OCR Text |
Show THE SABBATH. Ogden, April" 4. 1909. Editor of Intel-mountain Catholic. Sir:. As the first day of the week is now universally observed in the place of the Sabbath of the third ! Commandment. I would like to be informed of the ground on which this observance ' rests. What is the reason that men prefer the first day of the week, to the ancient Sabbath of the Lord ? Second, Is there a single text of the Bible, in which it is said that God has changed His Sabbath to the first day of the week? JOHN GALVIN. Reply: 1st. To the first query: It wa3 the second Commandment of the Mosaic Law that ordered the observance of the Seventh day. This observance of the Sabbath clay, along with the New Moons, Days of .Atonement, etc., were all abolished by the Christian Dispensation, as is luminously set forth by the Apostle of the Gentiles. St. Paul, in his Epistles. The ground of the observance of Easter Sunday, and of the first day of each week, like that of Christmas, Corpus Christi. Feast of the Assumption As-sumption and others, is the institution and command com-mand of Holy Church, of which Our Lord said: "If one hear not the Church, let him be to you as a heathen." The reason that Catholics prefer the first day of the week is not of "preference," but of obligatory obliga-tory obedience to the Church. The reason that, men not Catholics "prefer" or observe the first day of the week in the rare cases in which they do observe it religiously, is not from any "reason" at all, but from an honest and laudable lau-dable superstition. 2nd. There is not a single text in the Bible to warrant the change from the Sabbath to Sunday, that is from the last day of the week to the first. The observance of the first day or Sunday, on the part of those who continue it, but reject'the Catholic Cath-olic Church, is simply a praiseworthy superstition. |