Dear Diane,
Let me make atonement for the priest who "brushed you off" when
you brought him your concerns about the promises you made as a
Seventh Day Adventist. I wish to spend one message on the matter
of Saturday observance and then, in a following message, take up
your other promises.
For Christians, the people of the New Covenant, the Sabbath day
is Sunday, the day of Our Lord's Resurrection. In this we differ
from the people of the Old Covenant, the Jews, who celebrate
their Sabbath on Saturday.
A cursory reading of the four Gospels shows that one of the
principal objections urged by the authorities against Our Lord
Jesus Christ was that He broke the Jewish sabbath. In some, His
alleged failure to observe the sabbath was their chief reason for
refusing to believe: "This man is not from God, for he does not
keep the sabbath" (John 9:16)
Jesus' self-defense was also an implicit affirmation of His
equality with the Father, who through Moses had originally
established the observance of sabbath: "The Son of Man is Lord
even of the sabbath" (Mark 2:28, Matthew 12:8, Luke 6:5).
Roughly put, his words mean, "God started the sabbath; God now
interprets and modifies it."
Christ has prolonged and assured His living, teaching,
sanctifying Presence among us in every place and every age through
His Body which is the Church (Colossians 1:18, 24).
The Church is Christ's fullness, His Body (Ephesians 1:23).
[Right here I must tell you that when Catholics meditate on these
Scriptures, when we read "Church", we think "people", 900 million
of us in union with our Bishops and Christ's Vicar the Pope.] The
Church of the living God is the pillar and bulwark of the truth"
(1st Timothy 3:15). Through the Church, God's manifold wisdom is
made known (Ephesians 3:9). Glory is given to God in the Church
and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21). in the members and
in their Head (Ephesians 4:15f). Christ is our Head and we are
His members because He is our Savior and cherishes us, sanctifying
and washing us clean in the waters of baptism with the preaching
of His Word. This mystery of our union with Christ illumines
every member of the Church, but it shines most splendidly in
married couples because their marriage in Christ is the very symbol
and living reminder of His life giving union with all of us, His
Church (Ephesians 5, passim).
The Body of Christ, His Church, is not a disorganized multitude,
and OKHLOS. It is a people with appointed leaders, a LAOS.
Jesus trained His first leaders, ordained them, and commissioned
them: "All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.
Go, therefore, teach all peoples, baptizing them in the name of
the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them
to observe all that I commanded you; and behold, I am with you
always, until the end of the world" (Matthew 28:18-20)
To his emissaries, Jesus said: "He who hears you, hears me; and he
who rejects you, rejects me; and he who rejects me, rejects Him
who sent me" (Luke 10:16).
The Apostles well understood that in teaching and directing the
Christian people, they exercised God's own authority. So in the
first general meeting of the Apostles after Pentecost, convened
in Jerusalem to deal with problems of the church of Antioch, they
wrote to the Antiochenes of their decision in these words: "It
has seemed good TO THE HOLY SPIRIT and TO US..." (Acts 15:28)
Relying on this same God-given authority, the Church changed the
day of weekly sabbath (the words means not "seventh" but "rest")
from Saturday to Sunday. St. Paul speaks of Sunday meetings (1
Cor. 16:2), and so does St. Luke (Acts 20:7). Before the year
100, the "Teaching of the Twelve Apostles" (Didache, xiv, 1)
commands Sunday Mass attendance. In mid-second century, St.
Justin wrote: "Sunday is the day on which we all gather in a
common assembly, because it is the first day, the day on which
God, changing darkness and matter, created the world; and it is
the day on which Jesus Christ our Savior rose from the dead."
(First Apology, 67).
The "why" of the change of the Lord's Day from Saturday to Sunday
is expressed by St. Ignatius of Antioch at the beginning of the
second century: "Those who walked in ancient customs came to a
new hope, no longer sabbathing but living the Lord's Day, on
which we came to life through Him and through His death." (Letter
to the Magnesians, 8, 1).
By the sixth century, another reason for Sunday observance
besides the Lord's Resurrection became important in Christian
piety: the descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost had taken
place on a Sunday.
Church law on Sunday observance enters the picture between the
sixth and the thirteenth centuries, simply confirming a Christian
tradition already five centuries old.
To sum up: you are not bound to a promise to observe Saturdays.
Jesus and his Church changed that to the observance of Sunday,
the day of his Resurrection.
Sincerely in Christ,
Father Mateo
- Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit -
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