The core theme is to explain the principles behind observing Sundays and holy days of obligation in Christianity, emphasizing that these days are for human benefit and spiritual well-being, not rigid adherence to outdated rules.
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Back when I lived in California, I would
often go to Jiffy Lube, an oil change
place on Sunday mornings. I'd go to
Early Mass just like I did every week.
And then when my car needed an oil
change, I'd stop at Jiffy Lube
afterwards. It was very convenient.
Early Sunday morning, I was usually the
first customer and didn't have to wait.
But then I moved back to my hometown in
Arkansas and found things were
different. The local Jiffy Lubes weren't
open on Sunday morning. When I
discovered that, I couldn't have been
more pleased. Let's get into [Music]
it. Howdy, folks. If you like this
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you can help me keep making this
podcast. And you can get early access to
patreon.com/jimmypodcast. A lot of
people have questions about what they
can and can't do on Sunday and other
holy days of obligation. Is it okay to
work? Uh what kinds of work can you do?
Can you mow your lawn? Is it okay to go
shopping? How about going out to a
restaurant? I get a lot of questions
like this, and so I thought I'd do a
video to answer
them. The starting point for
understanding the principles behind the
Christian celebration of Sunday is the
Jewish Sabbath that preceded it. In the
Ten Commandments, we read, "Remember the
Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days
you shall labor and do all your work,
but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the
Lord your God. on it. You shall not do
any work, you or your son, or your
daughter, your male servant, or your
female servant, or your livestock, or
the sojourer who is within your gates.
For in six days the Lord made the heaven
and earth, the sea, and all that is in
them, and rested on the seventh day.
Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath,
and made it holy. Now, because of its
place in the Ten Commandments, some
later Jews took this commandment in an
overly strict sense. And by the time of
the first century, this was definitely
the case. We thus read of multiple
instances in the Gospels where Jesus's
opponents criticized him for doing
things like healing on the Sabbath,
which prompted Jesus to point out that
they were placing what they understood
to be the requirements of the Sabbath
above human needs. For Jesus, taking
care of human needs was what was
ultimately important. And in Luke 14, we
read about how Jesus healed a man with
dropsy, also known as edema or swelling,
on the Sabbath. Jesus responded to the
lawyers and Pharisees saying, "Is it
lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?"
But they remained silent. Then he took
him, that's the man with the dropsy, and
healed him and sent him away. And he
said to them, "Which of you having a son
or an ox that has fallen into a well on
a Sabbath day will not immediately pull
him out?" And they could not reply to
these things. The answer to Jesus's
question of who wouldn't pull a son or
an ox out of a well on the Sabbath was
nobody. All of Jesus's hearers would
have pulled out their son or their ox
out of a well, even on the Sabbath.
That's why no one could answer him. They
didn't want to admit that they
themselves would take care of human and
animal needs on the Sabbath. Because if
they did admit that, then they would
have to admit that Jesus was right to
take care of human needs by healing
people on the Sabbath. In another
passage, Mark 2, Jesus's opponents have
been criticizing him for letting his
disciples pluck grain on the Sabbath to
satisfy their human need of hunger. And
on this occasion, Jesus tells them, "The
Sabbath was made for man, not man for
the Sabbath." So the Son of Man is Lord
even of the Sabbath. This establishes
two important principles. The first is
that the Sabbath was made for man, not
man for the Sabbath. This principle
helps us get our priorities right. Man
was not made for the Sabbath, which
means that the Sabbath doesn't take
priority over man. You don't have to
bend human nature and human needs to fit
the supposed requirements of the
Sabbath. Instead, the Sabbath was made
for man to help man. And so, if there's
a conflict between a human need and the
Sabbath, it's the Sabbath that needs to
bend, not man. From this principle,
Jesus derives the second that the son of
man is Lord even of the Sabbath. In
other words, as the son of man, Jesus
has the authority of a lord over the
Sabbath. That is, he gets to make or
abolish rules for it. And he's already
indicated what his priority is. It's
taking care of human needs. So, this is
an important principle each one of us
should remember. We shouldn't be getting
scrupulous about what it's okay to do or
not do on Sundays. Jesus is the Lord of
the Day, and he says it was made for us,
not the other way around. And so if
doing something takes care of a
legitimate human need, it can be done on
Sunday. You don't have to go to great
lengths to avoid doing things on Sunday
that you need to. We're not supposed to
be scrupulous about this. We also need
to remember that Jesus shared his
authority with the disciples. Thus, in
Matthew 18, we read, "Truly I say to
you, whatever you bind on earth shall be
bound in heaven, and whatever you loose
on earth shall be loosed in heaven."
Binding and loosen refers to the ability
to establish and abolish laws for the
community. So Jesus gave the church the
authority to regulate the way days like
Sunday are to be observed, which will be
important for our discussion going forward.
forward.
One of the things that's important to
know is that the Jewish Sabbath is not
the same thing as the Christian
celebration of Sunday. They involve
related principles, but Sunday is not
the Christian Sabbath. The Sabbath has
not been moved. It is and always has
been Saturday and it was binded on the
Jewish people prior to the time of
Christ. But Sunday is not the same
thing. The Catechism of the Catholic
Church states, "The Sabbath, which
represented the completion of the first
creation, has been replaced by Sunday,
which recalls the new creation
inaugurated by the resurrection of
Christ. This shift can be a bit
confusing given the presence of the
Sabbath and the Ten Commandments, which
is also known as the Decalogue or 10
words. Many people have the idea that
the ten commandments are unalterable and
binding on everyone. And that's true
when it comes to most of them, but not
when it comes to the Sabbath command.
The Catechism of the Council of Trent
explains, "The other commandments of the
Decalogue are precepts of the natural
and perpetual law under all
circumstances unalterable. Whence,
notwithstanding the abrogation of the
law of Moses, all the commandments
contained in the two tables are observed
by the Christian people, not because
Moses so commanded, but because they
agree with the law of nature, by the
dictates of which men are impelled to
their observance. Whereas this
commandment touching the sanctification
of the Sabbath, if considered as to the
time of its observance, is not fixed and
unalterable, but susceptible of change,
and belongs not to the moral, but
ceremonial law. Neither is it a natural
principle, for we are not taught or
formed by nature to give external
worship to God on the Sabbath rather
than on any other day. But from the time
the people of Israel were liberated from
the bondage of Pharaoh, they observed
the Sabbath
day. So natural law doesn't require that
we give worship to God on one particular
day rather than some other. As a result,
even the Israelites didn't observe this
day until they came out of Egypt during
the Exodus. Consequently, we're not
obliged to observe the Sabbath. Instead,
we're obliged to honor the moral
principles that lie underneath the
observance of the Sabbath. The Catechism
of Trent
continues, "The worship of God and the
practice of religion which are comprised
in this precept have the natural law for
their basis. Whereas it is natural for
us to give some time to the worship of
God, a proof of which is the fact that
we find among all nations certain
regular and public festivals consecrated
to the performance of the rights and
simnities of religion. For it is natural
to man to give some time to necessary
functions such as bodily repose, sleep,
and other such matters. So also does the
same nature require that sometime be
allowed to the mind to recruit its
energies in the contemplation of God,
and thus as some portion of time ought
to be consecrated to divine things and
paying the worship due to the deity.
This no doubt appertains to the moral
law. The apostles therefore resolved to
consecrate the first day of the seven to
divine worship and called it the Lord's
day. So the apostles consecrated Sunday
as the Lord's day and that is what
Christians are celebrated. It isn't the
same thing as the Jewish Sabbath but a
parallel celebration based on the
resurrection of Jesus Christ. When it
comes to what is to be done or avoided
on this day, the Catechism of Trent
focuses not on the external behaviors
themselves, but on the principle that
underlies them. After quoting the words
from the Bible that says you, your
family, and your servants are to have
the day off, it says, "In these words,
we are taught in the first place to
avoid altogether whatsoever may
interfere with the divine worship. For
it is easy to perceive that every manner
of survile work is forbidden, not
because it is improper or evil of its
own self, but because it withdraws our
mind from the divine worship, which is
the end of the
commandment. This passage refers to a
concept known as survile work, which
we'll come back to. But the important
thing to note is that surviile work
isn't forbidden for its own sake. It's
not an evil. Instead, the catechism says
that surviile work withdraws the mind
from the worship of God, which is what
the Sunday celebration is all about. So,
the reason that survi work was to be
avoided on Sunday was not that it was a
bad thing, but that it interfered with
divine worship. It's the underlying
principle that's
important. When they encounter older
texts like this, a lot of people wonder
what survile work is. This isn't
surprising since survile work is not a
phrase we use today. So, a lot of people
won't be familiar with it. It's also a
phrase that isn't used in the church's
current laws regarding Sunday, as we'll
see. That's why you won't encounter the
phrase in current church documents.
However, we can clear up what it is
fairly easily. The term survi comes from
the Latin word servous, which means
slave, servant, or surf. So, survile
work is the kind of work that a slave, a
servant, or a surf does. This was
understood to be physical labor in
contrast to mental labors. For example,
the section on the third commandment in
the catechism of St. Pius I 10th states.
Question, what does the third
commandment forbid? Answer. The third
commandment forbids survile works and
any other works that hinder the worship
of God. Question, what survile works are
forbidden on festivals? Answer. The
surviile works forbidden on festivals
are those works called manual. That is
those material works in which the body
has more part than the mind. Such for
instance as are ordinarily done by
servants, laborers and
artisans. Similarly, the explanation of
the Baltimore catechism says this
question. What are servi works? Answer.
Servi works are those which require
labor rather of body than of mind.
Survile that is work which was formerly
done by the slaves. Therefore writing,
reading, studying etc are not survile
because they were not the work of
slaves. Now even at the time it was
recognized that there were situations in
which you could do physical labor on a
Sunday. The explanation of the Baltimore Catechism
