 |
| God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day. |
When I was in high school in Birmingham, Alabama, I was aware that I was a Catholic, and that made me different from all but one other person in my class. But the nuts and bolts of religious difference emerged only over time, as with mostly Baptist and Methodist friends I went about the daily business of being a teenager. At my Baptist friend’s church, I encountered the ‘lock-in,’ passing the whole night in youth activities in the church complex. I received a quizzical look when I made some reference to people who would be “showing up for early Mass.” Alright, I was clueless about many things.
One thing that left me gaping with astonishment was when my Baptist friends all admitted that not only did they not go to church on Christmas, their churches did not even have services then. They went to church on Sunday only, had poinsettias and other decorations in the church and sang Christmas songs all through December, then moved on after the day itself. That this schedule was echoed at home would explain the desiccated and denuded Christmas trees dragged to the end of driveways by the evening of the 25th.
The first act of God’s creation resulted in the first day. And God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day. (Genesis 1:3-5). Rooted in that same creation is the week of seven days, and the sabbath of divine rest. The Lord blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it, (Exodus 20:11b) which resulted in the obligation to keep it holy.
If that were where it all ended, it would be simple enough. But God did not stop then, but rather he announced his intention to make holy another day: On that day, … his dwelling will be glorious (Isaiah11:10) This refrain recurs during Advent. Our lives unfold in days and weeks, and God’s action in our lives happens on specific days and makes those days holy.
We keep Christmas because the nativity of the Lord changed the day’s significance in the lives of all mankind, just as on a more personal or local scale we remember the birthdays of people important to us. Because God took flesh and dwelt among us, His life and work also unfolded in weeks and days, and we keep the significance of those days as our lives unfold by the same measure and the same marking.
His saving passion, death, resurrection, and ascension all occurred on specific days with their own date and relation one to another that allows us to keep their measure every year. This Paschal mystery brings about a new creation. The sabbath of the seventh day was fulfilled when God rested again, this time in the tomb, then is supplanted by the glorious Lord’s Day, the eighth day, when Christ rose from that sleep of death and in His glorified flesh makes all things new. This is the day of the week we now keep.
Some sects have not got this message and reject the practice of Christians who have kept the Lord’s Day from the very beginning, so too do other sects cling to the insistence of keeping only Sunday. One way the inventors of protestantism attracted powerful adherents was by abolishing the many holy days in the Catholic calendar, which meant kings and lords could require their subjects to work on all those days that had been given over to resting and feasting. When Ebenezer Scrooge denied Bob Cratchit a holiday at Christmas, he wasn’t demonstrating any particular character flaw besides being a staunch Calvinist, an affliction that only in the mid-nineteenth century began to lose its 300-year grip on England.
July 4th, November 11th, December 7th, and September 11th all have lasting significance in our nation because of what occurred on those dates, and it is a sorry citizen who does not keep them. Universal and perduring significance has been imputed to the days of Our Lord’s actions in our behalf, and it is we who are sorry if we fail to observe those days with right intention and solemnity.
The sacred liturgy of the Church orders our worship in awareness of and gratitude for these divine actions that changed our lives on specific, identifiable days. Our lives as children of the one God, living and true, unfold to the recurring resonances of these days. Even as the season of Advent awakens our yearning to see God made visible, certain days within Advent remind us of the invisible work He does to make possible that manifestation.
The feasts and fasts of the Church are rooted in creation and redemption, days that root us in this great and holy reality. If we fail to cling to this gift that both accompanies and delivers our Catholic faith, we will remain clueless about many things.
Monsignor Smith
