On the Third Precept of the Decalogue

Remember that thou sanctify the Sabbath day. - Exod. xx, 8.

The third precept of the Decalogue is natural, insofar as it commands that some time be dedicated to public divine worship; but insofar as it determinately designates the Sabbath day, it is divine and to be counted among ceremonial things, but abrogated in the new law; since in place of the Sabbath day the Church substituted the Lord's Day in memory of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Besides the Lord's Day, however, the Church instituted other feast days for recollecting the benefits of our Redemption, or the merits and examples of the Saints, and commands that they, no otherwise than Sundays, be sanctified.

This precept, insofar as it is affirmative, commands certain works, and insofar as it is negative, prohibits certain others.

Sacred times are feast days; and to these are added days of abstinence and fast (Can. 1243).

On feast days of precept Mass must be heard; and one must abstain from servile works, forensic acts, and likewise, unless legitimate customs or peculiar indults bear otherwise, from public markets, fairs, and other public buyings and sellings (Can. 1248).

§ 1. Not only Ordinaries of places, but also pastors, in singular cases and for a just cause, can dispense subjects individually committed to them, individual faithful or individual families, even outside the territory, and in their territory also pilgrims, from the common law concerning the observance of feasts and likewise concerning the observance of abstinence and fast, or also both.

§ 2. Ordinaries, from a peculiar cause of great concourse of the people or of public health, can dispense a whole diocese or place from fast and abstinence or also from both laws at once.

§ 3. In an exempt clerical religion the Superiors have the same power of dispensing in the manner of a pastor, as regards persons mentioned in can. 514, § 1 (Can. 1245).

These persons are professed, novices, or others living day and night in a religious house by reason of service or education or hospitality or infirm health. - Cf. Can. 514, § 1.

The reckoning of a feast day, and likewise of a day of abstinence and fast, is to be made from midnight to midnight, with the prescription of can. 923 saved (Can. 1246).