Month: May 2023

The Lord’s Day

II. The Lord’s Day

The day of the Resurrection: the new creation

2174 Jesus rose from the dead “on the first day of the week.” Because it is the “first day,” the day of Christ’s Resurrection recalls the first creation. Because it is the “eighth day” following the sabbath, it symbolises the new creation ushered in by Christ’s Resurrection. For Christians it has become the first of all days, the first of all feasts, the Lord’s Day (he kuriake hemera, dies dominica) Sunday:
We all gather on the day of the sun, for it is the first day [after the Jewish sabbath, but also the first day] when God, separating matter from darkness, made the world; and on this same day Jesus Christ our Savior rose from the dead.

Sunday – fulfillment of the sabbath
2175 Sunday is expressly distinguished from the sabbath which it follows chronologically every week; for Christians its ceremonial observance replaces that of the sabbath. In Christ’s Passover, Sunday fulfills the spiritual truth of the Jewish sabbath and announces man’s eternal rest in God. For worship under the Law prepared for the mystery of Christ, and what was done there prefigured some aspects of Christ:
Those who lived according to the old order of things have come to a new hope, no longer keeping the sabbath, but the Lord’s Day, in which our life is blessed by him and by his death.

2176 The celebration of Sunday observes the moral commandment inscribed by nature in the human heart to render to God an outward, visible, public, and regular worship “as a sign of his universal beneficence to all.” Sunday worship fulfills the moral command of the Old Covenant, taking up its rhythm and spirit in the weekly celebration of the Creator and Redeemer of his people.
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Thomas 11/05/2023

Visit thread: https://www.interfaith.org/community/threads/20624/

Prohibitions

Discussion elsewhere caused me to look round a reason for the prohibition of pork and shellfish … the latter is, I think, debatable in Islam.

Having made only cursory searches, it seems there exists no ‘logical’ reason for the prohibition – pigs are often unfairly condemned as dirty animals – although a pig will eat pig …

I mean, if for example pigs are unclean, why did Noah simply not take them on the Ark?

But there is some debate as to whether these prohibitions arose as a means of distinguishing ‘us’ from ‘them’…

There is, from what I read, no evidence of farming pigs or hunting boar in Ancient Egypt.

There is some anthropological research that suggests circumcision among Sumerian and Semitic peoples, and Abraham might have mandated it as a mark of the covenant for himself and his household – his tribe – regardless of their origin.

Having looked again at Leviticus, it’s difficult to see why God would extend such a list of prohibitions – or why God ruled the birth of a female child to be twice as bad a s a male …

+++

We surely have to acknowledge that in various cases traditional cultural practices have received a divine endorsement, or even that because a cultic practice is mentioned in Scripture, it becomes de facto law.

I am not arguing against kosher or halal practice … 

… just thinking aloud. If I’ve caused offence, I apologise without reserve, I have nothing invested in this discussion.

Thomas  13/05/2023

Visit thread: https://www.interfaith.org/community/threads/20626/