By Farai Mandaza

The pre-eminence of Sunday for the Christian is clarified in the life and example of Therese of Lisieux who observed, “what a day Sunday was for me! It was God’s feast day, a feast of rest […]. This joyous day, passing all too quickly, had its tinge of melancholy […]. I longed for the everlasting repose of heaven, the never-ending Sunday of the Fatherland” (Story of a Soul 41-2). We celebrate the Paschal Mystery on the first day of the week following apostolic tradition and having its origin from the day of the resurrection. This day is ranked as the first holyday of all (SC #102) and because of its importance, the Sunday celebration gives way only to solemnities or feasts of the Lord for the Christ event is the charter memory; but however, the Sundays of Advent, Lent and Easter precede over all solemnities and feasts. As a people united in and with Christ, each Sunday is a chance to remember and celebrate his saving work on our behalf. The entire mystery is unfolded anew so that we give thanks always and everywhere to God for the new life of grace in which we live (cf. Eph. 3:16-21). The Church has baptised a day we have always been commemorating from time immemorial. From a traditional-cultural perspective, our forebearers have always observed at least one day within each week when they do not work on the land, rest and remember the ancestors. This day known as chisi is a sacred day and is held in great reverence in many areas even until today. ‘Marrying’ this day with the Christian Sunday will add meaning and enrichment in our lives.

The Church daily throughout the year celebrates Jesus Christ’s saving work in sacred memory. Each week on Sunday, the Lord’s Day, and each year during the Easter liturgies we honour the passion and resurrection with utmost solemnity (cf. SC 102). Sunday holds the Paschal Mystery in memory. From the apostolic era “the first day of the week shaped the rhythm of life for Christ’s disciples” (Mk. 16:2). Sunday follows the Sabbath (CCC 2175) and replaces it for we living in the new hope keep the Lord’s Day in which our life is blessed by Christ and his death. It is from Judaism that we have adopted the notion of a day devoted and set apart for the Lord. On this day we praise and petition our God as individuals and as a community of believers through the liturgical celebrations especially in the Eucharistic sacrifice. The idea of the ‘Day of the Lord’ has been perpetuated over the Christian centuries. It remains fundamentally important to review, revise and reflect on our understanding of this day if we are to enrich our spiritual lives. For us, Sunday becomes the foundation and core of the whole liturgical year (SC 106).

Ideas that we can sift from the Old Testament and our own cultural tradition teach us that this was a day of rest (cf. Gen. 2:2-3), day of liberation (cf. Deut. 5:15), God’s day, and the sign of the irrevocable covenant (cf. Ex. 31:16). The New Testament further propounds this day as the day of the resurrection (cf. 2 Cor. 5:17), day of Christ’s appearance, and in the Acts of the Apostles a day of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. “The day of the Lord is the lord of days” according to pseudo-Eusebius. For us, our every action and celebration during each week climaxes in the Sunday liturgy which gives us light and strength to live another week in serving the Lord through humanity. The mystery of Christ’s dying and rising is broad and deep beyond our understanding. The ‘Lord’s Day’ thus is the day we raise our song to God becoming the voice of all creation. We interrupt the rhythm of work to be led each week to ponder and live the Easter event, true source of our salvation, yet more than as a precept “the observance should be seen as a need rising from the depths of Christian life” (John Paul II, Dies Domini # 81-2).

John Paul II counsels that our sharing in the Eucharist is the heart of every Sunday but the duty to keep Sunday holy cannot be reduced to this for the Lord’s Day is lived well if marked from beginning to end by grateful and active remembrance of God’s saving work (Dies Domini #52). “When its significance and implications are understood in their entirety, Sunday in a way becomes a synthesis of the Christian life and a condition for living it well” becoming not only our remembrance of the past event but a celebration of the living presence of the Risen Lord in the midst of his own people (Dies Domini #81).

Rooted in our own cultures, and for Sunday to be more effective, the Church and the State must come together in the observation of a day that people rest and reminisce over their lives and ponder their destinies. Christian values should be considered in drafting regulations that not only stipulate relations between employer and employee but also in the wider national constitutional drafts. In Zimbabwe, though not officially a Christian nation, Christianity pervade the lives of the majority of the denizen and I feel it would not be overbearing to enforce the observance of Sunday as a day for chisi – a day we all rest, no trader opens shop and employees remain at home with their families. Most businesses continue trading throughout the weekends and even though they claim they are offering an invaluable service their fundamental motive is the maximization of profits. A nation with the Lord at its very core is a prosperous nation so we have to strictly observe and mark Sunday as a day of rest and worship rejoicing in Christ’s resurrection and victory over sin and death.