What work must we refrain from on Sunday?

[stellatum]

Now and then someone posts a question here about working on Sunday, and Fr. Serpa responds that it is only manual labor that we must refrain from. This is not what the Church teaches. Here is canon law.

“Can. 1247: On Sundays and other holy days of obligation, the faithful are obliged to participate in the Mass.
Moreover, they are to abstain from those works and affairs which hinder the worship to be rendered to God, the joy proper to the Lord’s day, or the suitable relaxation of mind and body.”

It would be good if Fr. Serpa would post a clarification. Thanks.

 

[Fr.Vincent_Serpa]

Hi,

From its early history the Church has insisted on the necessity of keeping holy the Lord’s day by attending Mass on Sunday. But it has varied somewhat on the matter of rest. The Original Catholic Encylopedia notes:

“The obligation of rest from work on Sunday remained somewhat indefinite for several centuries. A Council of Laodicea, held toward the end of the fourth century, was content to prescribe that on the Lord’s Day the faithful were to abstain from work as far as possible. At the beginning of the sixth century St. Caesarius, as we have seen, and others showed an inclination to apply the law of the Jewish Sabbath to the observance of the Christian Sunday. The Council held at Orleans in 538 reprobated this tendency as Jewish and non-Christian. From the eighth century the law began to be formulated as it exists at the present day, and the local councils forbade servile work, public buying and selling, pleading in the law courts, and the public and solemn taking of oaths.”

Today, we try to avoid all unnecessary work on Sunday. The canon you sighted leaves a good deal of leeway because of the varied situations people find themselves in. For the most part, we are no longer an agrarian society and live under the tyranny of the clock. For many people this means that one is allowed to perform many tasks that just need to be done—especially those tasks that people simply can’t do on work days. There is obviously a tension here. Even those who must perform such work on Sundays still have the obligation to live that day in a way that honors its significance beyond the attendance of Mass. This is something that each person must resolve for himself.

Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P.