The Seventh Day

 

One objection to Christianity, appearing in my 1982 notebook, is that it takes too much time.

“Religion may be an admirable thing, but I am too busy meeting the demands of this world to give time and energy to the demands of a hypothetical next.”

This obviously had to do with ritual requirements: attending mass, not studying on Sunday, praying regularly.

Hinduism seems to acknowledge the issue. It speaks of life stages. In mid-life, as a householder, you have family responsibilities. They take precedence. After the children have grown, you become a sanyassin, a seeker, and may retreat to the forest.

Also reassuring is Jesus’s dictum that “the Sabbath is for man, not man for the Sabbath.” 

The full text of the Third Commandment reads:

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates.

Sounds like the intent is to give everyone a holiday, not some new duty. Presumably, then, one is not obligated to take the time off if it becomes a burden rather than a respite.

It would seem to follow that, similarly, prayer is for man’s benefit, not God’s. Not an obligation, but an available grace. 

Saint Theresa, they say, was once upbraided for falling asleep during prayer time. Her response: “Surely God loves me as much asleep as awake.”

It seems perverse, then, to frame it as an obligation. The obligation, rather, is to seek truth, beauty, and the good. That is what life is for, and it might be accomplished best by studying on Sunday.

I am accordingly suspicious of the Catholic Church’s commandment that one has an obligation to attend mass. I honour it, personally, but I am not confident that it is the divine intent. It does not reflect the actual commandment, which speaks only of rest.

Many who attend do not seem to me to be Christians, but Pharisees, who merely want to be seen publicly praying. Public attendance and visible fellowship feels at times like endorsing this hypocrisy. If it feels wrong to take credit for attending mass, and it does, it equally feels wrong to condemn anyone for not attending.

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven….

“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” (Matthew 6:1-6)

The Church of course needs mass attendance for its financial support. That said, it is indeed important to give the church financial support, as the vessel preserving the deposit of faith.

But the point is the leisure of the Sabbath is for contemplation and study. This is true worship: to take the time to ensure that one is on the right path. If one is not, all one does the other six days of the week is wasted or worse. One takes this time each week to seek the true, the good, and, as the third reliable indication of the presence of the divine, the beautiful.

Aside from the Eucharist, this quest may or may not, at the present day, lead you to mass at the nearest parish. It is plausible that one might find something else more valuable: reading the Bible, reading Aquinas, watching Jordan Peterson YouTube videos, going to the art gallery, or a long walk in the snow. Sadly, the music of the mass is now inane. The language of the mass is not particularly inspiring; many think Latin was better, and it certainly lacks the poetry of, say, the King James Bible. The sermon is usually pedestrian and rarely offers new insights.

This may explain why mass attendance is down. In former years, there were fewer alternatives. Getting dressed up and attending was a notable form of entertainment, of diversion. As competition for our attention has gotten fiercer, instead of making it more beautiful or entertaining, the Church has made it more mundane. Fundamental blunder.

Entering a church should feel like entering another world. It should make the next appear more than merely hypothetical. When it does not, we have some justification in seeking our Sabbath elsewhere.