General. Sunday, like the Sabbath for the Jews, is the Day of the Lord. It is a day reserved by God for rest – He actually rested on that from the work He had done over six days, even if that was not lucrative work but work done out of love for humanity, the peak of creation, to live by. Let alone us, who sweat and toil for six days, and neglect giving due praise to the Lord. The Sunday Mass is a collegial way of giving such praise in comparison with reading a dose of worldy articles in a Sunday paper or visiting the flea-market.

Deuteronomy forbids the whole family, slaves, foreigners and even animals from working on the Sabbath, thus spelling out in more clear terms the Lord’s commandment and setting an ethos of rest compared to one of ever achieving better economic benefits. The reading. however, also reminds of the wonders worked by the Lord for it was on the Sabbath that the Lord had led the Jewish people out of the land of Egypt with might, a strong reminder of the readings of the Vigil of Easter.

Second Letter to the Corinthians. St Paul packs a plenitude of theology in this Epistle. Christ reflects God’s glory in his face so that whoever has seen him has seen the Father. Yet if we believe this our faith is only contained in earthenware vessels, ourselves, who can err any time if not most of the time. For this reason, if we keep firm, we do not do it with any power of ours, but with God’s strength. Though persecuted in more than one way, God permits it so that Christ’s death may be apparent within us and, consequently, also his resurrection from the dead.

St Mark. A point of theological dispute, or rather exactness, rose between the Jews and Jesus about the limits of what can be done on the Sabbath. Jesus taught that in doing a good deed or an act of healing, one was keeping the Sabbath holy by fulfilling an act of love, or charity, which God Himself wanted and signified. God is charity, Pope Benedict has told us in His first his first Papal Encyclical, and so there should be no needle-in-the-haystack searches to evade, fully or partially, God’s bidding.

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