First Precept of the Church: Sanctification of the Lord’s Day

The First Precept of the Church.—This precept commands that on Sundays and holydays of obligation Mass be heard and servile and other like works be omitted (Canons 1247-1249) by the subjects of church laws (427 sqq.).

(a) This precept is of natural and divine law as to its purpose and substance, for reason teaches and the Third Commandment of the Decalogue prescribes that man set aside some time for the external worship of God, and avoid those things that distract him from worship (Catechism of the Council of Trent, pp. 396 sqq,). Hence, even non-Catholics, though they do not sin by missing Mass (429, 430), are guilty of sin if they do not from time to time worship God externally.

(b) This precept is of ecclesiastical law only as to its details (i.e., the time set apart and the manner of worship and sanctification decreed). The Old Testament Law observed the Sabbath or last day of the Week in memory of the creation of the World, and it abstained most rigorously from work on the Sabbath, because there was a divine prohibition and because this rest was a figure of things to come. But in the New Law the ceremonial precepts of Judaism no longer have force, and the Christian precepts substituted for them were not instituted by Christ Himself but arose from the custom of the Church. During the lifetime of the Apostles themselves Sunday (or the first day of the week) came to be venerated as the Lord’s Day in memory of the Resurrection, which completed the work of Redemption (Acts, ii. 46, iii. 1, v. 12, xxi. 26); and from early times various special holydays were appointed and made days of obligatory worship, as had been the case with certain feasts in the Old Testament. As early as the third and fourth centuries laws were made confirming the primitive customs of assisting at Mass and resting on Sundays and holydays.