Sundays are the “primordial nucleus” of the liturgical year, Pope affirms

Vatican City, Dec. 01, 2006 (CNA) - Pope Benedict XVI has sent a message to Cardinal Francis Arinze ahead of the Congregation for Divine Worship’s study day on the Sunday Mass. The Holy Father told those involved in the study group that Sundays remain the central focus of the Church’s liturgical year and that there is a need to, “reiterate the sacred nature of the Lord’s day and the need to participate in Sunday Mass.

Cardinal Arinze, who serves as Prefect for the congregation called the study day under the theme: “Sunday Mass for the sanctification of Christian people."

The Pope’s letter, which is dated November 27 but was made public today, recalls how the study day falls on the anniversary of the promulgation of the Constitution "Sacrosanctum Concilium," and is the third of its kind following one dedicated to the Roman Martyrology and another to sacred music.

"Sundays," writes the Pope, "remain the fundamental seedbed and the primordial nucleus of the liturgical year... a fragment of time pervaded by eternity, because its dawn saw the Risen Christ enter victoriously into eternal life."

"For the first Christians, participation in Sunday celebrations was the natural expression of their belonging to Christ, of their communion with His mystical Body, in joyous expectation of His glorious return."

“Today," the Holy Father continued, "it is more than ever necessary to reiterate the sacred nature of the Lord's day and the need to participate in Sunday Mass. The cultural context in which we live, often marked by religious indifference and secularism that obscure the horizon of transcendence, must not cause us to forget that the People of God who came into being with the events of Easter must return [to those events] as an inexhaustible spring, in order to better understand ... their own identity and the reasons for their existence."

"Sunday was not chosen by the Christian community," he wrote, "rather by the Apostles, indeed by Christ Himself Who on that day, "the first day of the week," arose and appeared before the disciples. ... Each Sunday celebration of the Eucharist enacts the sanctification of Christian people, until that Sunday without end, the day of the definitive encounter of God with His creatures."

Benedict XVI closed his message by expressing the hope that the study day "may help to recover the Christian meaning of Sunday in ... the life of all believers."

Benedict XVI closed his message by expressing the hope that the study day "may help to recover the Christian meaning of Sunday in ... the life of all believers."

This surely is in tune with what +BXVI has said before and with the entire point of +Batholomew's sermon a couple of days ago.

From my admittedly outsiders view, Saturday Masses in lieu of Sunday Mass as a concession to busy people is pernicious. Our cares are NOT for mundane concerns and desires when presented with the reality of the Liturgy. Nearly 1800 years ago +Cyril of Jerusalem wrote:

"...the Priest cries aloud, 'Lift up your hearts.' For truly we ought in that...hour (during the Liturgy)to have our hearts on high with God, and not below, thinking of earth and earthly things. In effect therefore the Priest bids all in that hour to dismiss all cares of this life, or household anxieties, and to have their heart in heaven with the merciful God. Then you answer, 'We lift up our hearts unto the Lord:' assenting to it, by your avowal. But let no one come here, who could say with his mouth, 'We lift up our hearts unto the Lord,' but in his thoughts have his mind concerned with the cares of this life. At all times, rather, God should be in our memory; but if this is impossible by reason of human infirmity, in that hour above all this should be our earnest endeavor. (Catechetical Lectures: Lecture 23 no. 4)

Within the last few years, Elder Ephraim of Philotheou, a man I personally don't usually like to quote but who does often express profound truths about The Faith, wrote:

"O, how indispensable must and ought we in all ways to approach this heavenly communal feast, which grants us this lofty mystery of the Holy Table!

The angels are present invisibly; in great reverence the priests, who in this moment of mystery are honored above the angels, sacrifice the blameless Lamb.

The angels minister and faithful approach to eat and drink the Body and Blood of Christ: "receive the Body of Christ, taste the fountain of immortality," in order thus to live in Christ and not die through sin."

Two statements nearly 1800 years apart express the Truth of our existence as Christians. The good Pope knows this and lives this and has all his life. His efforts at inculcating this mindset to Latin Catholics is to be supported by all Orthodox Christians whose liturgical traditions are as ancient and venerable as those in the East, but which, sadly, seem to have been overthrown almost as thoroughly as the Protestant Reformers did 500 years ago. If the Mass is something we attend because of an "obligation", it is inevitable that its true nature will be obscured and its spiritual effect blunted. Simply making attendance "convenient" doesn't cut it. If the word were put out that the priest would be handing out $1000.00 to each person leaving Mass, the churches would be full on Sundays. But what is he really offering...the opportunity to "receive the Body of Christ, taste the fountain of immortality," in order thus to live in Christ and not die through sin." And some say we need to make that opportunity "convenient"!

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