Section — Prümmer, Manuale Theologiae Moralis
§ 1. On the Nature and Origin of the Worship to Be Rendered on Sundays and Feast Days
465. The observance of Sunday and feast days is deservedly numbered among the principal external acts of the virtue of religion. Now the precept of sanctifying Sundays and feast days is partly of natural law, partly of positive divine law, and partly of ecclesiastical law.
a) The precept is indeed of natural law insofar as it commands that some time be allotted to divine worship, and not only to private worship, but also to public and social worship. For there is in man a natural inclination to allot some time to every necessary thing, just as a determined time is allotted, for example, to bodily refreshment and sleep.627 Internal and external, private and public divine worship is altogether necessary for man, as was said above in n. 327. Therefore natural law itself demands that a determined time be allotted to divine worship. Hence there has never been any nation so uncultivated or so barbarous that it did not consecrate feast days to its gods.628
b) The precept of observing Sunday is of positive divine law insofar as it commands that on one day of each week there be cessation from every servile work in praise of the Creator.629
c) Finally, this precept is of ecclesiastical law insofar as it has been determined by the Church alone on which fixed days and in what ways God is to be worshiped. Hence St. Thomas630 says: "The observance of Sunday in the New Law succeeds the observance of the sabbath, not by force of a precept of the law, but from the constitution of the Church and the custom of the Christian people."
It cannot be proved that Sunday was instituted by divine law (Sporer-Bierbaum631 almost alone teaches this). In the earliest times the apostles seem to have assembled in the temple to praise God not on Sunday but on the sabbath;632 this indeed is a most manifest sign that the sanctification of Sunday was not instituted by Christ Himself; for otherwise the apostles would certainly have obeyed the command of their Lord. But when Sunday first began to be sanctified in place of the sabbath is not so certainly established. Several authors teach that the apostles themselves introduced this practice. Thus St. John says: "I was in the spirit on the Lord's day."633 St. Luke relates:634 "And on the first day of the week, when we were assembled to break bread," that is, according to the meaning of this phrase: on the first day after the sabbath, or our Sunday. Hence St. Augustine already says of this text:635 "The first day of the week is called the day which is now called the Lord's day." By the second century the sanctification of Sunday seems already to have been universal.636 The reasons why Sunday was sanctified in place of the sabbath are indicated in this manner by St. Leo I:637 "On this day the world took its beginning. On this day, through the Resurrection of Christ, death received its destruction and life its beginning. On this day the apostles receive from the Lord the trumpet of the Gospel to be preached to all nations, and receive the sacrament of regeneration to be brought into the whole world.... On this day, finally, the Holy Spirit promised by the Lord came."
627 S. theol. 2, 2, q. 122, a. 4 ad 1.
628 Cf. Catech. Rom. P. 3, c. 4, q. 6.
629 Thus rightly Fr. Schmid in Linzer Theol.-prakt. Quartalschrift 1900, 12-26; Noldin, De praeceptis n. 260; Tanquerey, De virt. relig. n. 1011; Göpfert, Moraltheol. I, 338. For God Himself selected every seventh day as assigned to divine worship: "Six days shalt thou work, and shalt do all thy works. But on the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: thou shalt do no work on it, thou and thy son and thy daughter, thy manservant and thy maidservant, thy beast and the stranger who is within thy gates" (Ex. 20:9ff.). If it had not been established by divine law that on every seventh day there be cessation from servile work in honor of God, then, absolutely speaking, the Church could define that throughout the world Sunday rest be had every tenth or twentieth day; this, however, is not commonly admitted.
630 L.c., ad 4.
631 Theol. mor. tract. 3, n. 484.
633 Apoc. 1:10.
634 Acts 20:7.
635 Ep. 55 (al. 119), in Migne, Patr. lat. 33, 212.
636 St. Ignatius admonishes: "Let us no longer sabbatize in the Jewish manner.... But after the sabbath let every lover of Christ celebrate the Lord's day" (Ep. ad Magnes., in Migne, Patr. graec. 5, 768ff.). Cf. also Didache c. 14.
637 Ep. ad Diosc. (Migne, Patr. lat. 54, 626).
466. Corollary. From what has been said it follows in what sense the sanctification of Sunday and feast days pertains to the third precept of the Decalogue, and in what sense it pertains to the first precept of the Church. For the precept of worshiping God on fixed days by cessation from servile work is prescribed by divine-natural law, and consequently by the Decalogue. Probably it is also contained in the precept of the Decalogue that on every week some day of rest be observed in honor of God. But the selection of Sunday in place of the sabbath, as well as the special manner of sanctifying Sunday by hearing Mass, the sanctification of other feast days, and the determined manner of ceasing from servile work: all these things pertain to the first precept of the Church. For the sake of brevity and also of clarity, the observance of Sunday and feast days according to both natural-divine law and ecclesiastical law is treated together here, as we have already said above.
467. The scope of the precept of sanctifying Sundays and feast days is discerned by considering 1. the persons obligated, 2. the days to be sanctified, and 3. the works to be performed.
1. What persons are obligated by this precept?
This precept binds under grave sin all baptized persons possessing the use of reason after the first seven years of age. Hence the proposition (52) was condemned by Innocent XI: "The precept of observing feast days does not bind under mortal sin, scandal being set aside, provided contempt is absent."638 But since this precept binds all baptized Christians possessing the use of reason after the first seven years of age, it also binds Protestants and other heretics, since they are subjects of the precepts of the Church. Nevertheless, it may rightly be supposed that our pious Mother the Church does not wish to urge this obligation for them with exact rigor; and consequently, when heretics return to the bosom of the Church, they are not to be accused of as many mortal sins as the times they applied themselves to servile labors on Sundays and feast days, provided, however, that they satisfied the precept of natural law to worship God externally at some time.
2. What days are to be sanctified?
638 Denz. n. 1202.
468. Besides Sunday, the Church commanded several other days to be celebrated during the course of the year; the list of these presented by Urban VIII was afterward increased by one feast by Clement XI.639
According to the discipline now in force, however, feast days under precept in the universal Church are only: each and every Sunday, and in addition ten feasts, namely, the Nativity, Circumcision, Epiphany, Ascension, and the Most Holy Body of Christ; the Immaculate Conception and Assumption of the Blessed Mary, Mother of God; St. Joseph, her Spouse; the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul; and, finally, All Saints. "Wherever any feast among those enumerated has been legitimately abolished or transferred, let nothing be changed without consultation with the Holy Apostolic See."640 "But if in any nation or region the bishops judge that any one of the abrogated feasts ought to be retained, let them refer the matter to the Holy See."641 Therefore those statutes concerning the celebration of feasts which were made for certain regions remain in use, for example, for France, where the feasts (apart from Sundays) have been reduced to four, namely, the Nativity and Ascension of the Lord, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the feast of All Saints. Particular statutes are also had for England, Ireland, and North America. Pius X expressly declared that the suppression of feasts concerns the faithful only as regards the obligation of hearing Mass and abstaining from servile works; on the contrary, the obligation of applying Mass for the people and solemnly celebrating the Offices in church according to the former discipline remains.642
3. What is to be performed on feast days?
639 Const. Universa, 13 Sept. 1642.
640 Code of Canon Law, c. 1247, §§ 1 and 3.
641 Motu proprio of Pius X Supremi, 2 July 1911 (cf. Acta Ap. Sedis III, 305ff.).
642 Cf. Sacred Congregation of the Council, 3 May 1912 (Acta Ap. Sedis IV, 340).
469. On all Sundays and non-suppressed feast days the faithful are bound to two things: a) to hear Mass, because the Sacrifice of the Mass is the most excellent of all acts of worshiping God; b) to abstain from servile and forensic works, because these works are accustomed to hinder a man from applying his mind perfectly to divine worship.
The precept of hearing Mass seems to have been in force from the beginning of the Church, as is indicated not obscurely by the celebrated text in Didache c. 14: "But on the Lord's day, having assembled, break bread and give thanks, after you have confessed your sins, that your sacrifice may be clean." The so-called Canons of the Apostles and the Council of Agde presuppose the existence of this precept. In canon 10 it is had: "Let all the faithful who assemble in church for the sacred solemnities hear both the Scriptures of the apostles and the Gospel. But those who do not persevere in prayer until Mass is completed, nor receive Holy Communion, ought to be deprived of communion as persons causing disturbances in the Church."643 The Council of Agde (a. 506) speaks still more clearly:644 "By a special ordinance we command secular persons to hear the whole Mass on Sunday, so that the people do not presume to depart before the priest's blessing." The precept of abstaining from servile works on Sunday likewise seems always to have been in force in the Church. The Emperor Constantine sanctioned Sunday rest also by civil penalties.645
643 Thus c. 61, D. 1 de consecr.
644 Thus c. 64, D. 1 de consecr.
645 Cf., for a historical exposition, Tanquerey, De virt. relig. n. 1006ff., and Theod. Zahn, Geschichte des Sonntags vornehmlich in der alten Kirche (1894), 196-240.
470. Besides hearing Mass and abstaining from servile and forensic works, the faithful are bound to nothing else by strict ecclesiastical law. Therefore there is no obligation of ecclesiastical law to hear a sermon or catechetical instruction, to assist at Vespers and other devotions, and much less to assist at the sermon and other Offices in the parish church. Nevertheless, an obligation of natural law to assist at a sermon, catechetical instruction, and other religious exercises can easily be present, for example, for the sake of fostering the interior spirit of devotion, acquiring and preserving sufficient knowledge of matters of faith and morals, and avoiding scandal. Wherefore the faithful are to be earnestly exhorted not to be content with hearing a private Mass, but also to assist on Sundays and feast days at a sermon or catechetical instruction and other religious exercises. Certain authors wished to prove the existence of an ecclesiastical precept of hearing a sermon in the parish church from the fact that the Council of Trent646 ordered pastors to exercise the office of preaching on Sundays and feast days. For if pastors are bound to preach, parishioners must hear their preaching. Other authors, however, most commonly teach that the Tridentine precept contains nothing other than that pastors are bound to provide parishioners an opportunity to hear the word of God in the parish church. But the parishioners are not strictly bound to assist at this preaching.