Exercising on Sunday

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phantom1998

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Do I violate the third commandment if I do heavy/light exercise with my brother, guided by our trainer(who comes to our place to train us) on Sunday?Will this cause my brother or our trainer to violate the third commandment as well ?(Additional info:I think, as for me,I might not see exercise as a leisurely activity as such, our trainer is a non-christian.)
 
Exercise would seem to be a leisure activity. I see no reason why that would be a wrong thing to do on a Sunday.
Go to Church. Pray. Try to avoid unnecessary work.
 
Radio Replies contains answers to several questions on physical activity on Sunday. One question is, “Is playing tennis keeping a day holy and as a day of rest?” Here’s the author’s reply: “Playing tennis is not sinful. It is neither holy nor wicked of itself. It is mental and bodily refreshment of one’s forces.” (Vol. 1, Q. 1175) No doubt the same is true of any exercise you wish to take.
 
I have a mixed military family . I am forgiven , but used to be heavy too. I feel like it’s important to be healthy. Your body is a temple . Evil can come in many forms . Will the trainer be tolerant to prayer ? Prayer and fasting may seem like voodoo to non believers, but is mentioned in the bible . Addictions can take many forms too. I think what ever you decide , take God with you also. Let people see his grace in you. I look up to my teachers and counselors. I need their fruit. It feeds my spirit. Take your fruit there. Let your friends see God’s love through you. I hope that helps.
 
The definition of servile work has been discussed on this site before (too many time to provide links: use the search function to find the one most appropriate to your situation). Here’s my opinion for what it’s worth: if your personal trainer is not a Christian and is happy to work on Sundays, I think that’s for him/her to decide. There are all sorts of people who have to work on Sundays, such as doctors, nurses, pharmacists, paramedics, police officers, firefighters, and people who work in industries such as public transport and the media. If you visit an overwhelmingly Catholic country such as Poland, you’ll find that everything still runs on a Sunday. If public transport shut down on Sunday a lot of people wouldn’t be able to get to church. If the media shut down on a Sunday people would have to wait a whole day before learning of potentially important news such as a natural disaster, terrorist attack, or the outbreak of war. Given that a lot of Catholics do these jobs, I think it would be hard to argue that somebody who is not even a Christian should be deprived or his/her livelihood on a Sunday, especially when it may be the only day on which he/she can do that particular job.

As for exercise itself, I don’t think it’s servile work, even if you don’t particularly enjoy it. Somebody may love his or her job working in a shop, for example, but it’s still servile work to do that job. On the other hand, you may hate cooking, but nobody is going to say that you aren’t allowed to cook lunch for your family on a Sunday. Exercise is something that you should enjoy on some level and it is good for you. I would consider it similar to spending your Sunday reading or visiting a museum. If your hobby was learning Arabic and your Arabic tutor was a Muslim and was happy to give tutorials on a Sunday, would that be a problem for you?

I think there is one fundamental things to remember: Jesus tells us that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for a Sabbath. We have the Sabbath because it is basically good for us to take a day off. If you use part of your Sunday to exercise, that sounds like it’s only a good thing. Also, please do try to think about the spirit of the law as well as the letter. Last Sunday afternoon I met a friend, went to a museum, and got a coffee afterwards, and I did it all using public transport. I got to see my friend (good) and enjoyed the museum (also good). I guess the people who were working at these places and on public transport on a Sunday either aren’t Christians and so don’t worry about it or are Christians but consider that their work is necessary for other people to enjoy their Sabbath.
 
Londoner said:
I guess the people who were working at these places and on public transport on a Sunday either aren’t Christians and so don’t worry about it or are Christians but consider that their work is necessary for other people to enjoy their Sabbath.
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Regarding the latter, is that a sufficient excuse for them to work on a Sunday? I’ve got the impression that a Catholic may work on the Sabbath only if he needs to earn enough for a living and can’t do it at another time.
 
BoskoBadovnic said:
I’ve got the impression that a Catholic may work on the Sabbath only if he needs to earn enough for a living and can’t do it at another time.
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Given the low wages paid to people like museum attendants and baristas, and given the extremely high cost of living in London, it’s likely that these people need to work as many days of the week as they can.

It’s my understanding that as well as financial necessity, servile work is also permitted on the Sabbath when it’s for the common good. This could be essential services such as transport, but it can also be entertainment. In this regard I think Catholicism tends to be fairly pragmatic and flexible. There are probably a range of views, but I think it’s safe to say that in general Catholics think that as long as one does one’s best to attend Mass, Sunday can be used for a variety of activities that are beneficial to us as individuals and as a community and that if that involves working then that’s acceptable. In Britain, for example, a lot of people go to a pub for Sunday lunch. I imagine that most Catholics would think it was fine to work as a chef or a waiter on a Sunday, enabling people to enjoy a nice day out seeing family and friends, as long as every possible effort was made to attend Mass as well (which isn’t that difficult).
 
Exercise is fine on Sunday, but personally I don’t go to the gym on this day because someone has to work in a non-essential occupation for the gym to be open, and I don’t want to support that. So it’s one thing to exercise with your brother but another to employ someone. I don’t have a definitive answer for if it’s ok, but it’s something to consider and maybe see what your priest thinks.
 
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Walking is never evil . Maybe if your intentions were bad , like stealing a car on the way. That’s a joke though. God loves you !
 
BoskoBadovnic said:
Regarding the latter, is that a sufficient excuse for them to work on a Sunday? I’ve got the impression that a Catholic may work on the Sabbath only if he needs to earn enough for a living and can’t do it at another time.
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The issue is not what specific activities you are doing on Sunday. Rather, the issue is whether your activities are keeping you from fulfilling the main duties of a Sunday, which is to spend time with the Lord - in other words, fulfill your Mass obligation and probably some additional prayer as well - and to spend some time with your family and perhaps in having some morally acceptable leisure time.

The reason for the rule is that otherwise there were people who would not only work all the time and miss Mass and ignore their families, but they would also make their employees do the same, especially back in the days when most people were farmers and there were only a certain number of days in the year to do agricultural work.

As the person above you said, we should be looking at the spirit of the law when we decide if we’re fulfilling our obligations, not looking at it asking, "OK, is this activity work? How about this other activity, is it work and thus not allowed? "

As for those who have to work on Sunday, we now have Saturday evening Masses to allow them to fulfill their obligation, and perhaps they would also do their praying and their family or leisure time on that day in order to be able to do their job on Sunday.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
As the person above you said, we should be looking at the spirit of the law when we decide if we’re fulfilling our obligations, not looking at it asking, "OK, is this activity work? How about this other activity, is it work and thus not allowed? "
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So if some household chore — laundry, vacuuming, shopping for groceries or the like — won’t take time away from my obligations, I’m free to do it on Sunday, and if it will, I’m not. Correct?
 
I should hope so. I, and every other Catholic person I’ve known in my family and every other family I know, usually has to do some of those chores on Sunday because they don’t have time the rest of the week and/or there is a need to do it, like the kids need clean clothes for school on Monday, the family needed groceries for Sunday dinner, Monday breakfast and to pack lunches for working people and kids to take on Monday. Catholics are not like the orthodox Jewish people who won’t press a button or turn on a stove or lift a pot on the Sabbath because that’s work. We are reasonable and do what needs to be done.
 
So glad you asked this, I have recently joined a local 24 hours gym and I was going to do my workout today (Saturday) but I am not feeling it today and decided to go tommorow (I have plenty of time to attend Sunday mass) and was wondering if it is right or not to do so. I will not be doing a light workout (or it will not feel that way to me having only just got back to exercising after a year or so) but I will definitely feel refreshed and relaxed after I’ve finished (and regained consciousness no doubt) 🙂 I feel better about doing so now.
 
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