Question about Sabbath

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Hello,

I have a question about something in my life regarding the sabbath and our obligation to keep it holy. So about a week ago my friend who is in a sorority asked me to go with her as her date to a sorority event. I said yes, without realizing until today that it is this Sunday. I know we are supposed to rest on Sundays, but I don’t know if this event/dinner/party would be necessarily sinful. What do you guys think? Would me going to this event be sinful? Or would it be okay? (I don’t intend on drinking or going too all out).

Thank you very much
 
pcg2 said:
Hello,

I have a question about something in my life regarding the sabbath and our obligation to keep it holy. So about a week ago my friend who is in a sorority asked me to go with her as her date to a sorority event. I said yes, without realizing until today that it is this Sunday. I know we are supposed to rest on Sundays, but I don’t know if this event/dinner/party would be necessarily sinful. What do you guys think? Would me going to this event be sinful? Or would it be okay? (I don’t intend on drinking or going too all out).

Thank you very much
Click to expand...
 
pcg2 said:
Hello,

I have a question about something in my life regarding the sabbath and our obligation to keep it holy. So about a week ago my friend who is in a sorority asked me to go with her as her date to a sorority event. I said yes, without realizing until today that it is this Sunday. I know we are supposed to rest on Sundays, but I don’t know if this event/dinner/party would be necessarily sinful. What do you guys think? Would me going to this event be sinful? Or would it be okay? (I don’t intend on drinking or going too all out).

Thank you very much
Click to expand...
  1. First off …actually it is not the Sabbath…but the Lords Day (which for Christians replaces the Sabbath).
  2. Here is what the Catechism says:
From the Catechism

2184 Just as God "rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done,"121 human life has a rhythm of work and rest. The institution of the Lord’s Day helps everyone enjoy adequate rest and leisure to cultivate their familial, cultural, social, and religious lives.122

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.123 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.

also read this whole thing from the Catechism;

vatican.va/archive/catechism/p3s2c1a3.htm#II
  1. What you have to ask yourself is …Is it hindering the worship due to God …or the joy and rest of the Lords Day? (it is not against rest to attend a reasonable dinner or event…of course) And of course one must ask is this event in itself sinful? (Certain sorority events could be sinful…) Next is if it is not per se sinful…is it fitting for the Lords Day? Certain entertainments are not fitting on the Lords day…as the Catechism further notes “With temperance and charity the faithful will see to it that they avoid the excesses and violence sometimes associated with popular leisure activities.”
Perhaps such events are going to be in the way of intemperance and excesses??

Of course a normal dinner is not going to be ordinarily out of place…

One must think about these other aspects…when making your judgment of conscience.
 
A good reading:

Pope Benedict XVI:

Iuxta dominicam viventes – living in accordance with the Lord’s Day
  1. From the beginning Christians were clearly conscious of this radical newness which the Eucharist brings to human life. The faithful immediately perceived the profound influence of the eucharistic celebration on their manner of life. Saint Ignatius of Antioch expressed this truth when he called Christians “those who have attained a new hope,” and described them as “those living in accordance with the Lord’s Day” (iuxta dominicam viventes). (204) This phrase of the great Antiochene martyr highlights the connection between the reality of the Eucharist and everyday Christian life. The Christians’ customary practice of gathering on the first day after the Sabbath to celebrate the resurrection of Christ – according to the account of Saint Justin Martyr(205) – is also what defines the form of a life renewed by an encounter with Christ. Saint Ignatius’ phrase – “living in accordance with the Lord’s Day” – also emphasizes that this holy day becomes paradigmatic for every other day of the week. Indeed, it is defined by something more than the simple suspension of one’s ordinary activities, a sort of parenthesis in one’s usual daily rhythm. Christians have always experienced this day as the first day of the week, since it commemorates the radical newness brought by Christ. Sunday is thus the day when Christians rediscover the eucharistic form which their lives are meant to have. “Living in accordance with the Lord’s Day” means living in the awareness of the liberation brought by Christ and making our lives a constant self-offering to God, so that his victory may be fully revealed to all humanity through a profoundly renewed existence.
Living the Sunday obligation
  1. Conscious of this new vital principle which the Eucharist imparts to the Christian, the Synod Fathers reaffirmed the importance of the Sunday obligation for all the faithful, viewing it as a wellspring of authentic freedom enabling them to live each day in accordance with what they celebrated on “the Lord’s Day.” The life of faith is endangered when we lose the desire to share in the celebration of the Eucharist and its commemoration of the paschal victory. Participating in the Sunday liturgical assembly with all our brothers and sisters, with whom we form one body in Jesus Christ, is demanded by our Christian conscience and at the same time it forms that conscience. To lose a sense of Sunday as the Lord’s Day, a day to be sanctified, is symptomatic of the loss of an authentic sense of Christian freedom, the freedom of the children of God. (206) Here some observations made by my venerable predecessor John Paul II in his Apostolic Letter Dies Domini (207) continue to have great value. Speaking of the various dimensions of the Christian celebration of Sunday, he said that it is Dies Domini with regard to the work of creation, Dies Christi as the day of the new creation and the Risen Lord’s gift of the Holy Spirit, Dies Ecclesiae as the day on which the Christian community gathers for the celebration, and Dies hominis as the day of joy, rest and fraternal charity.
Sunday thus appears as the primordial holy day, when all believers, wherever they are found, can become heralds and guardians of the true meaning of time. It gives rise to the Christian meaning of life and a new way of experiencing time, relationships, work, life and death. On the Lord’s Day, then, it is fitting that Church groups should organize, around Sunday Mass, the activities of the Christian community: social gatherings, programmes for the faith formation of children, young people and adults, pilgrimages, charitable works, and different moments of prayer. For the sake of these important values – while recognizing that Saturday evening, beginning with First Vespers, is already a part of Sunday and a time when the Sunday obligation can be fulfilled – we need to remember that it is Sunday itself that is meant to be kept holy, lest it end up as a day “empty of God.” (208)

The meaning of rest and of work
  1. Finally, it is particularly urgent nowadays to remember that the day of the Lord is also a day of rest from work. It is greatly to be hoped that this fact will also be recognized by civil society, so that individuals can be permitted to refrain from work without being penalized. Christians, not without reference to the meaning of the Sabbath in the Jewish tradition, have seen in the Lord’s Day a day of rest from their daily exertions. This is highly significant, for it relativizes work and directs it to the person: work is for man and not man for work. It is easy to see how this actually protects men and women, emancipating them from a possible form of enslavement. As I have had occasion to say, “work is of fundamental importance to the fulfilment of the human being and to the development of society. Thus, it must always be organized and carried out with full respect for human dignity and must always serve the common good. At the same time, it is indispensable that people not allow themselves to be enslaved by work or to idolize it, claiming to find in it the ultimate and definitive meaning of life.” (209) It is on the day consecrated to God that men and women come to understand the meaning of their lives and also of their work. (210)
vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_ben-xvi_exh_20070222_sacramentum-caritatis_en.html
 
What you have to ask yourself is …Is it hindering the worship due to God …or the joy and rest of the Lords Day? (it is not against rest to attend a reasonable dinner or event…of course) And of course one must ask is this event in itself sinful? (Certain sorority events could be sinful…) Next is if it is not per se sinful…is it fitting for the Lords Day? Certain entertainments are not fitting on the Lords day…as the Catechism further notes "With temperance and charity the faithful will see to it that they avoid the excesses and violence sometimes associated with popular leisure activities."

What do you mean by is the event in itself sinful? I believe that a lot of the people will be drinking, and most likely drunk. However, I don’t intend on drinking and now I think that I shouldn’t be dancing either…
 
pcg2 said:
What you have to ask yourself is …Is it hindering the worship due to God …or the joy and rest of the Lords Day? (it is not against rest to attend a reasonable dinner or event…of course) And of course one must ask is this event in itself sinful? (Certain sorority events could be sinful…) Next is if it is not per se sinful…is it fitting for the Lords Day? Certain entertainments are not fitting on the Lords day…as the Catechism further notes "With temperance and charity the faithful will see to it that they avoid the excesses and violence sometimes associated with popular leisure activities."

What do you mean by is the event in itself sinful? I believe that a lot of the people will be drinking, and most likely drunk. However, I don’t intend on drinking and now I think that I shouldn’t be dancing either…
Click to expand...
Certainly drunkenness is a sin catholicreference.net/index.cfm?id=33231

Dancing would depend on the kind…and place etc…dancing can be good if chaste etc.

But Ya honestly it sounds like the kind of …lets say atmosphere does not sound like it would be promising…

Not something I would be going to on a Sunday…or perhaps at all …

but lets take it for argument as an event that one could go to on say a Monday…that a Christian could go to and be good …though some there would be getting drunk…

this line would give me pause regarding Sunday:

“With temperance and charity the faithful will see to it that they avoid the* excesses* and violence sometimes associated with popular leisure activities.”

oh and there are “parties” and then there are “parties” …and from what i have heard …frat and sorority events *can *end up being the later kind…and not something good to go to at all…Sunday or Monday …but I do know this particular event/party…and I suppose one has to judge each.
 
pcg2 said:
Hello,

I have a question about something in my life regarding the sabbath and our obligation to keep it holy. So about a week ago my friend who is in a sorority asked me to go with her as her date to a sorority event. I said yes, without realizing until today that it is this Sunday. I know we are supposed to rest on Sundays, but I don’t know if this event/dinner/party would be necessarily sinful. What do you guys think? Would me going to this event be sinful? Or would it be okay? (I don’t intend on drinking or going too all out).

Thank you very much
Click to expand...
we are supposed to refrain from servile work on Sunday.
Unless your job entails attending sorority events, you should be fine, as long as you go to Mass.
The commandment does not order us to lie around on the couch all day.
 
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