Article II. On the Causes on Account of Which Servile Works Can Be Permitted on a Feast Day

Three principal causes are numbered, namely charity, piety, necessity.

360. • I. Charity toward neighbor. Hence on a feast day it is lawful: 1. to do what is necessary for relieving the sick; 2. to dig a grave for burying the dead; 3. to labor for some determinate poor person, to whom by reason of grave necessity it would be lawful to labor ¹; yet, according to grave theologians, not for the poor in general, unless there is question of making clothes or other things of this sort which ought to serve the use of the poor, but not for gaining money which is to be distributed to the poor ². - St. Alphonsus, n. 294; Hom. apost., n. 17.

¹ Thus, for example, since it is lawful for a poor person to mend his clothes or clean them, it will be lawful also for others to furnish these services to him gratuitously.

² ** By this distinction the Doctors who seem at first glance to dissent are reconciled, as if some required an extreme or certainly grave necessity of the poor person for undertaking certain works for the poor (see St. Alphonsus, lib. 3, n. 293), while others judge that a common necessity suffices. These latter, namely, are treating of things, for example clothes, to be granted for their use; but the former of making a work, the payment for which may be given to them as alms. Consequently St. Alphonsus writes less to the matter (l.c.) to the question, Whether on feast days it is lawful to make clothes for the poor: "Viva, Tamburini, Sporer, Roncaglia, and the Salamancans say that it is then only lawful to labor when the poor person is actually in grave need." But these Doctors do not raise the question about making or mending a garment for a poor person, but about him who labors so that afterward he may distribute alms from the profit.

II. Piety toward God. On account of piety it is lawful: 1. to do all works closely serving the worship of God, such as to adorn the church, the altar, etc.; 2. to sweep the Church, and to prepare other things which pertain to its cleanliness. But it is not lawful to build a Church, repair it, cut stones for this, make ornaments, etc.; because these serve divine service more remotely. - St. Alphonsus, n. 292-293; Hom. apost., n. 17. ³.

³ Among works of the former kind St. Alphonsus, from the opinion of others, which he reports without censure (lib. 3, n. 293), also reckons making ornaments for a needy Church, namely one which does not have revenues equal to these things, as, for example, to arrange silk flowers, to sew carpets, altar cloths, purificators, corporals, chasubles, and other things of this sort, etc.

But as regards the latter things, although he judges as more probable the opinion which denies that these are lawful, nevertheless he admits (l.c.) that labors of this sort are lawful if the church is poor. Then from the opinion of the Salamancans and others he adds: "Because nearly all churches and monasteries in these times labor under want, therefore for these, and for hospitals, confraternities, and similar places, men can lawfully labor by building churches, reaping crops, cultivating fields, etc."

Yet note two things as regards practice: 1. in reality these labors are not accustomed to be undertaken unless pious places truly labor under poverty; 2. faculty from the Ordinary has been accustomed to be sought also for avoiding the scandal of the people.

361. • III. Necessity, either one's own or another's, both of soul and of body. Hence:

1. The poor are excused who otherwise cannot support themselves and their own, provided they labor privately and with scandal excluded.

2. All are excused whose works already begun cannot be interrupted without great damage, such as those pouring iron, etc.

3. Bakers likewise are excused, who must have fresh bread so that they may satisfy buyers.

4. Likewise tailors who make funeral or nuptial garments, which neither by themselves nor through others are they able to complete before the feast.

5. Likewise farmers who, on account of past or imminent rain, turn, bind, or carry hay or crops.

6. Likewise servants compelled to labor, if they cannot easily and quickly find another master without great inconvenience.

7. Smiths are excused who shoe horses on the road or brought by rustics, or repair plowshares necessary for farmers on the following day; and also those who repair carriages accidentally broken, bridges, or public roads, if the work cannot be deferred without loss of the public good.

8. Those also are excused who labor for public utility while some necessity urges, for example if there is question of celebrating a victory, of preparing a feast for the arrival of a Prince, or for the sake of some other public rejoicing.

9. Those also are probably excused who labor on account of the circumstance of notable and extraordinary profit, because for them to omit such a profit is the same as to suffer grave damage ⁴. - St. Alphonsus as regards all these things, from n. 296 to n. 304.

⁴ The reason from St. Alphonsus (lib. 3, n. 301) is that those who sustain themselves by labors have rare occasions of acquiring such great profit, and judge that they sustain great damage when they lose a great profit; for to lose something and to be prohibited from acquiring what cannot be acquired further coincide in the same thing.

But although as many as have been enumerated thus far do not need a dispensation, nevertheless the faithful are to be advised that, if they conveniently can, they should ask leave from the ecclesiastical Superior, lest, namely, deceived by cupidity, they labor without a cause sufficient for excusing and with the scandal of others. But here the Superior is understood especially as the Bishop; although he cannot give a general dispensation for all his subjects, much less a permanent one, since that would be equivalent to the suppression of feast days, yet as regards some acts with particular persons he can dispense from a reasonable cause; indeed custom grants this faculty even to the parish priest.

10. But they are not to be excused, indeed they are severely to be rebuked, who more often extend labor begun after midnight into the feast day even under the pretext of necessity; because for the most part that necessity is voluntary for them, since very often they cast themselves into it, either by assuming more works to be completed by a certain day than they can fulfill, or by not applying that number of workers which the work would require, or by wasting time during the week on useless things. You would more easily excuse those to whom a work to be completed for the following feast day had been handed over on the preceding day.

362. • Q. Whether the reason of avoiding idleness excuses?

Resp. No, speaking commonly. For that reason is altogether insufficient for setting aside so grave a law of the Church. Laymann, Mazzotta, etc., make an exception if the idleness induces a probable danger of sinning; because, they say, if danger of temporal damage excuses, a fortiori danger of spiritual damage ought to excuse. But St. Alphonsus, n. 362, more willingly restricts this to the case in which a temptation would urge, which could not be overcome otherwise, which rarely happens. - See Cases, n. 354 and following.