YOUCAT Question n. 364 - Part II. Why do Christians replace the Sabbath with Sunday?
(Youcat
answer) Christians replaced the celebration of the Sabbath with the celebration
of Sunday because Jesus Christ rose from the dead on a Sunday. The Lord’s Day,
however, does include elements of the Sabbath.
A deepening through CCC
(CCC 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. For worship
under the Law prepared for the mystery of Christ, and what was done there
prefigured some aspects of Christ (Cf. 1 Cor 10:11): Those who lived according
to the old order of things have come to a new hope, no longer keeping the
sabbath, but the Lord's Day, in which our life is blessed by him and by his
death (St. Ignatius of Antioch, Ad Magn. 9, 1: SCh 10, 88).
Reflecting and meditating
(Youcat comment) The Christian Sunday has three essential elements:
(1) It recalls the creation of the world and communicates the festive splendor
of God’s goodness to the passage of time. (2) It recalls the “eighth day of
creation”, when the world was made new in Christ (thus a prayer from the Easter
Vigil says: “You have wonderfully created man and even more wonderfully
restored him”). (3) It includes the theme of rest, not just to sanctify the
interruption of work, but to point even now toward man’s eternal rest in God.
(CCC Comment)
(CCC 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" (St. Thomas
Aquinas, STh II-II 122, 4). 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.
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