A Catechesis on the Third Commandment in Light of the Resurrection
by Father Andrew Heaslip,
Diocesan Director of Religious Education, Diocesan Coordinator of Digital Media, Director of the TV Mass for the Homebound
In his press release issued on Wednesday of Holy Week restoring the Sunday and holy day Mass obligation, Bishop Conley mentioned that the Southern Nebraska Register would be publishing a catechetical series on this obligation.
In my last article on livestreaming the Mass, I attempted to share my personal, and to some extent, catechetical reflections on why livestreaming the Mass is a blessing, albeit an awkward one, and even more why it is necessarily more valuable to be physically and spiritually present at the Mass whenever it is available.
In this article I’d like to shift from those personal and partly catechetical reflections to a catechesis specifically on the third commandment in light of the Resurrection of Jesus because it is here where we will begin to understand the context of why there is a Sunday Mass obligation in the first place.
The goal of this catechesis, then, is to understand the meaning of the third commandment in the Old Covenant, in order to clearly see how its obligatory nature both continues and is fulfilled in the New Covenant by the practice of keeping holy the Lord’s Day, that is, the day on which the Lord Jesus rose from the dead.
The Third Commandment
In the book of Exodus, we learn that God revealed to the people of Israel on Mt. Sinai the commandment, “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; in it you shall not do any work… for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it” (20:8-11).
We see in this text that the third commandment is deeply tied to the six days of creation. In fact, the word sabbath (šabbāt) means the seventh day of the week and a day of rest; it is derived from the Hebrew word šābat which means “to cease or to rest.” The idea here is that the Sabbath is the day on which God ceased his work of creation in order to bring rest and blessing to the seventh day. Hence, in the Old Covenant, the observance of the Sabbath entailed, among other things, remembrance of the Lord’s work of creation and rest from work and manual labor.
Moreover, like all of the Ten Commandments, the third commandment too was given in the context of God’s work of liberating or redeeming the people of Israel from slavery.
The Decalogue (Ten Commandments) begins with the words, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage” (Ex 20:2). Likewise, the expression of the third commandment in Deuteronomy adds, “You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out thence with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day” (15:5).
We see here that the third commandment is deeply tied also to God’s work of redemption or liberation from slavery, that is, when He freed his people from Egypt and formed a covenant relationship with them on Mt. Sinai. Hence, in the Old Covenant the obligation of remembrance—“You shall remember”—includes God’s work not only of creation but also of redemption.
In the third commandment, then, we not only learn of the sacred importance of the Sabbath and the requirement or obligation to keep it holy through remembrance and rest but also discover the deepest reasons for this obligation: the Sabbath is directly connected to the blessing and holiness of the Lord’s work of creation and to the mighty power of His liberating work of redemption.
Sabbath to Sunday
The first question that ordinarily arises in view of the third commandment to keep holy the Sabbat (that is, the seventh day, Saturday) is why do Christians observe this commandment not on Saturday but on Sunday? Indeed, among the most traditional enumerations of the Commandments in the Church we find the third Commandment expressed, “Remember to keep holy the Lord’s Day.”
In apostolic times we hear this same reference; for example, in the book of Revelation, a book with profound liturgical undertones, St. John says, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day...” (1:10). Likewise, one of John’s disciples, St. Ignatius of Antioch who died around 108 AD says, “those who lived according to the old order of things have come to a new hope, no longer keeping the sabbath, but the Lord’s Day.”
Also, St. Justin Martyr witnessed to this distinctive and ancient Christian practice around the year 155 AD when he wrote, “We all gather on the day of the sun, for it is the first day [as opposed to the seventh day].” What is clear from these and other ancient accounts is that the movement from Sabbath to Sunday, the Lord’s day, was a distinctive characteristic of the early Christian communities from the beginning.
The Resurrection
This radical shift in religious practice should make us pause because in it there is a profound witness to the Resurrection of Jesus, which is the singular reason it occurred. In first century Judaism there was enormous importance attached to the Sabbath and its observance; we see references to this, for example, throughout first century Jewish texts and even in the Gospels themselves. Hence, “only an event of extraordinary impact could have led to the abandonment of the Sabbath and its replacement by the first day of the week” (Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth II).
The extraordinary historical event was the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion, that is, at an unknown moment on the first day of the week, Sunday. Only something this remarkable could have brought about such a change in the deeply rooted religious culture surrounding the Sabbath. This change is one of the most convincing arguments from a historical perspective that something astonishing must have occurred at the beginnings of Christianity.
New Creation and Redemption
This event, the Resurrection, is the reason why Christians observe Sunday instead of the Sabbath. Nevertheless, the deepest meaning of the Sabbath and the commandment to keep it holy is in no way abandoned by Christians but rather fulfilled.
We saw that the Sabbath and the biblical expressions of the third commandment were directly tied to the first creation and to Israel’s redemption from Egypt. These events have been fulfilled in Jesus Christ. The Resurrection of Jesus from the dead on the first day of the week, in fact, begins the New Creation. Indeed, the creation of the visible world and of humanity find their meaning and summit in this new creation in Christ, or St. Paul says, “if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come” (2 Cor 5:17).
Likewise, the paschal mystery of Jesus’ suffering, death, and Resurrection has brought Redemption to the human race. God’s work of liberating His people from slavery, Egypt, and pharaoh has come to fulfillment in His Son, Jesus who has redeemed us from sin, the world, and Satan.
Or, again, as St. Paul says, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us” (Eph 1:7-8). Thus, the ancient meaning of the Sabbath has come to its culmination in the Resurrection of Christ on the first day of the week.
Remembrance and Rest
Likewise the obligations of the third commandment—to remember and to rest—continue in the New Covenant, but now as a living remembrance, especially in the eucharistic liturgy, of God’s supreme work of redemption and of making us a new creation in Christ, and now as a rest not only from work and servile labor but also as a rest which looks forward in hope to definitively “entering into God’s rest” in eternal life (cf. Heb 4:1-11).
This catechesis on the third commandment in light of the Resurrection hopefully helps us to see why there is a perpetual obligation of remembrance and rest on the Lord’s Day.
Likewise, I hope it helps us begin to understand why even when there is a legitimate dispensation from being present at the eucharistic liturgy or even when one is rightly excused from Mass because he or she is physically or morally prevented from attending, the obligations on Sunday of remembering of the Lord’s redeeming work and of rest that looks toward the definitive rest of eternal life can never be dispensed—the third commandment and its evangelical fulfillment come from God.
In the next catechesis on the Sunday and holy day Mass obligation I hope to continue this consideration on remembrance in view of the first precept of the Church: “You shall attend Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation.”
This precept, which though at times can be dispensed as we all experienced during COVID-19, is a grave obligation that requires the faithful to participate in the Eucharistic liturgy because the liturgy is the supreme living remembrance which makes present Jesus’ redeeming work of the cross and Resurrection and, indeed, is carried out according to Jesus’ command, “Do this in remembrance of me” (Lk 22:19).
Editors note: Read "Why do we have an obligation to attend Mass?-II"
