Observe the sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, or your manservant, or your maidservant, or your ox, or your ass, or any of your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your manservant and your maidservant may rest as well as you. You shall remember that you were a servant in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out thence with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.

Today's Epistle is from the 2nd Letter of Paul to the Corinthians, beginning at the 4th Chapter, and the 6th Verse:

        For it is the God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For while we live we are always being given up to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

+ A Reading from the Gospel of Mark, beginning at the 2nd Chapter, and the 23rd Verse:

        One sabbath he was going through the grain fields; and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. And the Pharisees said to him, "Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?" And he said to them, "Have you never read what David did, when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God, when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him?" And he said to them, "The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath; so the Son of man is lord even of the sabbath."

        Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. And they watched him, to see whether he would heal him on the sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man who had the withered hand, "Come here." And he said to them, "Is it lawful on the sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?" But they were silent. And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out, and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.

        In today's Epistle, Paul talks about the transformation of our merely human selves by the Glory and the Light that is the Incarnate Son of God. This is a subject dear to my heart -- and one that we, as Christians, need to be praying about, meditating on, and talking about in this Jubilee Year -- bringing the Light of Christ into the whole world.

        When I was growing up -- in the middle of the last century, in the Chicago area -- it was the exceptional business that was open on Sunday.  Being a German area, businesses commonly closed on Wednesday afternoons, too.
 
      Over the years, Sunday "Blue Laws" have crumbled, under the pressure of greed -- getting those Sunday dollars out of the pockets of the public -- why waste 1/7th of the year!  The pace of life is also changing, however -- we are no longer an agricultural society, which gets up at dawn and goes to sleep at dusk.  I can remember televisions stations signing off at 9 or 10 at night, but we seem to be moving toward a 24-hour life -- some people up and active at all times of the day, and I am not willing to say that this is wrong.

        We do, however, need to make time in our busy, often over-committed schedules to nurture the soul -- to stop the frenzied pace of day-to-day worries, to give up the stomach-clenching urgency of deadlines, to let the soul rise up above the merely mundane.  Judaism saw the wisdom of this, and thus the Commandment in Deuteronomy to Keep Holy the Sabbath Day.  Similarly, the Church mandates that we take some time out from our week to worship God, and be refreshed in soul with the most perfect food imaginable -- the Body and Blood of Our Lord.

        I think we should not be overly doctrinaire about exactly which day -- Sunday is of course traditional, for about 1900 years now, but the pressure of making a living nowadays may make it nearly impossible for some to get to Mass on Sunday.  As our Lord says in today's Gospel, "The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath" -- as a "servant of the servants of God", I see it as my duty to minister to God's people, and to bring Jesus to them as best I and they can manage.  If that is some other day than Sunday, well, so be it.

        But I do insist and nag people to take at least some time off during the week to devote to the Lord -- and encourage daily prayer.  St. Paul says, in his first Letter to the Thessalonians: "Pray without ceasing", and the Liturgy of the Hours has been developed over centuries to do just that. We should pray as much and as often as possible, consistent with making a living.  Monastics, of course, make it an explicit part of their lives, fitting in work around the cycle of prayer.

        What is all this prayer in aid of, and where does it lead?  Not just to some abstract holiness, "pie in the sky, bye & bye", but to a very real change, as St. Paul talks about in today's Epistle.

        Prayer is not just wordy begging for this & that.  It is also praise.  It is also being silent before the awful majesty of God's presence.  It is also reading the Word.  It is also doing the Lord's work.  It is also doing the little things -- like washing the dishes -- that keep the world in good order.  It is also voting for responsible people.  It is also "loving they neighbor as thyself".

        When our whole lives are prayer, when we "...live, and move and have our being..." in Jesus Christ, when our every waking breath is praise of the Father, when our every tear is shed for all who turn away from salvation, then we begin to "Let light shine out of darkness," as St. Paul says in the Epistle -- for when God shines in our hearts, we do really glow with His Grace, and others, yeah the whole world see it.

        Mother Teresa of Calcutta, probably the greatest saint of the last century, lived a life of prayer -- she did things, incessantly and continuously -- but she prayed also.  Without the LIght and Love of God, channeled through her soul, she could not have done a fraction of the things she did.

        We too, can be such as she -- and so live, that "the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh".  The first step is prayer -- quiet, inward prayer.  The Rosary, the Jesus Prayer of Orthodoxy (Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have mercy on me, a sinner), the long, wordy, discursive prayers of the Roman tradition, or simply a wordless cry -- any of them opens the door to the inner life, sets us on the pathway to Eternal Life.

        If we do not reach out to Him, how then can God reach us, and draw us to Him?  We are made in the image and likeness of God, but we have all fallen away into error and sin, and we need to embark on the long road back -- and the first step is prayer . . . .

        In the Name of
        The Father      +
        And of the Son 
        And of the Holy Spirit
Amen.