Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday
"Without Sunday we cannot live"
... we cannot live without joining together on Sunday to celebrate the Eucharist. We would lack the strength to face our daily problems and not to succumb.
...
The Sunday precept is not, therefore, an externally imposed duty, a burden on our shoulders. On the contrary, taking part in the Celebration, being nourished by the Eucharistic Bread and experiencing the communion of their brothers and sisters in Christ is a need for Christians, it is a joy; Christians can thus replenish the energy they need to continue on the journey we must make every week. — Homily of Pope Benedict XVI, Sunday, May 29, 2005.But Sunday IS an externally imposed duty not commanded by God! It is a duty imposed by the Catholic Church, a Tradition of men which cannot be found in the Bible. Sunday sacredness is simply not a precept of God, it is a precept of men.
Pope Benedict XVI Calls Sunday
"The Primordial Holy Day"73. ... To lose a sense of Sunday as the Lord's Day, a day to be sanctified, is symptomatic of the loss of an authentic sense of Christian freedom, the freedom of the children of God. (206) Here some observations made by my venerable predecessor John Paul II in his Apostolic Letter Dies Domini (207) continue to have great value. Speaking of the various dimensions of the Christian celebration of Sunday, he said that it is Dies Domini with regard to the work of creation, Dies Christi as the day of the new creation and the Risen Lord's gift of the Holy Spirit, Dies Ecclesiae as the day on which the Christian community gathers for the celebration, and Dies hominis as the day of joy, rest and fraternal charity.
Sunday thus appears as the primordial holy day, when all believers, wherever they are found, can become heralds and guardians of the true meaning of time. ...
74. Finally, 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. — Pope Benedict XVI, Apostolic Exhortation SACRAMENTUM CARITATIS, February 22, 2007.
Pope Benedict XVI implies that Sunday, the first day of the week, (traditionally called Dies Domini, the Lord's day) is the sanctified holy day, "with regard to the work of creation." This directly contradicts scripture:
Gen 2:2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
Gen 2:3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.Exo 20:8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Exo 20:9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
Exo 20:10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
Exo 20:11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.The seventh day sabbath is the primordial (original) holy day, blessed and sanctified by God at the end of creation week, not Sunday the first day! To be "heralds and guardians of the true meaning of time" one would have to keep holy the seventh day sabbath (Isa. 58:12-14), Saturday, established at creation, and directed by God in His Ten Commandments!
Pope Benedict XVI is referring back to the following by Pope John Paul II:
2. ... (3) For Christians, Sunday is "the fundamental feastday", (4) established not only to mark the succession of time but to reveal time's deeper meaning. — Dies Domini, Apostolic Letter of May 31, 1998. [see the Latin below]
2. ... (3) Christianis namque «est primordialis dies festus», (4) cuius est non modo temporis signare progressionem, sed ipsius etiam altum recludere sensum. — Dies Domini (Latin).
19. ... In the light of this constant and universal tradition, it is clear that, although the Lord's Day is rooted in the very work of creation and even more in the mystery of the biblical "rest" of God, ... — Dies Domini.
Without the Lord
and without the day that belongs to him,
life does not flourish.“Sine dominico non possumus!” Without the Lord and without the day that belongs to him, life does not flourish.
... for the early Church, the first day increasingly assimilated the traditional meaning of the seventh day, the Sabbath. We participate in God’s rest, which embraces all of humanity. Thus we sense on this day something of the freedom and equality of all God’s creatures. — Homily of Pope Benedict XVI, Sunday, 9 September 2007
God's biblical rest day is the seventh day of the week, Saturday. It is not the first day of the week, Sunday. Scripture never designates the first day of the week as the Lord's day, however, God calls the sabbath "my holy day" (Isa. 58:13) and refers to Himself as Lord "of the sabbath day" (Matt.12:8, Mk 2:28, Lk 6:5).
Sunday is NOT the biblical Sabbath day.
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