POPE FRANCIS ON THE SABBATH New York Times (From an article by Mark Oppenheimer) In the recent book “Pope Francis: His Life in His Own Words,” two journalists in Argentina asked the man who was then Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, “Do we need to rediscover the meaning of leisure?” Pope Francis replied: “Together with a culture of work, there must be a culture of leisure as gratification. To put it another way: people who work must take the time to relax, to be with their families, to enjoy themselves, read, listen to music, play a sport. But this is being destroyed, in large part, by the elimination of the Sabbath rest day. More and more people work on Sundays as a consequence of the competitiveness imposed by a consumer society.” In such cases, he concludes, “work ends up dehumanizing people.” But in Catholicism, as Pope Francis suggests, the Sabbath actually is supposed to matter — the whole day, not just Mass. For as the catechism teaches, in Paragraph 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.” The Catholic Church has been recovering this teaching at least since 1998, when Pope John Paul II published his apostolic letter “Dies Domini.” There, he writes that “even in those countries which give legal sanction to the festive character of Sunday, changes in socioeconomic conditions have often led to profound modifications of social behavior and hence of the character of Sunday.” Last October, about 250 bishops met in Rome for a conference on the movement called the New Evangelization, which focuses on reawakening faith in those already baptized. One of their conclusions was, “Even though there is a tension between the Christian Sunday and the secular Sunday, Sunday needs to be recovered” — in keeping, they wrote, with John Paul’s “Dies Domini.” Published: April 26, 2013 The Agenda is slowly but surely Grinding forward. The Roman Church is far-reaching in her plans and modes of operation. GC pg. 566
Posted on: Tue, 25 Mar 2014 04:54:46 +0000