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SAR 9: Roots of the Tree of Life
- The Church teaches us to look at our Jewish heritage in light of the Resurrection – possessing all that was prepared for us in the Old Testament preparatio evangelium through Christ, who fulfills every layer of its meaning. We have great treasures there, held in symbols and rituals against the day when Lord Sabbaoth would come to illuminate them all. See Marty Barrack’s book, Second Exodus, for more on this. Our Christian Sabbath-keeping now links us back to all those years of preparing a people, a family, a woman for the coming of Christ. What the Jews stepped into, we now are steeped in, so that one person, one family, one Church now realize Him into the world!
- God called each thing He created, “good”, and called the Sabbath, “holy”, thus setting it apart from Creation as a place of encounter with eternity in the midst of time.
- The Jews made a semantic distinction between the two keep-the-Sabbath commands in scripture. Told both to ‘remember’ and to ‘observe’ the Sabbath, we see that our keeping it holy can involve both ‘passive’ and ‘active’ elements. We can not act, and by choosing nonaction honor Sabbath, or we can act in ways that also keep Sabbath holy.
- The story of the Israelites’ deliverance from slavery involves their coming out into a desert, away from the works of bondage and survival, on the way to a promised land. They weren’t up to taking possession of that land right away – afraid of the struggles against giants that would be called for in order to be free. They wandered an additional forty years ‘growing up’ into possession of their own humanity before they had the strength to risk fighting those giants. Those years were hard-working, fruitful years, and formed them to enter the Promised Land of fuller freedom and leisure. Sabbath-keeping during those years kept them conscious of a higher destiny, and restored to them a humanity that strengthened their capacity for freedom. It helped define them as a people, strengthening their capacity to dwell in the promised land in the richness of community. It still does all this, and more, for us.
- Rabbis got the huge importance of Sabbath-keeping, and reasoned that an extra layer of rules should be kept as a hedge of protection against anyone’s accidentally violating the Sabbath. They worked out prescriptions and proscriptions of various activities based on their sense of what constitutes labor, what activities are essential on any day, what exceptions might be made for circumstances and seasons of life, etc….. Now, we’re each to design our own practice. The Church does very little ‘rule-making’ for us, but invites us to respond to the Person of Christ in our Sabbath practices.
- Sabbath has a feminine vibe! Like Holy Wisdom, Sabbath is described in feminine terms – a bride, a lady, a vessel of eternity in time. There is a sense of motherly nurturing, healing ministry, gentle care about her. Jewish mothers lit the candles and recited the prayers that welcomed Sabbath each week. Rather than a law to which we conform in obedience, Sabbath is love conforming to us – a context, like Mary, for encounter with Christ.
- The Sabbath-keeper, by opening himself to the action of God (in a particular way on Sundays, in every reception of the Eucharist, and every encounter with Christ), opens himself also to Christ’s own pain – the continuing effects of sin upon Him, the concern for the world of hurt and need, the longing for all those He loves to be set free. You could say ‘any Christian’ instead of ‘Sabbath-keeper’, here. I want to draw attention to the fact that more conscious Sabbath-keeping is more conscious identification with Christ’s suffering.
- The Seventh Day Sabbath of the Jews corresponded to God’s own day of rest after six days of creation. The Eighth Day Sabbath of Christians corresponds to the understanding in the earliest days of the Church that a new day-within-a-day had been created by Christ’s resurrection. In the Eucharist we have a Presence within a substance that so overwhelms that substance as to transform it completely. In the Christian Sabbath we have a realization of Eternity within time, in a similar way. What the Jews experienced weekly as an entrance into a temple – an experience of rest, a taste of the coming Eternal Rest, an encounter with the bride, or vessel of Lord Sabbaoth – Christians are to become. YES! We are to become a temple where eternity is carried into the temporal world; our own hearts are the vessels, the places where others can enter to experience encounter with Christ.
- Sabbath-keeping was the identifying characteristic of God’s people, the Jews, because it signaled to the world these people obey a higher law, correspond to a reality that transcends the work they do, or the effects they can have on the world. Sabbath-keepers practiced opening themselves up as vessels for God to enter the world. Then, when He came, the ones who really did keep the Sabbath holy, longing for the Savior, recognized Him. I wish Sabbath-keeping was still an identifying characteristic, but I’m afraid most Catholics see it as a quaint anachronism. The commandment was never revoked, though!
- A Sabbath might be ‘designed’ to reflect Christ’s death, His waiting in the tomb, and His resurrection. I might think of Friday as my day to fast, or to die to self in some other way; Saturday might be a day of spiritual preparation for the Eucharist and/or physical preparation for a Sunday of non-cleaning/cooking/etc… – leaving Sunday to glory in the risen Christ. All three elements could be present in a single day of Sabbath – the fast before Mass, a commitment to wait in thanksgiving after Mass while everyone else rushes out to their cars and conversations, and a restful afternoon of consciously allowing God to ‘act upon’ me rather than going out to achieve more.
- Sabbath-keeping formed the Jews in the longing for their Messiah. Yes, they wished for His deliverance while they slaved during the ‘work week’, but the taste of His deeply restorative, humanizing, loving care for them on each Sabbath is what fed their longing. Like the faith that is a substance, a taste of what is to come and that causes us to long for that destiny and be drawn toward it, Sabbath created in them a ‘Christ-shaped’ yearning. When they saw Him, they recognized Him, because He corresponded perfectly to that yearning, that shape within them Sabbath had taught them to call, “Lord Sabbaoth”.
- The Catholic Catechism on Sabbath: 347: “Creation was fashioned with a view to the Sabbath and therefore for the worship and adoration of God. Worship is inscribed in the order of creation.” 348: “The sabbath is at the heart of Israels’ law. To keep the commandments is to correspond to the wisdom and the will of God…” 2172: “The Sabbath brings everyday work to a halt and provides a respite. It is a day of protest against the servitude of work and the worship of money.” 2173: “Jesus never fails to respect the holiness of this day.” 2174: “For Christians it has become the first of all days, the first of all feasts, the Lord’s Day – Sunday…” 2175: “Sunday is expressly distinguished from the Sabbath which it follows chronologically every week; for Christians its ceremonial observance replaces that of the Sabbath. In Christ’s Passover, Sunday fulfills the spiritual truth of the Jewish Sabbath and announces man’s eternal rest in God.” 2176: “The celebration of Sunday observes the moral commandment inscribed by nature in the human heart to render to God an outward, visible, public, and regular worship ‘as a sign of his universal beneficence to all’. Sunday worship fulfills the moral command of the Old Covenant, taking up its rhythm and spirit in the weekly celebration of the Creator and Redeemer of his people.” 2181: “The Sunday Eucharist is the foundation and confirmation of all Christian practice.” 2184:”Just as God ‘rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done,’ human life has a rhythm of work and rest. The institution of the Lord’s Day helps everyone enjoy adequate rest and leisure to cultivate their familial, cultural, social and religious lives.” 2185: “On Sundays and other holy days of obligation, the faithful are to refrain from engaging in work or activities that hinder the worship owed to God, the joy proper to the Lord’s Day, the performance of the works of mercy, and the appropriate relaxation of mind and body.” 2186: “Sunday is traditionally consecrated by Christian piety to good works and humble service of the sick, the infirm, and the elderly. Christians will also sanctify Sunday by devoting time and care to their families and relatives, … . Sunday is a time for reflection, silence, cultivation of the mind, and meditation which furthers the growth of the Christian interior life.” 2187: “Sanctifying Sundays and holy days requires a common effort. Every Christian should avoid making unnecessary demands on others that would hinder them from observing the Lord’s Day. Traditional activities and social necessities require some people to work on Sundays, but everyone should still take care to set aside sufficient time for leisure. With temperance and charity the faithful will see to it that they avid the excesses and violence sometimes associated with popular leisure activities. 2190: “The Sabbath, which represented the completion of the first creation, has been replaced by Sunday which recalls the new creation inaugurated by the Resurrection of Christ.”
- The Eucharistic Sabbath is a taste of heaven! Scripture tells us to ‘delight yourself in the Lord’ – so wouldn’t this be the most joyous of days? This is a feast, not a duty we perform grudgingly. Yes, we ‘give up’ time for our own doings, but we are given a deeply healing rest and heavenly Food that should delight us if Christ, Himself, is truly the object of our longings.
- The Mass directs our attention to the heavenly Liturgy, where the fulfillment of all Israel’s desire for a Savior is constantly being celebrated. On their Sabbath, the Jews, ideally, had little distraction from the hope and yearning for His coming. We are directed away from ‘acting on’ the things of this world – Mass lifts up, and toward being acted upon – just as the Jews set the day apart by their inactivity. Mass calls us to come, be made by Christ into His own Body, much as Sabbath called Jews to come apart from the world to be made God’s own people. We attend, as they did, to the Scriptures in a heightened way during the Mass. We are directed, as Jewish married couples were on the Sabbath, toward the intimacies of marital love, between Bride and Bridegroom. We honor Mary for her role in bringing Christ to us, just as Jewish mothers were given the special honor of ushering in the Sabbath observance.
- If we can tear ourselves away even once a week from whatever worldly goods and activities seem to have a hold on us, it will lessen their grip all the rest of the week. If we can focus on God even this once a week, enjoying the communion with Him and with each other that only the Eucharist makes fully possible, then our hearts will turn more and more toward this delight we experience in the Beloved.
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