Taking Back Sunday

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God made us to live in delight, not to live in sorrow, anger, fear, anxiety or urgency.

That is the goal of life – to delight in the goodness of God and of his creation and by this reach union with Him.  

Sunday is the Day of Delight

God gave us the gift of Sunday so that we would learn to live in delight all week long and all lifelong.

What should we do on Sundays? What makes for a good Sunday? On Sundays we should delight in the goodness of reality.

To delight means to recognize, feel enriched by and be satisfied in the goodness of who God is, what He has made, how He does things and how he designed things to work.

In as much as an activity enables us to delight in reality it is leisure.

Insofar as an activity causes us to delight in a distortion of reality through sex, violence and hyper activity, then it is destructive entertainment, it leaves us restless, unfulfilled and unhappy.

If we want to be people of delight, then on Sundays we should do four things:

A.  Delight in what God has done for us in the Mass;

B.  Delight in the goodness of our families;

C. Delight in the goodness of creation by engaging in activities that help us celebrate goodness of reality;   

D. Delight in the goodness of someone who needs to be shown how good they are – we should take care of the materially and spiritually poor.

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So what makes for a good Sunday?

The first thing we should do is delight in and celebrate the goodness of God and what he has done for us in creation and even more by his death and Resurrection which brings about the New Creation.

For this purpose, Jesus gave us the celebration of the Eucharist in the Mass.

Sunday Mass is where we come together as a spiritual family to celebrate the reality of the Goodness of God.

Can you imagine celebrating a birthday party for yourself alone? It’s not much of a celebration by yourself. That is because isolation stifles celebration.

If we want to really delight in the goodness of God then we all come together at Mass on Sunday and make it a celebration.

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The second thing we do on Sundays is celebrate the goodness of our family by spending time with them.

The greatest natural joy, even if challenging, is our physical family. Sunday should be a day dedicated to become more aware of and delight in the goodness of our family and each individual member of our family. Its when we spend time with each other for the purpose of becoming more aware of the goodness of each person in our family, appreciating their goodness and delighting in them.

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Now we can’t just sit around and look at each other. So do stuff with your family.

That leads us to the third thing that makes for a good Sunday: do some activity with family and friends that helps you experience reality, the truth, beauty and goodness of creation and your life.

Prepare a meal and eat together and talk about life;

Have a meal outside in the beauty of nature – what could be better than good food, good drink, a beautiful setting and the people you love with good conversation?

Have another family over;

Go for a walk

Play a game – bocce ball or croquet or soccer or kick-ball

Listen to music together – there’s nothing better than live music.

The point is, do stuff with family and friends so that you can delight in each other and the goodness of God’s creation.

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The fourth thing that makes for a good Sunday is to delight in people who have no one to delight in them – that means – do something good for the materially and spiritually poor.

Sunday is a day of delight and giving yourself in charity is a source of joy.

Sunday is a special day to live out the spiritual works of mercy: instructing, consoling, comforting, forgiving and patiently forbearing.

The bodily works of mercy include feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned, sheltering the homeless and burying the dead.

The first reason we do these is to go and look these people in the eye and make sure they know the world is better place just because they are in it and then delight in them;

The second reason is to care for their needs;

The third reason is that it is a fantastic thing to do as family and friends that binds us together and gives us joy.

So what makes for a good Sunday?

Delight in the goodness of God and His creation by:

1.  Celebrating what God has done at Mass

2.  Celebrate the goodness of your family

3.  Celebrate by some activity that helps you experience the goodness of reality;

4.  Celebrate someone who has no one to delight in them.