THE CASE FOR SUNDAY

After months of no public Masses, church doors are open again. But in the age of live-streaming Mass directly into homes, why should Catholics continue to attend Mass in person on Sundays?

March 8, 2020: the day on which Catholics of this archdiocese were last obliged to actively participate in the Sunday Eucharist. It remains a surreal reality to contemplate. For the first time in generations, the faithful were dispensed from an obligation that strikes to the heart of their identity as members of the domus Dei – the house of God. This unforeseen and lengthy Eucharistic fast has brought much suffering. However, the collective sense of salvation history, and the hope that arises from it, is too long for us to lose sight of God’s constant activity in the life of His people – even when clouds cover the sky, a common occurrence in southwest Ohio!

Yet now as we have been able to gather once again at Mass, we face another interesting challenge. I imagine that for most, the importance of Sunday has never been in question. Sunday is the day of the Lord, after all, a day dedicated to His praise and glory. However, for others Sunday has sadly morphed into just another day of the week. Certainly this mentality is not the result of the current pandemic, as signs of Sunday’s atrophy have unfortunately grown stronger with each passing

year of each passing decade. Nevertheless, having been precluded from gathering on the day that St. Augustine termed “the Sacrament of Easter,” a day on which Christians from time immemorial exercised their baptismal priesthoods and celebrated the presence of the Risen Lord in their midst, has certainly not helped to stem the tide. Thus, perhaps even for us who have no doubts about Sunday’s significance, a reminder about its true identity and character could be of benefit.

WHAT CASE, THEN, CAN BE MADE IN DEFENSE OF SUNDAY? Well, to begin with the most obvious, it is the veritable “day of the Lord.” In 1998, St. John Paul II wrote an apostolic letter dedicated to the reality of Sunday in the life of the Church. In this letter the pope reflected on the theme of God’s rest as found in Genesis. When God rested from His work on the seventh day it was not a static form of rest, a kind of “divine inactivity;” rather, when God rested, He rested in order to gaze lovingly on all that He created so as to delight in it (Dies Domini 11). God’s rest is oriented towards communion with the creatures He made in His image and likeness, creatures

whose own approach to “rest” should mimic His. Thus, “Sunday rest” cannot merely be seen as a cessation of work, but rather a cessation of work that enables us to celebrate the mystery of God.

Consequently, Sunday is not only the day of the Lord, but also the day of the Church. Granted, there is not a day in the liturgical year – save for Good Friday and Holy Saturday morning – when the Eucharist is not celebrated. However, it is at the Sunday Mass in which the local Church most readily exemplifies its vocation as the “Sacrament of Unity” (Sacrosanctum Concilium 26). It is here that so many “domestic churches,” individual families and households that comprise the principal nucleus of the parish and diocese, gather as one to offer fitting worship to God. It is at the Sunday Eucharist that the Church on earth – you and I – have the opportunity to engage in what St. Augustine called an “exercise of desire,” a looking forward to eventual worship of God in the banquet halls of Heaven. It is for this reason that many of the ancient Church Fathers not only entitled Sunday the “first day of the week,” but also the “eighth day,” a day of unique status that points both to participation in the earthly worship of the Lord, and to that in the world to come.

In a world that suffers from external tragedies and internal angst, the dedication of one day a week to the mental activity of “remembering” is vital to human flourishing.

And this leads us to a final argument in defense of Sunday: it is the day of the Human Person. In a world that suffers from external tragedies and internal angst, the dedication of one day a week to the mental activity of “remembering” is vital to human flourishing. The festive nature of the Sunday Eucharist allows the faithful to put their daily concerns into their proper perspective. As Pope Francis notes, a believer is “essentially ‘one who remembers’” (Evangelii Gaudium 13). We remember that it was on a Sunday that the Lord defeated death; we remember that it was on Sundays that the early Christians gathered to memorialize Christ’s Paschal Mystery; we remember that it is on Sundays that our hearts are to be filled with the joy of the Lord, thus transforming the rest of our week.

Although Catholics are temporarily dispensed from the obligation to assist at Mass on Sundays, we long for the day when that obligation is restored. For an obligation need not be an imposition, but rather an invitation to “never forget” that which makes us who we are: beloved sons and daughters of God, redeemed by Christ, and filled with the Spirit, Who leads us into the joy of our perpetual rest with the Lord.

Planning Ahead In Times of Crisis

The coronavirus pandemic is affecting people both personally and professionally. Are your personal financial affairs in order? Is it time to create or review your estate planning documents?

Issues to Consider

• Do you have a medical power of attorney and a living will? • Who are your powers of attorney? • Have you appointed guardians for your children? • Do you have the appropriate beneficiaries designated on your life insurance policies, pensions and IRAs? • What are the benefits of a revocable trust?

The Benefits of Planning

• Avoid probate which can be costly, time consuming and public. • Avoid disputes over guardians for minors. • Decide how your estate is distributed, so a court does not make the decision. • Minimize tax liability.

Meet with DBL Law attorneys to customize an estate plan to meet your needs.

Drew Emmert aemmert@dbllaw.com

Kelly Holden kschoening@dbllaw.com Ryan Whitaker rwhitaker@dbllaw.com

Cincinnati 513.241.4110 Northern Kentucky 859.341.1881 Louisville 502.572.2500

SEIZE THE MOMENT TACKLING THE TALL TASK OF PARENTHOOD

How did you learn your prayers? Maybe it was from an elementary school teacher, a children’s book or a pious grandmother. Or, perhaps you learned your prayers from a kindly priest, a Sunday school catechist or a friend. I learned mine from my dad.

CHILDHOOD MEMORIES You should know something about my dad: He is the hardest-working and most selfless man I know. He would come home from work every night completely exhausted, yet he still found the energy to put his four sons to bed and pray with them.

Prayer time is one of my fondest memories as a child. I remember getting the giggles and holding my breath to keep from derailing everything. I remember my mind wondering to other places and then being shocked to discover that all the prayers had been said. What I don’t remember is my dad ever getting impatient with us during prayer time.

BIG SHOES TO FILL Now I’m a dad, and I’m trying to live up to my dad’s example. It’s not easy. I lose my patience when my children avoid getting ready for bed, or when they decide, as I’m tucking them in, that they’re hungry, they need to use the bathroom, they need a drink, they need to find that stuffed animal they haven’t played with in years. Sometimes I’m so exasperated by the whole ordeal that I don’t even want to pray, and I rush through our prayers so I. Can. Just. Be. Done.

I was convinced that this nightly routine of doing what I can – sometimes failing, sometimes not – was having little impact on my children. I would think to myself, “I’m not doing this the way my dad did.”

WHAT IS ENOUGH? I was especially concerned about my autistic son, who refused to say his prayers out loud with us. I would wonder, “Is he even learning them?”

Then I overheard him playing with his younger sister one day. They were putting their toys to sleep, and he began leading the toys in prayer – like he was daddy. To my surprise, he said every prayer in the same order we say them in, and he knew every word. It was beautiful.

My son taught me a lesson that day: Sometimes the best you can do is show up. And that’s okay.

THE PERFECT PARENT We have many pressures and expectations placed on us as parents. We are the child’s first experience of who God is. We are the primary educators of our children. Our homes are supposed to be a domestic church. Our marriages are supposed to be an image of Jesus’ own love for the Church, and our families are supposed to be an icon of the Trinity. That’s a lot.

Then we get on social media and see how “perfect” everyone else’s family is, and it’s enough to make you want to just give up and quit. Icon of the Trinity? I’ll never live up to that ideal.

THE GOSPEL TRUTH You’re right, you won’t – not without Jesus. You certainly won’t if you don’t ever try. And at any rate, children don’t need perfect parents. There’s no such thing! Children just need parents who make the effort. Parents who pray when they don’t want to. Parents who love their children enough to even care what they do. Parents who make mistakes, but then apologize and try to do better the next time.

I’m not talking about the bare minimum. I’m talking about seizing the moment, trying your best, and giving yourself a break. If you bring your imperfect self to meet the overwhelming task of parenthood, Jesus can work with that. He can use that. He can gently shape and mold that until you become the kind of parent you were meant to be.

My hope is firmly rooted in that truth. It’s the only way I’ll be like my dad one day.

NICHOLAS HARDESTY creates content and leads workshops for Contagiously Catholic, an archdiocesan initiative that seeks to empower parishes and schools to equip the laity for evangelization.