The first reading today we hear,
If you hold back your foot on the sabbath from following your own pursuits on my holy day; If you call the sabbath a delight, and the LORD’s holy day honorable....
For us as Christians, the Sabbath is Sunday the day of resurrection. When I was a child it was easy. No one much worked on Sunday and everything was closed. Now it is much more difficult. Everything is open and many people are forced to work.
In 1998, Pope John Paul II published the apostolic letter Dies Domini (The Day of The Lord) In an attempt to remind us of the importance of setting a date aside each week in which our primary focus is God. All three of the most common monotheistic religions recognize such a day: For Moslems-Friday, for Jews-Saturday, for Christians-Sunday. Each recognizes that is not simply about God, it is also about the way we are created. The human being is not created to work seven days a week. We are not machines. We are spiritual beings.
Perhaps one of the things we should do this Lent, in the category of prayer, is to focus on trying as best we can to turn Sunday back into a day dedicated to the Lord. Even if we work a job that requires us to work on Sunday, we can still find ways to change the way we live the day so that we remain focused on God
