Benedict XVI in the catechesis of his general audience in St. Peter’s Square on June 6th, 2012, said:
THE FAMILY: WORK AND CELEBRATION
Preparatory Catecheses
for the Seventh World Meeting of Families
(Milan, May 30 – June 3, 2012)
2177 The Sunday celebration of the Lord's Day and his Eucharist is at the heart of the Church's life. "Sunday is the day on which the paschal mystery is celebrated in light of the apostolic tradition and is to be observed as the foremost holy day of obligation in the universal Church."Of particular interest is the alleged "Biblical Catechesis" for this world meeting, which purports to give sound reasoning from the Bible for replacing God's Sabbath commandment with Sunday. The Catholic Church has long recognized that weekly Sunday keeping to honor the resurrection is not found in the Bible, not commanded by God, or observed by the Apostles. Indeed, on the eighteenth of January, 1562, Gaspar de Fosso, the Archbishop of Reggio, stood before the Council of Trent and declared openly that tradition stood above Scripture, the authority of the church could therefore not be bound to the authority of the Scriptures, because the church had changed Sabbath into Sunday, not by the command of Christ, but by its own authority.
2181 The Sunday Eucharist is the foundation and confirmation of all Christian practice.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church today states clearly that the 10 Commandments cannot be changed by anyone:
2072 Since they express man's fundamental duties towards God and towards his neighbor, the Ten Commandments reveal, in their primordial content, grave obligations. They are fundamentally immutable, and they oblige always and everywhere. No one can dispense from them. The Ten Commandments are engraved by God in the human heart.The above Preparatory Catecheses however, attempts to demonstrate that the Sabbath Commandment was annulled by Jesus, and that Sunday is the 7th day for the Christian, which is to be observed as the new Christian day of rest:
2076 By his life and by his preaching Jesus attested to the permanent validity of the Decalogue.
2079 The Decalogue forms an organic unity in which each "word" or "commandment" refers to all the others taken together. To transgress one commandment is to infringe the whole Law (cf. Jas 2:10-11).
5. E. ... So Sunday should not take the form of an interval from work to be filled with frenetic activities or unusual experiences, but rather a day of rest which opens up to the encounter, lets the other be rediscovered, and makes it possible to dedicate time to family relations and friends and to prayer.That catechesis is patently false. It is impossible for Sunday keeping to fulfill the seventh day sabbath commandment. The Bible quotes Jesus as saying that his law remains unchanged until heaven and earth pass away:
It is particularly urgent nowadays to remember that the day of the Lord is also a day of rest from work. It is greatly to be hoped that this fact will also be recognized by civil society, so that individuals can be permitted to refrain from work without being penalized. Christians, not without reference to the meaning of the Sabbath in the Jewish tradition, have seen in the Lord’s Day a day of rest from their daily exertions.
8. D. 1. ... The seventh day for Christians is the “Lord’s day” [Sunday] because it celebrates the Risen Christ who is present and living in the Christian community, the family and personal life. It is the weekly resurrection. Sunday does not break the continuity with the Hebrew sabbath but brings it to completion.
9. D. 1. ... The sabbath is the day of Jesus’ acts of liberation. Finally, Jesus is the “Lord” of the sabbath. By renewing the work of creation and liberation from evil, Jesus reveals himself as the fullness of life, the end of the commandment regarding the sabbath.
9. E. ... The family is jealous of Sunday, the “day of joy and rest”;
Matt 5:17 (KJV) Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.Yet, the Catechism of the Council of Trent boldly claimed:
18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
But the Church of God has in her wisdom ordained that the celebration of the Sabbath should be transferred to "the Lord's day:" ― The Catechism of the Council of Trent, Issued by order of Pope Pius V, The Third Commandment, pg. 267.As anyone can see, Catholic teaching on its Sundaykeeping Tradition is a confusing tangle of contradictions, but the Bible clearly teaches only the seventh day Sabbath (our Saturday), as commanded by God, to be the sanctified weekly day of rest:
"... is not every Christian obliged to sanctify Sunday and to abstain on that day from unnecessary servile work? Is not the observance of this law among the most prominent of our sacred duties? But, you may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify."
Source:
The Faith of Our Fathers, by James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore, 12th Edition, John Murphy, Baltimore, 1879, pg 111.
So the "New Evangelization" of the Catholic Church promotes their Sunday rest Tradition, but it is only a commandment of the Pope, it is not taught anywhere in the Bible, they know full well there is no "Thus saith the Lord" for Sunday rest.
Cardinal encourages laity to propose civil legislation
Cardinal Ennio Antonelli, the president of the Pontifical Council for Families, speaking Friday, May 4th, 2012 at a conference organized by the group Cultural, Educational and Family Initiatives (ICEF) at the Roman parish of St. Eugene, said regarding Catholic laity:
"They must intervene, he said, “to reconcile
family-work, family and labor unions, family and businesses.” ... Who
must propose legislation in favor of the family? Christians must, and to
do so they must move.” — ZENIT
Pope Decrees Plenary Indulgence For Attending Seventh World Meeting of Families.
The Plenary Indulgence is granted to the faithful
who, with a pure spirit, devoutly participate at one of the
sacred functions taking place during the World Meeting of
Families, including its solemn conclusion. The usual conditions are as
follows: sacramental confession, Holy Communion, and prayer according to
the Holy Father’s intentions.
SUNDAY THE MARK OF CHRISTIAN IDENTITY
On June 1st, 2012, Cardinal Sean Patrick
O'Malley, the Archbishop of Boston, stated in Milan that “a
way of measuring the success of our evangelization must be the loyalty
of our parishioners at the Sunday Eucharist”.
Sant’Ignazio chiama i cristiani, gente che “vive secondo il Giorno del Signore” perche’ si riuniscono nel primo giorno della settimana, dopo il sabato ebraico, a celebrate la resurrezione di Cristo. Le loro vite sono rinnovate da questa sacra adorazione. Come Papa Benedetto dice: “La domenica non e’ solo una sospensione dalle attivita’ ordinarie, ma un tempo in cui i cristiani scoprono la forma eucaristica che la loro vita e’ chiamata ad avere.” Il modo con cui celebriamo la domenica determinera’ il modo con cui vivremo il resto della settimana ed e’ il marchio dell’identita’ cristiana di generazione in generazione.
5. ...
St. Ignatius called Christians people who “live in accord with the Lord’s Day” because they gathered on the first day of the week after the Jewish Sabbath to celebrate Christ’s Resurrection. Their lives were renewed by this sacred worship. As Pope Benedict says, Sunday is not just a suspension of ordinary activities, but a time when “Christians discover the Eucharistic form that their lives are meant to have.”14 The way we celebrate Sunday will affect the way we live the remainder of the week and is a mark of Christian identity from generation to generation.
His Eminence Cardinal O'Malley, "Sanctifying Celebration: The
Family in the Lord's Day": In
original Italian - (Second
source),
Archdiocese of Boston website, Cardinal's
Corner,
The Importance of Sunday Mass
Participation The document in English.
Pope Benedict Declares Sunday The Day Of The Church:
One final point: man, as the image of God, is also called to rest and to celebrate. The account of creation concludes with these words: “And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it” (Gen 2:2-3). For us Christians, the feast day is Sunday, the Lord’s day, the weekly Easter. It is the day of the Church, the assembly convened by the Lord around the table of the word and of the eucharistic Sacrifice, just as we are doing today, in order to feed on him, to enter into his love and to live by his love. — HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS POPE BENEDICT XVI, Bresso Park, Sunday, 3 June 2012.
The Bible never declares the first day of the week to be a weekly feast day or a day of rest for the church, or a weekly Easter, nor does it declare it to be "the Lord's Day", neither is it a weekly convocation day ordered by the Lord. Sunday keeping is a tradition and commandment of men that makes the law of God of no effect.
In defending Sunday, we defend man’s freedom!
Here I would like to recall what I stated in defense of family time, which is threatened by a kind of “overbearance” of work commitments: Sunday is the Lord’s day and man’s day, a day when everyone should be able to be free, free for family and free for God. In defending Sunday, we defend man’s freedom!
God has declared the seventh day sabbath blessed, to be kept holy as the weekly day of rest. The Pope in defiance says no, Sunday, the first day of the week is to be our day of freedom. Freedom from what? God's law? The seventh day (Saturday) sabbath commandment, however, by keeping it holy, is an open declaration that you acknowledge the Lord as the creator God, that you are his faithful obedient servant.
Romans 6:16 (KJV) Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?
By keeping Sunday, whose obedient servant are you? Who commands Sunday observance? Only the papacy.
In October of 2012 at the conclusion of the synod of Catholic Bishops that discussed this "New Evangelization" the Pope stated:
"The new evangelization applies to the whole of the Church’s life. It applies, in the first instance, to the ordinary pastoral ministry that must be more animated by the fire of the Spirit, so as to inflame the hearts of the faithful who regularly take part in community worship and gather on the Lord’s day to be nourished by his word and by the bread of eternal life."
