Omaha Archbishop reminds faithful on the meaning of Sunday observance

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Working with religious education of children and adults I see a bad trend: the over managed life. So much so that people are putting their social and personal activities above their religious duties and relationship with God. The Third Commandment is no longer holding sway; the Church's teaching on keeping Sunday for worship and family seeming is out the window. Of course, people strenuously rebut this accusation. Truth be told, you can't deny that there are activities competing with a proper Catholic observance of Sunday. Praying in Church --with a stable faith community-- is not merely an obligation (speaking of Sunday Mass as "an obligation" is a mediocre way of approaching the question of faith, relationship with God and Church observance).

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Archbishop George Lucas, the Omaha Archbishop wrote to his priests and others about keeping Sunday for prayer and families activities and to not schedule sports and other "work stuff on Sundays so to distract from what we are to do: worship God. This is not a policy; this is a teaching, this is guidance for the good of the person. Read what Archbishop Lucas has to say about keeping the Sunday Sabbath. 


Lucas is not creating his own teaching. Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, told us to keep the Sabbath. Lucas follows, like we all ought to follow, the guidance of the Church. As Andrew and Peter and John followed Christ; we follow authentic teachers in the Church because of their credibility. Pope John Paul II wrote an apostolic letter in 1998 to the Church On Keeping the Lord's Day Holy (Dies Domini).

Sunday is not a catch up day (no matter how tempting it is to do the laundry, wash the car, weed the garden). Sunday is a day of worship of God and to rest the mind and body. We need real time to restore ourselves in an era when we are over work and anxiety prone.

The news story is here.

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Paul A. Zalonski is from New Haven, CT. He is a member of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, a Catholic ecclesial movement and an Oblate of Saint Benedict. Contact Paul at paulzalonski[at]yahoo.com.

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This page contains a single entry by Paul Zalonski published on September 12, 2011 1:48 PM.

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