Holy Habits

Making Sundays Holy

  • Written By: Lindsay Finn, Director of Mission and Catholic Identity

    In the midst of this Advent season, looking towards the great feast of Christmas, the Church invites us to slow down and enter into darkness as we await the one great light. This season of preparation and the themes of the Christmas season can also teach us a great deal about how to best enter into Sunday as the sabbath day. In observation of the third commandment, Christians are asked to make Sunday a day of rejoicing in the work of creation and imitation of the Creator’s sabbath rest.

    Immaculate Conception

    On December 8th each year, the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. We recall and rejoice in God’s marvelous plan to create Mary as a fitting mother for the Redeemer, preserving her from the stain of original sin. 

    On a Solemnity, the Church asks that we need to “abstain from those labors and business concerns which impede the worship to be rendered to God”. This means that God wants us to set down our work - outside and inside of the home - to be able to rest in the joy of God’s love and work in our lives and the world. 

    Catholics have the same mandate to observe this sabbath rest each and every Sunday, first and foremost to prayerfully enter into the story of salvation history and encounter God’s great love. While no one other than Mary was immaculately conceived, we all have been given grace to respond to the way God wants us to participate in the work of bringing Christ into the world.

    Annunciation

    While we may know what not to do on a Sunday (refrain from engaging in work or activities that hinder the worship owed to God), we might not be as familiar with what we should be doing. Two fitting Advent stories from Scripture - the Annunciation and the Visitation - can point us in the right direction.

    Many of the most famous works of art depicting the Annunciation show Mary in a position of docile receptivity with the Scriptures open on her lap. While we do not know with certainty, imagining Mary at prayer as Gabriel announced this great news to her seems quite fitting. Humbling ourselves before God in prayer is essential to living in relationship with him; while we are called to set aside time for daily prayer, Sundays are the perfect day to spend extra time in prayer, centering one’s heart and mind at the start of each week.

    After Mary’s “yes” to the angel, we read that she set off in haste to see her cousin Elizabeth. The Visitation points to two fitting things to include on the sabbath: time with family and service to others. Christians are encouraged to devote extra time to family and relatives on Sundays, as that is often difficult in the busy pace of the rest of the week. Sunday has also been traditionally a day to perform good works and humble service of the sick, the infirm, and the elderly. Learn more about the works of mercy and reflect on how you can integrate them into your Sundays.

    Incarnation

    Christmas and Sunday have one central mystery in common: God chooses to enter the world veiled in human flesh. On Christmas, we rejoice in the Incarnation, where God became man to walk among us and ultimately save us from sin. Likewise, each and every Sunday, Catholics are obligated to attend Mass where we witness the same mystery take place, as the bread and wine becomes the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

    As the Catechism teaches, “the Sunday celebration of the Lord's Day and his Eucharist is at the heart of the Church's life.” The faithful should take the lead from the Church and make the Eucharist the heart of their own life; they can best do that by making the Mass the center point of their week, so in union with the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ, they can go forth into the new week with renewed missionary zeal.

Sunday as the Sabbath Day

As we learn about the story of salvation history this year and Catholicism’s deep roots in Judaism, the video below from Fr. Mike Schmitz may be of interest as he explains why Christians observe the sabbath day on Sundays.

Questions for Personal Reflection

  • Do you live Sunday differently than the other six days of the week? How so?

  • What do you do to prepare for Mass on Sundays? Is it truly built up to be the center of your week?

  • Do you offer your first and best time to God? How could you do so more intentionally?

Additional Resources on Making Sundays Holy

The Mass

  • Fr. Joe Baker, Parochial Administrator of St. Maximilian Kolbe Pastorate

    The Eucharist is the heart and the summit of the Church’s life, for in it Christ associates his Church and all her members with the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving offered once for all on the cross to his Father; by this sacrifice he pours out the graces of salvation on his Body which is the Church. - Catechism of the Catholic Church 1407

    Why is it so important to come to Mass? Why is it essential to our life as Christians? If we want to answer these questions, we have to look at the big picture of salvation history and the story of God’s redeeming love.

    In the very beginning, God created the world. And at its core, the world is good. All of humanity, including you and me, have been created in God's image and likeness. Being created in his image and likeness, we have the ability to reason and learn, we have free will, and we also have the ability to love. And with Adam and Eve, we see in a beautiful way that they were created in original friendship, in a relationship with God.

    We also know how that story continues. Adam and Eve, unfortunately, chose to break that relationship with God through not being obedient, through sin. From that moment onward throughout the Old Testament, God continues to reach out to humanity; this is the story of God’s great love for us. Even after Adam and Eve break that relationship, God continues to reach out; he does this through Moses, through Noah, through Abraham.

    God has been persistent about letting us know how much he wants to have that relationship, how much he wants to share his life with us. And ultimately, that comes to a high point when God sends his only begotten Son to be among us. And in the person of Christ, especially through his death on the cross, God is willing to lay down his life to sacrifice for us.

    By giving of himself in sacrifice for us on the cross, he establishes the new and everlasting covenant. And for us, every time we come to Mass, especially on Sundays, God makes that same sacrifice, that same gift of himself present to us. 

    That's the beauty of the Mass. And sometimes, I feel like that can get lost; maybe in thinking about the things we prefer or don't prefer, maybe in our busyness, whatever the case may be. But just like Adam and Eve, all of us are faced with that choice. Do we want a relationship with God? Do we want to enjoy his life or not?

    But the beautiful part is, that if we struggle in our commitment or in our relationship with God, He never struggles with loving us. At the Mass He continues to offer and pour out his life to us. We have been given the opportunity in this moment to deepen our understanding of what the Mass is, why it is so important and essential to our lives as Christians, for having a relationship with God.

    Personal prayer and studying the Bible are great, yet there's nothing more important than the gift of the Mass. Because the Mass is the way that God has chosen to offer his life to us. It is the way that God chooses to have a relationship with us.

    So our hope, our prayer is that we would understand again the importance of the Mass and what God is trying to achieve through the Mass, especially on Sundays. We hope that all members of the parish and their families would commit to coming each and every week to receive God's life, to have a relationship with him.

    Because ultimately, the Mass points us to the life of heaven, as God intends for all of us to share his life forever. No matter what we're dealing with in this life, whatever the crosses, the burdens, the struggles we have, most especially at the Mass with our eyes fixed on heaven, we are given the grace to be able to persevere through those things.

    Truly, by coming to Mass, our life is given so much purpose, meaning, and direction. God meeting us in the Eucharist helps us to persevere, we are given grace and strength that helps us to be the disciples God has called us to be. We will be able to love others better when we come and allow ourselves to be loved by God at Mass.

    What an opportunity we are given in these weeks ahead, to appreciate the great gift that the Mass is and how much God simply wants to live in this covenant relationship with us.

Responding to the Invitation

In addition to coming to the Mass, you are invited to deepen your faith in the Eucharist and how God wants to love you and share his life with you by stopping in to pray during Eucharistic Adoration. In the Pastorate, Adoration takes place Wednesday from 5:00 - 6:00pm at St. Patrick in Lodi, Thursdays from 9:00am - 9:00pm in the Old Church at St. John the Baptist in Waunakee, and on Saturday mornings from 8:30 - 9:30am at St. John the Baptist in Waunakee.

Additional Resources on The Mass

Lectio Divina

  • MEDITATION: Engaging Our Hearts and Minds

    An Excerpt from Heart to Heart: A Guide to Prayer for Catholic Teens

    If we trust that God has called us into a relationship with him and that he wants to lead us on a grand adventure, it makes sense that God would give us gifts that can help us follow him closely. To help us navigate the adventure, God has gifted us with the ability to meditate. 

    Meditation is a quest, where we seek out where God wants to lead us in this adventure of life leading to heaven. Through meditation, we are able to find out where he is calling us to and how to live according to his plans.

    Engaging our hearts and our minds is an essential element of meditation, as God wants us to be active protagonists on this adventure. We can see this play out in the story of the rich young man in the Gospels. The encounter begins with the rich young man asking Jesus a question: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

    In the midst of Jesus answering, he looked at this rich young man and loved him. The same is true in our lives; when we seek God and ask him honest questions in prayer, he looks on us with great love and affection. Jesus also gave him some concrete answers of what it looks like to follow him. (Spoiler alert: the path that Jesus wants us to follow on this adventure to heaven is not always easy.)

    In order to engage in meditation, we must have something to meditate on. God has given us many gifts to help with this: the writings of the saints, beautiful art, the awesomeness of nature, and most especially, his own words in sacred Scripture.

    While we meditate on a writing, piece of art, or passage from the Bible, we must be engaged on an intellectual level. God wants us to communicate with him through our thoughts, emotions, imagination, and desires. He does not want us to be like characters in a video game, robotically controlled to follow him on this great quest; he has created us uniquely with hearts that are able to respond to him in personal ways.

    Through meditation, we are able to deepen our faith and our hearts become more like the Lord’s. The gift of meditation is to help us know and love God better.

    To meditate, especially on sacred Scripture, it is helpful to use the ancient method of lectio divina (which is Latin for “divine reading”). There are 4 basic steps:

    Read: Spend time slowly reading the passage through a couple times; get familiar with the story by asking, “Lord, what are you saying through this passage?”

    Meditate: Put your imagination to good use by placing yourself in the midst of the passage you have read; engage your thoughts and emotions. Ask, “Lord, what are you saying personally to my heart through this passage?”

    Pray: In light of what you have read, talk to God in your own words; tell him about your desires. To help discover where he is leading you on your adventure, ask: “Lord, what do you want me to do?”

    Contemplate: Prayer and meditation is a two way street, so devote time to listening in silence for where God is guiding you. Open yourself up to his direction by asking, “Lord, how are you calling me to grow closer to you?”

4 Steps of Lectio Divina

To meditate, especially on sacred Scripture, it is helpful to use the ancient method of lectio divina (which is Latin for “divine reading”). There are 4 basic steps:

Read: Spend time slowly reading the passage through a couple times; get familiar with the story by asking, “Lord, what are you saying through this passage?”

Meditate: Put your imagination to good use by placing yourself in the midst of the passage you have read; engage your thoughts and emotions. Ask, “Lord, what are you saying personally to my heart through this passage?”

Pray: In light of what you have read, talk to God in your own words; tell him about your desires. To help discover where he is leading you on your adventure, ask: “Lord, what do you want me to do?”

Contemplate: Prayer and meditation is a two way street, so devote time to listening in silence for where God is guiding you. Open yourself up to his direction by asking, “Lord, how are you calling me to grow closer to you?”

If you are looking for Scripture to pray with, consider using one of these from the Gospels:

Annunciation - Luke 1:26-38
Jesus’ Birth - Luke 2:1-20
Jesus’ Baptism - Matthew 3:13-17
Jesus Teaching About Light - Matthew 5:13-16
Jesus Calming the Storm - Matthew 14:22-33
Jesus the Stranger - Matthew 25:31-40
The Rich Young Man - Mark 10:17-22
Jesus Teaching about Being Busy - Luke 10:38-42
Jesus Teaching about Anxiety - Luke 12:22-34
Jesus Teaching about Heaven - Luke 18:18-30
Wedding at Cana - John 2:1-12
Jesus Meets a Woman at the Well - John 4:1-42
Miracle of Loaves and Fish - John 6
Death of Jesus’ Friend Lazarus - John 11:1-44
Last Supper - Luke 22:7-23
Agony in the Garden - John 17
The Day Jesus Died - Mark 15
Easter Morning - Matthew 28:1-10
Jesus on the Road to Emmaus - Luke 24:13-35
Ascension - Matthew 28:16-20

Additional Resources on Lectio Divina

Daily Prayer

  • What is prayer?

    Lindsay Finn, Director of Mission and Catholic Identity

    I listened to a homily from Fr. Mike Schmitz in the summer of 2017, and among the countless homilies I have heard through my life, this one has stuck with me. The topic at hand was nothing mind blowing or groundbreaking, but in its simplicity, it struck a chord with me. He preached about discipleship and about the importance of daily prayer if we want to follow Our Lord. In the homily, he recalled some advice he was once given from a friend:

    “Prayer is not where you work on your relationship with Jesus; prayer is your relationship with Jesus. Prayer is not what helps your relationship with Jesus; prayer is your relationship with Jesus.”

    We can know a lot of things about Jesus but not have a living relationship with Him. To allow what we know about Jesus to reach our hearts and transform our lives, commitment to daily prayer and communication with Him where we cultivate a relationship is the key.

    The same is true of any important relationship we want to cultivate in our lives - if we don’t prioritize communication, the relationship will weaken and perhaps even disappear in the end, becoming a shadow of what it might have once been.

    1% of our week is about an 1 hour and 40 minutes. 1% of our day is 14 minutes and 24 seconds. 

    If you are not in the habit of giving regular time in your day to prayer, the challenge would be to start there. Can we give 1% of our lives back to the One who created us and has loved us from the beginning of time?

    If you already commit to the habit of daily prayer, is the Lord asking you to give him more of your time to cultivate the relationship or is there someone in your life He is asking you to help in their own life of prayer?

    The Church has much to offer when it comes to growing in prayer and the interior life, especially connected to and flowing from the graces we receive from the Sacraments. To begin, we wanted to share a few resources with you.

Living Faith - The Interior Life

In this video, Fr. Columba, a Franciscan Friar of the Renewal, shares about some essentials to cultivate a living relationship with Our Lord - to be a disciple. In the first in this series of 5 topics, he provides some very helpful guidance on beginning a life of prayer. 

You are encouraged to watch, reflect, and discuss with your family and friends. You are welcome to use this PDF with some helpful questions for discussion.

Additional Resources on Daily Prayer