Sunday Exception?
Tag: Sunday
Sunday’s Comin’
TEA: Getting More Out Of The Mass…in ten minutes (Dodge City)
As I mentioned yesterday, this past weekend I was in Dodge City, Kansas for SKYAC, the Southern Kansas Young Adult Conference.
During the afternoon, I gave one of the “FED Talks”. For those of you familiar with TED Talks, it was of a very similar format. However, whereas TED Talks are short presentations on Technology, Entertainment and Design, the FED Talks in Kansas were focussed on the subjects of Faith, Evangelization and Discipleship.
My own FED presentation was a version of my talk on “Getting More out of the Mass”. Preparing for a ten-minute talk was a surprisingly time-consuming process! It’s hard to clearly communicate something of value in a restricted time window! It completely validated the quotation which is commonly ascribed to Woodrow Wilson:
“If I am to speak ten minutes, I need a week for preparation;
if fifteen minutes, three days;
if half an hour, two days;
if an hour, I am ready now”
For those of you who would like to hear the full-length version of the talk, I should be giving it in San Diego sometime in May.
Getting More Out Of The Mass (Download)
Why should Protestants go to Church?
A little while ago I was commenting on a friend’s blog where we were discussing the practice of church attendance on Sundays. Given that a lot of Protestants comment on his blog, I posed the following question to all those commenting:
What actually is the Protestant motivation for going to church on Sunday?
Now, this might seem like a silly question, but I asked it due to a certain train of thought that I had noticed during my time in the Protestant world. It’s a train of thought that I feel leads to unavoidable, awkward conclusions…
My weekend
So, I spent this weekend sick in bed. It began with a sore throat Friday night and progressed to my head and chest through the weekend.
Although I’m feeling better than I did, my voice still isn’t great, continuing to sound like Barry White, and I feel rather drained still. As such, I’m not feeling up to recording a video today, sorry. The next one will be posted on Tuesday.
Today has been rather strange in that I haven’t been to Church. I’ve been trying to think of the last time I didn’t get to Mass/Liturgy on a weekend and I think it’s got to be well over a decade. Every now and then I get into a discussion with a non-Catholic concerning the Catholic understanding of the necessity of going to Church, but honestly, if I could find a way to communicate how I currently feel, it would probably be far more compelling of an argument. Deprived of the Bread of Heaven, today seems…incomplete. I feel…hungry.
That is not to say that God has held back the grace today. I have been able to offer up my discomfort for the many intentions of those around me and it really hasn’t been that uncomfortable. I have spent last the time listening to talks, reading books (God bless Peter Kreeft!) and spending time in what Matthew Kelly would call “The Classroom of Silence”.
I had a lot of things that I had planned to do this weekend and I achieved very few of them. In the well-known story of “Mary & Martha”, Martha busies herself and Mary sits at the Lord’s feet and listens and, for this, Jesus says that she chose “the better part”. Sometimes the Lord chooses “the better part” for us. He loves us like that 🙂
Sundays in Scripture
Seventh Day Adventists (SDAs) believe that Christians shouldn’t worship on Sundays and that the Saturday Sabbath is still in effect. In recent weeks I’ve been having a discussion in a Seventh Day Adventist in response to my post Why do Christians worship on Sundays? The exchange has been good and I think it’s well worth a read and I’d invite you to check it out.
I haven’t had much interaction with SDAs before and I hope to do some posts looking at their more interesting doctrinal positions, of which there are quite a few. However, in preparation for this, today I would simply like to do a post where I catalogue all the places in the New Testament where Sunday is mentioned:
1. The Resurrection
All the Gospels record the Resurrection taking place on Sunday (Matthew 28:1-7; Mark 16:2, 9; Luke 24:1; John 20:1).
2. Resurrection Appearances
Jesus appears to His disciples on Sundays (John 20:19, John 20:26).
3. Pentecost
The original Pentecost took place on a Sunday (Lev. 23:16) and therefore so did Pentecost in the New Testament (Acts 2:1). On this day the first sermon is preached, three thousand convert and are baptized.
4. Preaching and celebrating the Eucharist
In Paul’s travels, it is recorded that the Christian community came together to hear Paul preach and break bread (Acts 20:7).
5. Gathered collections
Paul instructed the Corinthians to gather their charitable donations on Sunday (1 Corinthians 16:2).
6. Vision of Heavenly Worship
Jesus gave the apostle John the vision of Revelation on the first day of the week (Revelation 1:10).
Why do Christians worship on Sunday?
I was just speaking to a Seventh Day Adventist about why we celebrate the Eucharist on Sunday. A longer answer could be given, but I thought I’d just post here the quotation I just shared with him from St. Justin Martyr:
We hold our assembly on Sunday because it is the first day [of the week], on which God brought forth the world from darkness and matter. On the same day, Jesus Christ our Saviour rose from the dead. For He was crucified on the day before [Saturday]; and on the day of the Sun [Sunday[ he appeared to His apostles and disciples and taught them these things, which we have submitted to you for your consideration.
– St. Justin Martyr, First Apology (c. AD 150)
If you would like to read a larger extract from St. Justin where he describes Christian worship in Rome during the Second Century, please see the Patristics Section of this website.
