Keeping the Sabbath on Saturday

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Today’s reading from Catholic Daily Reflections, January 23, “And whenever unclean spirits saw him they would fall down before him and shout, “You are the Son of God.” He warned them sternly not to make him known.” Mark 3:12 From this homily we learn from the writer that, “They mix the truth with error. Therefore, they are not worthy of speaking any truth about Jesus.”

This raises some confusion for me from the reading on January 21, “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.” Mark 2:27. Herein, the writer of this homily states, “Sunday is the new Sabbath and it’s a day of rest and worship.”

It’s true it’s a day of rest and worship, but God created Saturday as the Sabbath. He hasn’t changed it. Man changed it to Sunday and Man needs to keep it on Saturday. Me, my parents, and grandparents, etc., all grew up going to church to worship and then to rest on Sunday, so we never really challenged this Sunday Sabbath. Shouldn’t we celebrate and put our Sabbath back to Saturday?
 
Flanick said:
It’s true it’s a day of rest and worship, but God created Saturday as the Sabbath. He hasn’t changed it. Man changed it to Sunday and Man needs to keep it on Saturday. Me, my parents, and grandparents, etc., all grew up going to church to worship and then to rest on Sunday, so we never really challenged this Sunday Sabbath. Shouldn’t we celebrate and put our Sabbath back to Saturday?
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We don’t celebrate the Sabbath on Sunday. We celebrate the Lord’s resurrection on Sunday.

 
If you practice Judaism, certainly! However…
  1. Our Lord routinely violated the Sabbath and taught others to do the same by His example. He is incapable of sinning.
  2. He preached the Gospel to the spirits in prison on the Sabbath - that is not resting.
  3. He rose from the dead on “the Lord’s day.” (Sunday)
  4. He sent the Holy Spirit - the birth of the Church - on the Lord’s day. (Sunday)
  5. Saint John the Apostle received the Revelation on the Lord’s day. (Sunday) Who revealed it to him on that day?
  6. The Apostles gathered to break the bread (Mass) on the Lord’s day. (Sunday)
  7. The Sabbatarians, in order to oppose the Catholic Church, have reverted to former Judaic practices. What did Saint Peter say about those who have come to know the truth and have returned to a former way? (2 Peter 2:20-21)
 
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And note that Sabbatarians gather to worship (a work) on the Sabbath. Yet, the Sabbath was created for rest. A minor detail, but still…
 
Jews obey the Sabbath; for Christians, its the Lord’s Day. But as we are Judeo-Christians, that gets kind of confusing at times. Something which baffled me for a while was the premise of vigils taking place before a day of holy obligation, and since every Sunday is one, I was a little confused when told that a 6pm mass on Saturday fulfilled the Sunday obligation. I’m pretty sure its something to do with how Jews observe the Sabbath from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown (but I might be wrong on that).
 
The Sabbath was meant for something. It wasnt merely a commemorative ritual, but existed in anticipation of something coming. This was clearly the coming of Christ.

Once He was here and completed a pure sacrifice, fulfilled a pure Sabbath rest, manifested pure cleanliness through His Passion, all else afterwards can only reflect on that supernatural act that was completed intrinsically through Him.

The Sabbath commemorated Creation and looked forward to Christ. The Mass commemorates Christ and looks forward to His return. It is fitting then that we recognize this by moving forward in time, and celebrate the relationship with Christ on the next day, the new day, the day after the Sabbath.
 
Gathering to worship, however, is not regarded as work. On the contrary, social gatherings on the Sabbath are an important part of the festive attitude. So is eating, drinking, and sexual relations (between a married couple). The Sabbath is not just for relaxing and resting and focusing on being rather than becoming (getting and spending), but also serves to synthesize the spiritual and the physical, and is meant to take us beyond the stress and tumult of the work week.

What is proscribed is “creative labor,” and there are 39 tasks (plus derivatives) which all derive from the construction of the tabernacle. As a result, such simple tasks as opening an umbrella and turning on a light are regarded as equivalent to constructing a shelter or building and thus forbidden by Orthodox Judaism.

Reform Judaism differentiates between simple and complicated tasks, so that turning on a light switch or driving, both connected with fire, the former once considered complicated, while the latter once very difficult in terms of travel, are no longer so, and therefore need not be observed. In fact, Reform Judaism regards driving a car to the synagogue and turning on lights at home as important means of rejoicing on the Sabbath day. Further, for a person who works all week in the office, getting outdoors on the Sabbath and rejoicing in physical activity and fresh air is a means of renewal of the body and the spirit.
 
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I noticed that on the West Europe many Protestants keep Saturday instead of Sunday.
Protestant Christianity is Judaising here.
Some Jewish rituals are getting popular.
It’s interesting tendency in protestantism
 
I think you should qualify that with naming those Protestant ecclesial communities that do. I live in Western Europe and I know of only one ecclesial community that observes Saturday rather than Sunday. They are the Seventh Day Adventists. I, personally, would not class them as a mainstream Protestant group, but rather as one of the more esoteric groups on the fringes of Christianity. Many of the others I would lump on the fringes with them do worship on a Sunday such as JWs, Mormons and Unitarians.
 
In Benelux for example there are communities who keep Sabbath, you can even see on Saturday many tidy looking people who go to the church at the morning.
Yes, not a mainstream groups.
In ethnic minorities districts there are churches that have on Saturday divine service,not on Sunday.
 
If you read the Acts of the Apostles you will realize that they indeed observed the Sabbath but they celebrated on Sunday the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and offered the true sacrifice to GOD the Father on that day.
The “gentiles” did not celebrate the Sabbath and when they converted to Christianity were not forced to celebrate the Sabbath since this was a Jewish custom and for Christianity was much more important to offer the true sacrifice to GOD the Father. Therefore gentiles only had to observe the Sunday obligation. Who gave the authority to the Apostles to do so? Jesus Christ himself. He gave men (the Apostles) the power to forgive OR retain sins, and to bind on Earth as well as in Heaven.
That’s it. End of story. The Church declareth I obey.
Peace.
 
As @Fauken and others have already pointed out, the Catholic Church does not call Sunday the “Sabbath.” Many Protestant churches call it that, but we don’t. In Ecclesiastical Latin, Sabbatum is Saturday. Sunday is Dies dominica, the Lord’s day.

In Hebrew, Saturday, Shabbat, is the only day of the week that can properly be said to have a name of its own. The other days are just numbered, from “first day” (Sunday) through “sixth day” (Friday).

In the earliest days of the Church, the Christian day of worship was switched from Saturday to Sunday, “the first day,” commemorating the Resurrection (Acts 20:7 and 1 Cor 16:2).
 
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Flanick said:
It’s true it’s a day of rest and worship, but God created Saturday as the Sabbath. He hasn’t changed it. Man changed it to Sunday and Man needs to keep it on Saturday.
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Hmm. God created the “seventh day” as the Sabbath, no?

And Jesus made his resurrection day the fulfillment of Sabbath rest, didn’t he?

By chance, are you SDA, or do you have any SDA in your background?
 
The Greek word for Weekend is read "sabbatokyriaki’ (Sabbath and the Day of God -Saturday and Sunday). So if you feel called celebrate both.
 
po18guy said:
Our Lord routinely violated the Sabbath and taught others to do the same by His example. He is incapable of sinning.
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Jesus never violated the Sabbath. He fulfilled the Law perfectly. He disagreed with the Pharisee’s interpretation of the Sabbath but he never violated Sabbath.
 
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