After attending Mass this past Easter Sunday, I was reading the church newsletter (a Loma Linda Catholic Church) and came across this statement. The author was responding to a question as to why the Sabbath (Saturday by definition) is actually on Sunday for Christians. The author, an CSsR (I really don't know what that designation is, I use it because he used it beside his name), responded that the Old Testament stricture to observe the Sabbath was binding on only on Jews, along with the other parts of the Old Testament. Huh?
What about the Ten Commandments, Mr. CSsR? Are they binding only Jews? Christians profess them. Matthews' Jesus in particular insists that the laws of the Old Testament must be obeyed; indeed; not just, to paraphrase, don't hurt your neighbor, do not even get angry at your neighbor! It was St. Paul who upended the teachings of Matthew and proclaimed in his letters to his various church communities that belief in the resurrection was enough for salvation and that one did not have to obey the laws given in the Old Testament. Thus, St. Paul let aspiring Christians off the hook by saying that one did not have to get circumcised to become a Christian. Those were all mere ipsi dixits. As the Gospels make clear, Jesus' own teachings are quite to the contrary. Jesus himself observed the Sabbath and was circumcised according the the Jewish law on the 8th day after his birth..
It is fine to proclaim that Christians will worship on Sunday. But don't pretend to base it on biblical teachings.
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