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24. REMEMBER THE SHABBAT DAY AND KEEP IT HOLY

1. - The celebration of the Saturday, “Israel’s fiancée, contributes to maintain Israel’s identity through the centuries. It is said that it is not Israel the one who has maintained the saturday, but the saturday the one which has maintained Israel. It could be said: it is not the community the one which keeps the saturday, but the saturday the one which keeps the community. But now, what happens with the God’s commandment to keep the saturday? What changes with the Gospel? Is everything reduced to the legal accomplishment of listening the whole mass every sunday and sacred feast? What does Jesus words mean according to which the saturday has been made for the man and not the man for the saturday?.

2. - The Decalogue’s commandment, which establishes the sanctification of God’s day, is interpreted in the Catechism like follows: “The faithful are obliged to participate in the Eucharist the perceptive days, unless that they are excused because a serious reason (for instance, illness, the care of little children) or dispensed by the own pastor (CIC can. 1245); those who deliberately miss this grave obligation commit a grave sin” (n. 2181). But is this what Jesus said to the rich youngster? (Lk 18,20).

3. - The practise of the Saturday (from the Hebrew, Shabbat, to stop, to cease, to rest) appears in the Moses law oldest layers. It is said in the Decalogue: Remember the Shabbat day and keep it holy, For six days you will labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Shabbat for Yahweh your God (Ex 20,8). In the Bible, the saturday is tied to the week’s sacred rhythm, which is closed with a day of rest, of delight (Is 58,13), of meeting (Os 2,13). It is the day of labour resting, with its social and humanitarian dimension, in God’s imitation, who rested in his work (Gn 2,2). It is an alliance sign between God and his people, from generation to generation (Ex 31,13). It is an Exodus memorial: Remember that you were once enslaved in the land of Egypt from where Yahweh, your God, brought out (Dt 5,15).

4. - To sanctify this day there is a holy meeting wherever you live (Lv 23,3). In the Jerusalem temple there is a sacrifice offering (Nm 28,9), set the bread in order before Yahweh on behalf of the Israelites (Lv 24,8). Out of Jerusalem, a meeting takes place in the synagogue, dedicated to the common prayer and the commented Bible lecture.

5. - At home, the rites are basically these: the mother lights two candles on the table. Surrounded by the little children, she asks for God’s blessing, for help to educate her children and for liberation of any evil. Besides, she blesses God, who sanctifies her people with the commandments and orders to light the saturday´s lights. The father makes the sanctification prayer of the day (qiddús) that includes three blessings: the first and the third are a thanksgiving to God for the grapes fruit and the earth’s bread; the second, for the gift of the saturday, recalling its meaning: the creation and the exit from Egypt. The celebration ends with the separation (habbalá): four prayers in which God is blessed for the grapes fruit, the aromatic herbs, the light of the fire and for separating the sacred from the profane.

6. - The Genesis narrative (1,1-2,4) helps God’s people to situate themselves in space and time. It is written (about the fifth century B.C.) by priests exiled in Babylon, who want to maintain Israel’s identity alive. The narrative presents the creation in the liturgical frame of a week that ends with the saturday´s rest. The whole creation appears ordered: the lower beings to the higher ones, all of them ordered to the man and the man ordered to God. The world does not have divinised elements of itself like centre and origin: for instance, the sun and the moon. These serve to measure time, but God is the centre of the time and the world’s origin. The man has with God an autonomous and dependent relationship. His autonomy is maximum: Fill the earth and subdue it (1,28). The psalm 8 says: You have put all things under his feet. From this autonomy the believing people freely accepts a dependency: the saturday, God’s law. The world reveals God’s glory, manifests his word.

7. - In the prophets predication, God denounces the hypocrisy of a cult that forgets the justice and the poor: See the fast that pleases me: breaking the fetters of injustice and unfastening the thongs of the yoke…. Fast by sharing your food with the hungry, bring to your house the homeless, clothe the man you see naked and do not turn away from your own keen (Is 58,6-7). The Lord unmasks the pious farce of fasting and looking for the own interest, striking the chest and oppressing the brethren. Nevertheless, if you stop profaning the Sabbath and doing as you please on the holy day, if you call the Sabbath a day of delight and keep sacred Yahweh’s holy day, if you honour it by not going your own way, not doing as you please then you will find happiness in Yahweh.(Is 58,13-14)

8. - Saturday legislation progressively complicated more and more with the inclusion of a lot of prohibitions: to ignite a fire (Ex 35,3), to gather wood (Ex 15,32), to prepare food (Ex 16,23), to help an animal or a man in danger, to carry weights, to walk more than 1.200 mts, ect. Jesus keeps the saturday (Lk 4,16) but he strongly criticizes the legalism of the Pharisees. Fraternal love is before than the resting material observance.

9. - One saturday Jesus was crossing the cornfields. His disciples felt hungry and began to pick some heads of wheat and eat the grain. When the Pharisees noticed that, they told Jesus: Your disciples are doing what is not licit to do on Saturday. But he told them: Have you not read what David did when he and his men were hungry? He went into the house of God, and ate the bread offered to God, although neither he nor his men had the right to eat it, but only the priests? If you really knew the meaning of the words: it is mercy I want, not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the innocent. Because the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath (Mt 12,1-8; see Dt 23,26; Mt 9,9-13; 1S 21,1 foll.). Besides, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. (Mk 2,27). Even more, you not only will keep the Sabbath, but you also will be fed with the bread of life (Jn 6,51).

10. - To cure on saturday is one of the accusations made to Jesus, who made these things on saturday (Jn 5,16). But doing good works on saturday, doesn’t he imitate his Father who, although he had began the resting period, he continued working in this world?. My Father goes on working and so do I. (Jn 5,17). To cure sick people is one of the Gospel’s signals (Mt 10,8). The Lord went about doing good works. (Acts 10,38).

11. - Because of his resurrection, Jesus joins God’s rest. All of us are called to join such rest: Then, some rest, or Sabbath, is reserved for the people of God (Hb 4,9). Afterwards will be the definitive Sabbath, in which men will rest from their work, to God’s image.

12. - At the beginning, the disciples continue keeping the saturday (Mt 28,1; Mk 15,42; 16,1; Jn 19,42). The saturday meeting serves to announce the Gospel in the jewish environment (Acts 13,14;16,13;17,2;18,4). But then the first day of the week, the Jesus resurrection day, becomes the Church worship day, the day of the breaking of the bread, the day of the Lord (Acts 20,7; Rev 1,10), the community meeting day. This day presents dimensions that the jews used to relate with the saturday, like the wealth sharing (1Co 16,2), the blessing to God, the thanksgiving.

13. - The first day of the week (Lk 24,1.13), the disciples of Emmaus acknowledge Jesus when he broke the bread (24,35). The breaking of the bread is the Eucharist´s oldest name. The expression designs not only the fact of breaking the bread, but the whole meal. The meeting of the community becomes Lord’s dinner due to the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist: On the first day of the week we were together for the breaking of the bread, and Paul, who intended to leave the following day, spoke at length. The conversation lasted until midnight, with many lamps burning in the upstairs room where we were gathered… he broke the bread and ate; after that he kept on talking with them for a long time until daybreak. (Acts 20, 7-11; see 2,42.46). We have here the description of a celebration, presided by Paul. The meeting begins at the beginning of that day, id est, in the night from the saturday to the sunday, according to the jewish counting way. It is necessary to come back to the first communities experience to recover the sense of the saturday, to live Lord’s day.

* Dialogue: What is the meaning of keeping the saturday? Which is its true sense?