Oh Blessed Sunday

"God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on that day he rested after all his work of creating." (Genesis 2:3)

"Thou shall keep the Sabbath day holy." This is today my best commandment. I love the weekends and especially Sundays. I cannot have enough of a Sunday. I enjoy the communal Mass with more people. I enjoy the festival atmosphere of the sacred assembly when we gather for Sunday worship. I like the more solemn nature of the Mass. I dress my best for the occasion. My Sunday meals are different, richer and tastier. I take a long walk along the Bayou. I indulge myself in a long siesta. These are some of the reasons why I love Sunday.

It was not always so. The gift of Sunday is one of the major gifts of the Holy Spirit when he called me back to the companionship of Jesus Christ. Before this, I regarded Sunday as a work free day. That means the day I don't go to the office to be bothered by the boss. Sunday was the day I could do my own thing. But my perspective on Sunday changed when I embraced the word of God. I discovered with some amazement that Sunday is God's gift to man. But because it is couched in the language of command and law, many of us miss the point. The next step in my reflection was to look at the rest of the nine commandments and wonder whether God also intended every one of them as gift for the fulfillment of man.

• "Thou shall not steal."
  
• "Thou shall not commit adultery."
  
• "Honor thy father and thy mother."
  

Can the above commandments and the rest of them be for the enjoyment and benefit of man? The answer is a big yes. Who says so?

• The Bible
  
• The Church
  
• The best of our race
  

And today, I believe it.