"One swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed or happy." - Aristotle (from Nicomachean Ethics) 

"The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride." - Sirach 7:8

In His wisdom, God originally set aside a day among our labors not to work but to enjoy most fully the fruits of our labor.  This was the Sabbath of the Old Dispensation, but in the Resurrection (the "eighth day" of the "new creation" as many Church Fathers put it, for the Sabbath belongs to Saturday originally), there is yet a more specific obligation.  This Lord's Day is a day not merely of bodily rest (indeed, an exhausted body cannot properly worship), but for reflection and thus an engagement with spiritual realities above and beyond the immediate concerns of our lives. 

Sadly, that divine reality is lost on many for this materialistic age has moved quite far from God's original design.  This is not only true within the realm of work, where people still treat Sunday as an ordinary workday, but to that of man's appetites and perverse enjoyments in his isolation and idleness that comprise the waste of his own life. 

Just as liturgical worship is the most fitting "thank you" to Our Lord, where we but spend an hour or so alongside Him with the entire community of family and friends, the wasting of our life in grave and petty evils is one of the greatest insults to the one who "came that they may have life and have it abundantly." (John 10:10).

It is thus a very Christian question to raise: how am I to apportion my time on this Earth?  Beyond work, duty to one's state in life, civic and family obligations, and the like, what are you to do with your free time?  And is it something sacred not only to you but to God?  "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath" (Mark 2:27), said the Lord. 

Think often of how many scenes in Christ's ministry had to do with the policing of the Sabbath and proper worship to God.  By some estimates, nearly 33% of the Gospel accounts somehow relate to the politics of the Sabbath.  Few topics with such specificity in fact command such attention.  Something, therefore, is being conveyed here. 

This is a blog about Sundays.

This is a blog more specifically about what Sundays involve:

Divinity and Leisure.

As this blog shall argue, these two ends are intimately connected.

None of the works of Creation were necessary in their own right because nothing stands outside of them as sources of motivation to the Eternal God.  As for ourselves, what could we offer Him?  He is lacking nothing. 

Therefore, all was freely given from the first day unto the last.   

Providence is but at His leisure.

Speaking about leisure and the Divine and their relationship is the heart of this blog where I address those things most dear to me.

But exploring the spiritual cures afforded by pastimes in the here and now leads to a far more important observation: why should liturgical feasting stand at the forefront of a day well-spent?  And why, indeed, is the Eucharist the greatest of such goods on this Earth?  And what does this Sacrament of Sacraments have to do with everything else?

At my own leisure (and often on Sundays and other "holydays"), I will write briefly about the wholesomeness of hobbies, amusements, and --- yes-- of religion (not just "religion" in a generic, naturalistic sense, but regarding this Incarnational, Eucharistic religion of the Catholic Faith).

In the process, I hope that both you and I come to a better understanding of the Christian life by focusing not so much on its travails and sacrifices (which are indeed a treasure trove of merit and sanctification when approached gracefully), but on the Good itself [be it the Source of All that is Good, the first title of God, or of particular goods in their own fullness by which we may better know Him in part]. 

This blog is then a spiritual exercise of gratitude, of thanksgiving (or εὐχαριστία), without which life curls in upon itself and chokes out itself like an overly compacted potted plant.  To seek to love the most important thing in life, that is, the Triune God in its inexhaustible nature of self-giving, is a difficult task oddly enough.  It is made difficult not by any deficiency of God, but through the dark reality of sin. 

I say that the most conducive path to overcoming this false blindness of our dark cave of our origins in the Primordial Sin, which prefigures our many particular sins, is not to jump into the truly blinding light of His truth directly, so much as be led out of that dark cave by lesser reflecting lights through the overlooked little things in life that stem from that same source.  We move little by little in this pilgrimage through life.  And being so guided, we may trust in that light, but not in every footstep: We have eyes that are not yet conditioned to His light.  We do not see as He sees.  Our thoughts are not His thoughts, nor our ways like His own (Isaiah 55:8-9). 

This is most obvious in the Holy Cross which proved "folly" to the Gentiles and a "scandal" to the Jews.

May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world (Galatians 6:14).  Never have more profound words ever been heard from a Christian's lips.  Even so, for us to truly appreciate the Cross (and indeed our own little "crosses" in life), we must come to appreciate the perfection of a human life that was once nailed upon it.   To speak intelligibly of sacrifice, in other words, we must know two things: first, what is being sacrificed and, far more importantly, for what end?

It is the latter, a far more mysterious and spiritual reality, that one must come to understand in his or her own time.  Abraham in his testing at Moriah did not yet know what God was about even when Isaac was clearly set aside as the sacrifice; hence, the prodigiousness of Father Abraham's faith.  Abraham did not ask, "if I do this, which I do not understand, then what will you do for me to make it worthwhile?"  Abraham was not transacting or bargaining with God. Abraham asked for no such assurances of a prize with his sacrifice of his son.  Rather, he trusted that the Lord was good and that by following the command of He who is Goodness itself no true evil could transpire.

I by contrast am not the person to speak of such sacred realities directly (and indeed, they are sacred because they are mysterious).  But in my meagerness of faith, I may yet carve out a parcel of this Earth for myself not unlike Father Abraham, where I can take stock of the particular goods of life (and the extent by which they are to be understood and used for our benefit in growing closer to a more enduring good; indeed, the source of all that is good.).

There is something beyond this world that we cannot see if we hold too tightly to ourselves.  And it may be by the spirit of play that we can remember our Lord's words most clearly each day: "Amen I say to you, unless you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18:3). 

Such words capture most fitly the spirit of this blog which I offer in the conversion of my life, for the reparation for my countless sins and wanderings from the Lord, so that the hearts of men to whom I am bound in brotherly love may grow less callous towards my Lord and my God.

Be well!