Friday, July 17 : Origen

The Sabbath was instituted as a holy day; all the saints and the just must observe the Sabbath… Let us see, then, in what the Sabbath observance consists for christians. On the Sabbath day we should not carry out any work here below; we are to abstain from all earthly works, do nothing that pertains to this world and give ourselves to spiritual work, go to church, listen attentively to Scripture and to the explanations given to us about it, think about heavenly things, give our minds to the hope of future life, keep the judgement to come before our eyes and meditate, not those present, visible realities, but the future, invisible ones. The Jews, too, have to observe all that. And amongst them blacksmiths, builders and every sort of manual laborer remains without doing anything on the Sabbath day. Yet, on that day, the lectors who proclaim Holy Scripture and the teachers who explain God’s Law never cease in their duties without, however, profaning the Sabbath. My Lord himself acknowledges this: “Have you not heard,” he said to them, “that the priests in the Temple go without resting on the Sabbath without sin?” Thus it is the person who abstains from this world’s labors and frees himself for spiritual activities who offers the true Sabbath sacrifice and sanctifies the Sabbath day as a festival… During the Sabbath, all remain in their own homes and do not go out. Now what is the home of the spiritual soul? That home is justice, truth, wisdom, holiness: all those things are Christ who is, himself, the soul’s home. We should never go out of that home if we would keep the true Sabbath and celebrate this day of festival with sacrifice, according to the Lord’s word: “Whoever remains in me, I remain in him” (cf. Jn 15,5).

Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team