What does "day of rest" mean?

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spunjalebi

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We know that Sundays are supposed to be a day of rest. Meaning, if one does not have to, don’t work, just stay home after church, etc.

What I am wondering is how “far” (for lack of a better word) do we take “day of rest.” My church every summer has a large parish picnic that is held after the last Mass on a Sunday. People show up in droves because it’s family-friendly and a lot of fun. Does this violate “day of rest”?

The fall and early winter is basically sports every Sunday. We all know that people host football parties, Superbowl parties, etc. These are usually on Sundays. If someone attends one of these, are they violating the day of rest?

In high school I was in plays for theater and our last performance was on a Sunday afternoon. If a student is Catholic and is participating in a play, does that mean they should refrain from attending the last performance? I remember a couple of the students in one of the plays I was in were Mormon and their parents almost didn’t let them finish the final play performance. They ended up doing it but had to leave immediately after, and couldn’t help with deconstructing the set and cleaning up.

What happens when someone has their wedding on a Sunday, and you’re invited to go?

Suppose you are in a hunting family-- and trust me, being married into one, it’s really important-- should you refrain from hunting on Sundays?

These are just a few scenarios that come to mind. I know with the Mormon students I mentioned, they weren’t allowed to leave their houses on Sundays because they believed it was a day of rest. All they were allowed to do was to go to church, outside of fulfilling their theater obligation. Is that the same for us-- we should only go to church, and then stay home until Monday?
 
We are to give the day to God. A church picnic is definitely a day given to God. Even a football game is ok because it is leisure. Skipping church to work is not resting. Going to Mass on Saturday so you can work on Sunday is ok.

Our very devout Jewish friends do take it to mean they cannot do anything. I had friends that would not use an elevator because they considered pushing the buttons as work.
 
dconklin said:
We are to give the day to God. A church picnic is definitely a day given to God. Even a football game is ok because it is leisure. Skipping church to work is not resting. Going to Mass on Saturday so you can work on Sunday is ok.

Our very devout Jewish friends do take it to mean they cannot do anything. I had friends that would not use an elevator because they considered pushing the buttons as work.
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Not everyone has the option of going to church every weekend…I once worked a job where I had to work the ENTIRE weekend, and couldn’t go to church. Trust me, it did suck. But it’s what I had to do.

How do you define what is leisure versus what is work? Does leisure necessarily mean the day is a day of rest?
 
“Day of rest” can mean just about whatever you want it to, as you point out.

What do you think it should mean?

Should it be a day set aside for worship of God? I think so. Should it be a day to remind us of our future heavenly rest in eternity? I think so.

Should we turn off the TV and practice more family living? I think so.

What you’re seeing is the progressive secularization of Sundays, especially by people who have no religious affiliation at all, to begin with. This secularization is largely based on the rejection of the authority of the Catholic Church, especially starting with the Reformation. So, even in your averae Protestant church or congregation, Sunday worship is viewed not as an obligation, but as a good idea – to ensure a wide degree of separation from the position of the Catholic Church on this matter.

So, there’s the view within the Catholic Church and outside of it in the remainder of Christendom; then there the view outside of all Christian churches. Judaism and Islam worship on other days, Muslims use Friday, to ensure a good degree of separation from Jews and Christians

God bless the Jews, Judaism has developed a lot of rituals in the home to make the Sabbath a special day. It is observed as a day of celebration and when possible special food is eaten, and such to ensure that the day is properly observed. I don’t know, but I think that perhaps even synagogue worship is probably optional. The Sabbath is a family day, of high order.

So, do Catholics have a way to go in developing traditions to reinforce the meaning and observance of Sunday? Yes, a long way to go.
 
I think it means exactly what it says - a day to stop being “busy”.Every day after school, my daughter,and so many other young mothers are chained to their cars, ferrying children to all their after-school activities, rushing home from work to prepare a family meal, bring the washing in, etc etc. No time to stop and just “be”.
It means a break in your normal routine, and if that involves time given to family activities, then that is fine. Not necessarily a day to be spent in driving children to different places so that they can be with THEIR friends. A day to be spent quietly, with no stress, and preferably with one’s family, extended and nuclear.

My grandmother, who was born in 1883, had to spend her Sundays sewing quietly in “the parlour” and reading, or listening to, religious works. I had an uncle who would not do any gardening on Sundays simply because he used to say he enjoyed it too much.

I personally don’t think we have to don hair shirts to properly observe the day of Rest, but I do feel, and very strongly so, that we should cease from our routine “busy-ness” on that one day. Live those hours differently.
Now that I am a grandmother, I like to spend my Sundays firstly by attending the Latin Mass which means a long drive - (and I am so glad that there are no prohibitions on driving a car as there are if you are an observant Jew); and after that, and perhaps a cup of coffee somewhere on the way home, I like to spend the afternoons with my lacework, my books, and also in preparing afternoon tea, or a meal to be shared with whichever of my children and grandchildren are free to visit. It’s always a lovely peaceful day and I enjoy it.

One thing I do not do on Sundays, unless it is absolutely necessary for some reason,is to visit a shopping centre.
 
spunjalebi said:
We know that Sundays are supposed to be a day of rest. Meaning, if one does not have to, don’t work, just stay home after church, etc.

What I am wondering is how “far” (for lack of a better word) do we take “day of rest.”
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I think that one way to look at this is to look at the difference between “work” and “rest.” Work is something we do. Part of rest is to refrain from doing. When God says “Be still and know that I am God,” He is inviting us to enjoy the knowledge of Himself that is part of our relationship with Him.
I think we fail to understand what rest truly is when we look at it outside of its context. The context of rest is the relationship we not only have with God but with one another. Oftentimes our labors and our work is oriented toward producing things that are material, and while these material things are good and necessary and can help us to enjoy our relationships(such as changing the oil in your car so that your car runs well, enabling you to drive to a friend’s house to enjoy their company), the focus is on the relationship itself. The means are our efforts and our work, but the end is the relationships that our efforts and our work cause to thrive and to grow.
It’s like planting a seed and then reaping the harvest. Sunday is a time to reap the harvest and enjoy the fruits of our labors instead of spending yet another day out in the field plowing and weeding and watering and planting. Ecclesiastes talks about seasons and certainly there is a time for rest.
Rest is the context in which we can focus not on the things that we do for one another, and do for God, but on one another, and on God. Rest is a time where we can acknowledge the distinction between work and relationships. Both are necessary. If you spend five days a week going to work to earn a living, then why would it be at all extraordinary to devote one day a week to relationships, to the exclusion of “work?”
The Sabbath is a day given us by God which enables us to live out the Greatest Commandment. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, strength, and your neighbor as yourself. I think it’s rather generous of God to mandate only one day out of seven for this, when love is something we are called to do constantly
 
Then what is considered “work” versus “rest”? After all, the parish picnic I mentioned could be considered a day of rest to some, but not to others.
 
If we get too legalistic, too much like the Pharisees, we will not be able to put out a house fire because firemen cannot work on Sunday. Hospitals would have to kick the patients out on Sundays becuase it is against God’s law for a nurse or doctor to work.

He said to them, "Which one of you who has a sheep that falls into a pit on the sabbath will not take hold of it and lift it out? (Matthew 12:11)

Come on now… Someone has to turn the burgers over or they will burn on the grille, even if they are being cooked on a Sunday at a barbeque. And someone has to be there to answer the 911 calls and staff the hospital emergency room. Or we can just be like the Mormons mentioned by one of the posters in this thread, and we can just stay at home and refuse to whipe our behinds after we sit on the toilet because it might be considered work.

*He said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he was in need and he and his companions were hungry? How he went into the house of God when Abiathar was high priest and ate the bread of offering that only the priests could lawfully eat, and shared it with his companions?” Then he said to them, "The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath. (Mark 2:25-27)*If we do any work on the Sabbath it should be out of love for each other, turning the burgers over so that our family can eat because we love our family, stitching up people in the emergency room because they are God’s children and need help and going out to enjoy God’s creation because God created it for man, not the other way around.
bluecake said:
I had an uncle who would not do any gardening on Sundays simply because he used to say he enjoyed it too much.
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I have to say that I think this is a rediculous position to take, that we should not enjoy ourselves on Sunday. Consider that the word “Recreation” means “re-creation.” Rest does not mean lack of movement and it certainly does not mean self denial.

Enjoying oneself on Sunday is not a sin. God made the sabbath for man, not the other way around.

-Tim-
 
Yes - I do agree with you there, about Uncle Lionel! But he was such a lovely, gentle man, and he loved his garden, working in it nearly every day. It was just a personal discipline he observed, the family used to tease him about it, and he took it all in good spirit.
That was my point, in saying that I, personally, don’t think we need to don hair shirts on Sundays!
Also I should mention that he was just a little younger than my grandmother, and they lived in a definitely Victorian society in India, he was not a laid-back Aussie!
I suppose though, that it must have influenced me, because I too, have an aversion to doing something on Sunday which I enjoy very much on other days, namely visiting shopping centres! I am not set in concrete on that, but I prefer not to go there.
The other thing I should probably say, to clarify my opinion, is that my mother was Jewish.She was not ultra-orthodox, and my father, and my grandmother, who lived with us,were of course, Catholic - but you cannot grow up in such a household without developing deeply ingrained attitudes to the observance of the Sabbath.
Other things too: to this day, many years after her death, I will not allow my meat and dairy purchases to be bagged together at the supermarket! Instinctively I separate them, it’s not something conscious that I look out for.

We are all the product of our history, and my own was particularly rich in both traditions. I like the idea that Sundays are “different” and there are some things that you don’t do on that day.
 
Tim, that was an interesting response…it’s definitely given me some things to think about.

I do agree that we shouldn’t be too legalistic, but I also want to get something defined. I have personally decided that I won’t work on Sundays again, and I won’t do unnecessary “work” activities on a Sunday. However, if I was invited to a bridal or baby shower (soon to happen within the year), a wedding, a barbecue, picnic, “family” related things I would go to it. I don’t think going shopping is very appropriate since it’s an errand (work).
 
spunjalebi said:
We know that Sundays are supposed to be a day of rest. Meaning, if one does not have to, don’t work, just stay home after church, etc.

What I am wondering is how “far” (for lack of a better word) do we take “day of rest.” My church every summer has a large parish picnic that is held after the last Mass on a Sunday. People show up in droves because it’s family-friendly and a lot of fun. Does this violate “day of rest”?

The fall and early winter is basically sports every Sunday. We all know that people host football parties, Superbowl parties, etc. These are usually on Sundays. If someone attends one of these, are they violating the day of rest?

In high school I was in plays for theater and our last performance was on a Sunday afternoon. If a student is Catholic and is participating in a play, does that mean they should refrain from attending the last performance? I remember a couple of the students in one of the plays I was in were Mormon and their parents almost didn’t let them finish the final play performance. They ended up doing it but had to leave immediately after, and couldn’t help with deconstructing the set and cleaning up.

What happens when someone has their wedding on a Sunday, and you’re invited to go?

Suppose you are in a hunting family-- and trust me, being married into one, it’s really important-- should you refrain from hunting on Sundays?

These are just a few scenarios that come to mind. I know with the Mormon students I mentioned, they weren’t allowed to leave their houses on Sundays because they believed it was a day of rest. All they were allowed to do was to go to church, outside of fulfilling their theater obligation. Is that the same for us-- we should only go to church, and then stay home until Monday?
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It means , no unnecessary servile work. It does not mean - physical activity recreational in nature.
 
it means any activity that is not the job you get paid for
it does not mean staying in bed (or on the couch in front of TV) all day Sunday but try telling that to my family
 
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