time if it excludes family. Considering the Sabbath can help us look internally at our motives and “know thyself”.
In some occupations it is necessary to work on Sundays, those jobs that are essential services such as fire fighters, police, medicine etc…
I have two jobs at present, one part-time in a geriatric hospital and one as a web designer. If the hospital asked me to work on the Sunday and they couldn’t find anyone else I would go in. I don’t work on my websites on Sunday (although I may study some Code I need to become familiar with etc, usually I read books of a spiritual nature).
See Our Lady’s message to the children at La Salette, catholicherald.com/saunders/06ws/ws060511.htm where she warned that God was seriously displeased because people did not keep His day holy.
Also therealpresence.org/archives/Mariology/Mariology_030.htm
The Commandments have not become obsolete, or need updating: Thou Shalt keep Holy the Sabbath Day.
Even atheists discovered that everyone needs a break from non-stop work. And we Chrstians have the best perspectives: No menial work, except those needed.
Vivat Jesus. Tony
Hey, keep it down! I’m trying to convince my police department that I can only engage in prayer and leisure activity while at work on Sundays.
We are to abstain from doing servile work on Sundays and holy days of obligation.
I asked a good priest whether I could be an air steward this summer, since I shall seemingly have to work one Sunday in July, and another in August. “Planes have to fly on Sunday too” was basically his answer, along with an encouragement to say ejaculatory prayers, and to find moments whereat I might pray.
It’s Sunday morning - 6:24 am and I am at work. I have been working or should I say I have been at work since 7:00 PM Saturday night. I will go home at 7:00 AM, eat my dinner or what ever you want to call it and go to sleep. Around 1:30 PM, I will get up; visit my parents so they can see me and my wife and our 2 girls and then we will go to mass at 7:00 PM tonight.
I could be be wrong, but I don’t think too many employers these day give a ratts behind if you aren’t suppose to work Sundays. Where I work, I have to work every other Sunday. It doesn’t matter the shift I work, there is always a Sunday in there.
The following five verses concern the Sunday after Christ’s crucifixion. We will list and comment on them as a group, because they are separate accounts of the same event.
“Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week he appeared first to Mary Magdalene out of whom he cast seven devils.” (Mark 16:9)
“Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the seulchre bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them.” (Luke 24:1)
Surely these Gospel writers, who were mostly Jews, would have mentioned a change of the Sabbath day had it occurred? But there is no mention of a change; not a text, nor a word, not even a hint or suggestion.
Why?
Because there had been no change. The Sabbath day, as far as Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were concerned, was still the seventh day of the week, the day that preceded the first day.
Let us now move on to the next text.
“Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst and saith unto them, “Peace be unto you.” (John 20:19)
This meeting took place on the Sunday evening after the resurrection. The disciples were assembled, we are told, “for fear of the Jews.”
Some, in a frantic bid to find Scriptural support for Sunday observance, use this text as though it proved that the Master sanctified Sunday by visiting the disciples on it, and that this meeting was called to celebrate the resurrection.
This, however, was not the case. The disciples met, we are plainly told “for fear of the Jews.” In fact, some of them didn’t even believe the Master had risen. (Mark 16:11-14, Luke 24:36-38) We would be deluding ourselves if we tried to classify this meeting as the inauguration of a new Sabbath day. The Sabbath is not even mentioned in this verse.
It is essential to read the chapter through to get a complete picture of the events. On doing this the following points will emerge.
The meeting was held in the evening of the first day of the week and continued till midnight or a little later. That is, it either began on Saturday evening and finished in the early hours of Sunday morning; or it began on Sunday evening and finished in the early hours of Monday morning. Both these methods of reckoning the “evening of a day” are to be found in the Scriptures. (Genesis 1 and John 20:19)
The “breaking of bread” took place after midnight. (verse 11)
Paul and his companions, after bidding farewell to their host, then walked from Traos to Assos (verse 13) - a distance of some 18 miles.
The Stewarton Bible School rejects the claim that this meeting testifies to Sunday sacredness and we do so for the following reasons:
If this was a Saturday night meeting, then a 18 mile walk on the following day (Sunday), after staying up most of the night, was hardly the way for a converted Pharisee like Paul to keep the new Sabbath. Eighteen miles on foot, over rough country roads, is no way to keep a Sabbath you may be sure; and it is quite unthinkable that Paul, a life-long Sabbath keeper, would have done this.
If on the other hand, this was a Sunday night meeting, then the “breaking of the bread” took place in the early hours of Monday morning: which, once again, is no way to celebrate a Sunday Sabbath day.
Besides, to “break bread” does not necessarily mean that a communion service was held. The Master “broke bread” on several occasions and fed thousands of people. (Matthew 14 and John 6) The early Christians also “broke bread daily from house to house.” (Acts 2:46) It would be forcing the issue to suggest that at all these occasions communion services were held. The term “breaking bread” was a common expression in those days for having a meal, and that is what is meant in Acts 20. After the farewell, late night meeting, Paul and his host had a meal together and then Paul and his companions set off on foot to Assos. Most certainly this text does not prove Sunday sacredness.
1: Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given order to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye.
2: Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come.
3: And when I come, whomsoever ye shall approve by your letters, them will I send to bring your liberality unto Jerusalem." (1 Corinthians 16:1-3)
Paul is here instructing believers in Corinth to privately set aside some money for the famine stricken brethren in Jerusalem. The Greek word thesaurizon means “treasuring or storing up.” It has been correctly rendered “lay by him in store.” The Greek lexicon of Greenfield translates the Greek here as, “with one’s self”, i.e. at home. And this fact totally overthrows the idea that this text proves that a church meeting on a Sunday is being referred to. If anything it indicates that the Corinthian believers did not meet on the first day of the week, but were in this instance being appealed to by Paul to do some private saving at home. Then at Paul’s coming a general “gathering” (collection of money) would not be necessary. The already collected funds could be totaled and taken by trustworthy brethren to Jerusalem to help the believers there. The Sabbath day is not even mentioned in this verse.
And that, surprisingly enough, completes our survey of the texts in the Bible which mention the first day of the week. The reader will have noticed that in not a single instance has a change of the Sabbath day been mentioned or even hinted at. On the contrary the Gospel writers - though they were writing decades after the resurrection - still referred to the seventh day of the week as THE SABBATH.
In times like these, it seems almost a necesity to work on sundays…
thistle;1515827]CCC 2185 On Sundays and other holy days of obligation, the faithful are to refrain from engaging in work or activities that hinder the worship owed to God, the joy proper to the Lord’s Day, the performance of the works of mercy, and the appropriate relaxation of mind and body. Family needs or important social service can legitimately excuse from the obligation of Sunday rest. The faithful should see to it that legitimate excuses do not lead to habits prejudicial to religion, family life, and health.
I find it astounding that the CCC has a truly Biblical description of the 3rd Commandment (4th Commandment to non Catholics), and yet it still maintains that the Sabbath is of the Jews.
There follows an extract from the CCC to illustrate that point:-
ARTICLE 3 THE THIRD COMMANDMENT
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work.90
Most other translations that I have read say, “but the seventh day is THE Sabbath OF THE LORD your God” Even the Douay-Rheims has it that way, thus reinforcing the statement that it is The Sabbath of the Lord thy God, not as in the following, the Jewish Sabbath:-
2174 Jesus rose from the dead "on the first day of the week."104 Because it is the “first day,” the day of Christ’s Resurrection recalls the first creation. Because it is the “eighth day” following the sabbath,105 it symbolizes the new creation ushered in by Christ’s Resurrection. For Christians it has become the first of all days, the first of all feasts, the Lord’s Day (he kuriake hemera, dies dominica) Sunday:
We all gather on the day of the sun, for it is the first day [after the Jewish sabbath, but also the first day] when God, separating matter from darkness, made the world; and on this same day Jesus Christ our Savior rose from the dead.106
**
[quote]
The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath; so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.91
- I. THE SABBATH DAY
**2168 The third commandment of the Decalogue recalls the holiness of the sabbath: "The seventh day is a sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the LORD."92 **
2169 In speaking of the sabbath Scripture recalls creation: "For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it."93
There you have it,
2169 In speaking of the sabbath Scripture recalls creation:
The only connection of the Jews to the Sabbath is as a part of Creation, and that is a connection that we all share.
In conclusion, I see no logical reason why the Catholic Church dispensed with the true Seventh Day Sabbath observance, but instituted the first day of the week (Sunday) as a weekly memorial of the Resurrection of our Lord whereas in fact, that should be observed as an annual feast day, like Christmas Day (as it is in fact on Easter Sunday).
In view of the above the OP’s question should be answered in the positive since Sunday is not the Sabbath of the Lord, yes, it is OK to work on Sunday.
Protector.
[/quote]
Essentially, working on Sunday (or Saturday, if you go to Mass on Saturdays) is OK if
- it’s relaxing “work” that you’re doing for fun;
- it’s essential for other people to fulfill their duties in or meet the necessites of life
- it’s essential to saving lives and souls.
Am I missing anything?
Wow a 6 year old thread resurrected not once, not twice but three times. 
What proof do you have for this claim?