Crawling Back to God’s Law

In our last thrilling episode (See Slip-Sliding Away from God’s Law), we highlighted two Truths that considered together tend to make us uncomfortable:

1. Since the days of Moses, the second part of the Third Commandment has never been altered by God, by the Church or anyone else. It still says, “the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work.”  
2. Since the 1960s, U.S. Catholics, lay and clerical, have compromised in teaching the rule and condoned sin against it. Consequently, many Catholics today are unaware of it, and many regularly work and shop on Sundays.

The Pursuit of Comfort

Some Catholics manage their fact-induced discomfort by condemning all who violate the “no work” rule. They recognize the rule’s traditional exceptions classifying some Sunday work as non-sinful but maintain that “my boss told me to” is not among those exceptions. They assert that we should simply refuse any sinful work even when that refusal would produce severe economic hardship.

I’ve tried to adopt this point of view for days at a time, and by itself, it doesn’t work for me. My faith and courage are so limited I fear I could never have allowed the “no work” rule to derail my career or impoverish my family. Consequently, I cannot bring myself to criticize others for a weakness I share. 

Some other Catholics manage by treating the erosion of the “no work” rule as an inevitable and appropriate modernizing of Church doctrine.  Compromises in its teaching and the pervasive condonation of sin against it are a comfort to them. “The Church allows it, why should we worry?” They seem to say.

A minimal amount of research compelled me to reject this point of view. Regardless of how timidly it is taught and how frequently it is ignored, the rule remains. We are bound by ten (10) commandments – not nine and a half (9 1/2). We can try to rationalize it away just as some deny the Real Presence or the reality of Hell, but doing so inevitably moves us toward the ungodly and undermines the faith of our children. If Mom and Dad (or Grandma and Grandad) can pick and choose from among the teachings of the One True Church then they obviously don’t believe it is the one True Church, and if it isn’t the One True Church then there isn’t one. And if there isn’t one, then I can pick the one that makes me happiest. Maybe God is just love. Maybe love is God. Maybe I am God!

All of this brings us to a third uncomfortable truth: For the past 70 years, while we have been busy compromising many doctrines and tacitly condoning many sins, the number of faithful U.S. Catholics has been shrinking geometrically with each succeeding generation.

From this truth, I conclude that ongoing compromise and condonation (C & C), including but not limited to the C & C regarding the Third Commandment, is a threat to the salvation of my grandchildren and their descendants and to the souls of countless U.S. Catholics outside my family. Despite my inability to completely resist sin, I must resist Catholic C & C and try to undermine it wherever I find it. The task has been easier than I expected. 

A Pilot Program

The key to this program was that rather than asking individuals to become economic martyrs by refusing Sunday work on which they relied, I asked them to recognize the continued legitimacy of the rule and not to undermine it with C & C.  My unambitious effort began inadvertently over two years ago when I uploaded a podcast entitled “The Disappearing Commandment,” which was viewed and discussed by a dozen of my closest adult family members and friends. Four of them had been unaware of the “no work” rule; one dared me to prove that it remained part of Catholic dogma. Three began reminding me not to shop or work on Sundays. Another three who worked occasional Sundays were uncomfortable with the subject matter. In person and via my next two podcasts, I told those three that they had my respect, that I had worked and shopped on Sundays, and that I would not have had the courage to quit a job rather than violate the Third Commandment. 

Ten of them are devout Catholics, and now that the dust has settled, I believe all ten will teach their children to honor the entire Third Commandment. Neither their children nor their grandchildren will be confused about its meaning. If they hold onto the faith, they will choose “Christian-friendly” jobs, i.e., jobs that do not require immoral Sunday work.

All ten have carefully considered the consequences for children when their elders engage in C & C, and all have resolved to give up such behavior. Because of their good example, their children and grandchildren are more likely to beat the odds, retain their faith and work out their salvation with fear and trembling. So far so good. 

The Future of Sunday Work

What if we could persuade hundreds, thousands or millions of Catholic parents and grandparents to seriously consider replicating the pilot project? How many sinners would be willing to give up not necessarily all sin but all C & C for the benefit of those they love? I’m betting that the number would be high: high enough to make C & C unpopular among the clergy and the laity. Everyone would be aware of the “no work” rule and understand that it is fundamental to Christian morality. People would no longer flout it out of ignorance. Some who might be inclined to flout it on purpose would refrain from doing so publicly out of embarrassment. All those intent on their own salvation would try to follow it.

In general, Catholics would stop shopping in stores on Sundays. They would understand that such shopping is sinful in itself and that it encourages store managers to require Sunday work from their employees. They would quickly learn that avoiding it is every bit as easy as avoiding midnight shopping: it requires only a minimal amount of planning and a willingness to occasionally give up something you wanted for up to 24 hours. (“But who eats turkey without cranberry sauce?” he asked horrified. “Sometimes we must,” replied the faithful family members.)

When millions of Catholics change their shopping habits, retailers will reduce Sunday staff and make additional staff available on weekdays. Some will find it more profitable to close on Sundays to attract more Catholic customers. Christian-friendly jobs will increase.

Sunday work by Catholics will stop as well. Although quitting a job or abandoning a career can be extremely difficult, limiting a youngster’s career options to the Christian-friendly ones can be entirely painless. When we catechize without compromise, individuals will benefit from the support of their entire parish communities in living as God commanded. Catholics will naturally begin to network to help each other find jobs compatible with the Faith. In a generation or two the number of Catholics working Sundays could easily shrink to match the number of Catholic marijuana growers. 

If the changes I’ve described seem impossible or even unbearably difficult, consider the example of the Amish who remain faithful to a way of life that denies them a host of modern conveniences that we find essential. Consider the Orthodox Jews who refrain from all digital communication and even household chores on their Sabbath. Are we less committed to our Faith, and if so, should we be? Logic as well as prayerful devotion compel us to move toward God and not toward keeping a comfortable distance. Breaking the habit of C & C, will help us continue in the right direction.

Good News – Bad News

That’s the good news. With little or no economic pain, we can (and we must) help each other return to “no-work” Sundays and thereby reduce the shrinking of the Catholic community. The “bad” news is that pursuing sainthood is always a struggle. Whenever we root out a sin or set of sins, we see our remaining imperfections more clearly and are compelled to struggle against those as well. We cannot rest until our eternal rest. Sorry. But you knew that, just as you know that we must either move toward Jesus or drift away from Him. There is no point of equilibrium where we can float in a fixed position based upon our previous accomplishments.  

Once our Sundays no longer include patronizing retail stores and working to earn money under non-emergency conditions, we will face other questions about the “no work” rule. 

1. The commandment only prohibits “servile work,” that is, heavy manual labor, so I should be able to do keyboard work like bookkeeping, accounting or answering e-mail on Sundays, right?

Wrong. Fr. John Hardon’s Modern Catholic Dictionary defines “servile work” to include “such work as in a given society people commonly associate with strenuous effort and do not engage in when they have the freedom to avoid it.” Clearly, “white collar” work has the same role in people’s lives that other kinds of servile work had for the ancients. Neither the bricklayer nor the architect should use Sunday as a day during which to earn a living.

• Since the purpose of the commandment is to provide us with at least one day of rest for our physical and mental health, I can rest on another day of the week, right?

Wrong twice. The purpose of the commandment is not solely to provide physical and mental rest. It is to set us apart as a community that honors God on a particular day, and to help us grow spiritually. Taking Tuesday off to play golf neither satisfies the purpose nor meets the requirements of the rule.

• Since the purpose of the commandment is to set aside a day for family, after Mass we should be able to watch audio-visual entertainment with family, surf the Internet, have Sunday meals in-house or in restaurants, attend live sporting events, and visit amusement parks if we are with a family member, right?

Wrong many times. The purpose of the commandment is not to encourage family activities as much as to help us and the entire community grow spiritually. Furthermore, otherwise sinful activities do not become virtuous because they include a family component. Commercial-free, pre-recorded entertainment is not appropriate for Sundays when it glorifies or tempts us to engage in immoral conduct. Digital entertainment tempting us to make purchases, even Internet purchases, on Sunday is inappropriate, just as window-shopping in physical stores is inappropriate. Eating in restaurants (except when incidental to travel) and attendance at live sporting events or for-profit amusement parks on Sundays are inappropriate financial transactions and impermissibly encourage employers to require Sunday work.  

• I can’t live without Sunday sports. 

The good Doctor and I spent a couple of hours at a party for the faculty of a nominally Catholic University. Several professors discussed giving up chocolate or coffee or spirits for Lent. Several had tried to abstain from one or more of those pleasures. All agreed that they could manage those or similar sacrifices. Then someone suggested giving up “March Madness” (the NCAA Division One basketball tournaments). Not one professor (other than the good Doctor, herself) could even imagine doing so.

I can’t say I feel your pain as I was born without the sports-fan gene. I do, however, understand the difficulty of detaching from pleasurable activities. If you can, please limit yourself to watching sports that were recorded on another day of the week. If you can’t, please neither condone the sin nor presume to contradict the doctrine – especially in front of your children or grandchildren.   

• But the St. Vincent de Paul Society, a long-standing and respected Catholic organization embedded in most U.S. parishes hires people to work Sundays in their retail stores.

Right. The society has fallen prey to the C & C habit. I’ve asked pastors when they publish a reference to the society in a bulletin or elsewhere, to consider including an asterisk and a footnote something like this:

• ________   Parish is grateful for the charitable work performed by the Society of St. Vincent de Paul in the Archdiocese of _______.  We regret, however, that this nominally Catholic organization has chosen to violate God’s Third Commandment by opening its thrift stores and selling non-emergency items on the Lord’s Day.  We pray that the Society will find a way to end this practice forthwith.

No luck so far. Perhaps another person or other persons can be more persuasive.

Thank you for your kind attention.