Την ποιμαντική
Εγκύκλιό του στο Ελληνορθόδοξο ποίμνιο με θέμα «Κυριακάτικη Λατρεία», ο
Μητροπολίτης Βοστώνης εκδίδει μαζί με τον Καρδινάλιο Βοστώνης!!!
Στο κείμενο υπάρχουν
κατηχήσεις, εκτός του Ορθοδόξου(=Ουνίτου) Μητροπολίτου
Βοστώνης, και του Πάπα Ιωάννου Παύλου ΙΙ από το Αποστολικό Γράμμα του, με τίτλο « Dies Domini (Η ημέρα του Κυρίου) του έτους 1998!!!
Η
Εγκύκλιος είναι στα Αγγλικά:
Όπου
βλέπετε στο κείμενο: The Lord’s Day, είναι του Πάπα η «κατήχηση»
Sunday Worship
Metropolitan Methodios
Sadly, Sunday has lost its significance in our society, becoming less of a day
of worship of almighty God and more like any ordinary work day. This especially
affects our young people who are obligated to attend sports events on Sunday
mornings rather than attend the Divine Liturgy. At my request, this sad
reality and its ramifications were discussed at the recent meeting of the
Orthodox-Roman Catholic Consultation. After lengthy discussion, the
following joint statement was issued. I ask you to read it carefully and
approach civic, business and school authorities in your community to schedule
sports events after 12 noon so that our young people may worship together with
their families on Sunday mornings.
The Importance of Sunday
The North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation
Saint Paul’s College, Washington, DC
October 27, 2012
Recovering
the theological significance of Sunday is fundamental to rebalancing our lives.
As Orthodox and Catholics, we share a theological view of Sunday and so our
purpose in this statement is four-fold: to offer a caring response to what is
not just a human, but also a theological question; to add a little more volume
to the growing chorus of Christian voices trying to be heard in the din of our
non-stop worklife; to offer brief reflections in hopes of drawing attention to
the fuller expositions elsewhere; and to reinforce the ecumenical consensus by
speaking as Orthodox and Catholics with one voice.
For
Christians, Sunday, the Lord’s Day, is a special day consecrated to the service
and worship of God. It is a unique
Christian festival. It is “the day the
Lord has made” (Ps. 117 (118):24). Its nature is holy and joyful. Sunday is the
day on which we believe God acted decisively to liberate the world from the
tyranny of sin, death, and corruption through the Holy Resurrection of Jesus.
The
primacy of Sunday is affirmed by the liturgical practice of the early church.
St. Justin the Martyr writing around 150 AD notes that “it is on Sunday that we
assemble because Sunday is the first day, the day on which God transformed
darkness and matter and created the world and the day that Jesus Christ rose
from the dead (First Apology, 67).”
Sunday has always had a privileged position in the life of the church as a day
of worship and celebration. On Sunday the Church assembles to realize her
eschatological fullness in the Eucharist by which the Kingdom and the endless
Day of the Lord are revealed in time. It
is the perpetual first day of the new creation, a day of rejoicing. It is a day for community, feasting and
family gatherings.
As
we look at our fellow Christians and our society, we observe that everyone is
short of time and stressed. One reason is that many of us have forgotten the
meaning of Sunday, and with it the practices that regularly renewed our
relationships and lives. More and more
Christian leaders see the effects of a 24/7 worklife and ask “Where is the time
of rest?” As members of the North
American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation, gathered October 25-27,
2012, we add our combined voice to their call.
Our
purpose here is not to replace or replicate their message; it is to underscore
and point to it. Anyone who looks at the
1998 Apostolic Letter Dies Domini (The Lord’s Day) of Pope John Paul II and
its cascade of patristic quotations will see there is already a feast of food
for thought on the meaning of Sunday.
Anyone who reads the recent book Sunday,
Sabbath, and the Weekend (2010, Edward O’Flaherty, ed.) will see there is
also strong ecumenical consensus on the need to recover the meaning of Sunday--
not just for our souls, but for our bodies, our hearts, and our minds as well.
Sadly
Sunday has become less of a day of worship and family and more like an ordinary
work day. Shopping, sports, and work squeeze out the chance for a day of
worship or rest in the Christian sense.
By abandoning Sunday worship we lose out on the regenerative powers that
flow out of the liturgical assembly. And
when Sunday becomes detached from its theological significance, it becomes just
part of a weekend and people can lose the chance to see transcendent meaning
for themselves and their lives (The
Lord’s Day, 4).
Sunday
is more than just the first day of the week.
In our faith we see how it is the ultimate day of new beginnings: “It is
Easter which returns week by week, celebrating Christ's victory over sin
and death, the fulfillment in him of the first creation and the dawn of
"the new creation" (cf. 2 Cor 5:17). It is the day which
recalls in grateful adoration the world's first day and looks forward in active
hope to "the last day", when Christ will come in glory (cf. Acts
1:11; 1 Th 4:13-17) and all things will be made new (cf. Rev
21:5. The Lord’s Day, 1).”
Sunday
even unlocks the mystery of time itself, for “…in commemorating the day of
Christ's Resurrection not just once a year but every Sunday, the Church seeks
to indicate to every generation the true fulcrum of history, to which the
mystery of the world's origin and its final destiny leads (The Lord’s Day, 2).” The
Lord’s Day is the day after the last day of the week and so it symbolizes
eternity as well: what St. Augustine calls “a peace with no evening
(Confessions 13:50).” St. Basil the
Great in his Treatise on the Holy Spirit writes, “Sunday seems to be an image
of the age to come… This day foreshadows the state which is to follow the
present age: a day without sunset, nightfall or successor, an age which does
not grow old or come to an end (On the
Holy Spirit 26:77).”
The
apostolic letter of Pope John Paul II calls it a day of joy, rest, and
solidarity. Joy there is, because the
disciples are always glad to see the Master. God scripturally established a day
of rest as a gift to us, and rest there must be for every human person. Rest is
built into our nature and also withdraws us “…from the sometimes excessively
demanding cycle of earthly tasks in order to renew [our] awareness that
everything is the work of God. There is a risk that the prodigious power over
creation which God gives to man can lead him to forget that God is the Creator
upon whom everything depends. It is all the more urgent to recognize this
dependence in our own time, when science and technology have so incredibly
increased the power which man exercises through his work. Finally, it should
not be forgotten that even in our own day work is very oppressive for many
people, either because of miserable working conditions and long hours —
especially in the poorer regions of the world — or because of the persistence
in economically more developed societies of too many cases of injustice and
exploitation of man by man (The Lord’s
Day, 65,66).”
As
members of the Consultation, we strongly urge both clergy and laity to work
cooperatively within their communities to stress the importance of Sunday for
worship and family. Foremost we call for
all to render thanks to God and render love towards one another – and be
willing to reserve time to do both -- and avail ourselves of the riches of the
Lord’s Day. Appropriate authorities can
be approached to schedule sports activities after 12 noon in order to give
young athletes and their family the opportunity to worship on Sunday
morning. We call for our children to
live in a timescape that respects the God-given rhythm of the week.
“Yes,
let us open our time to Christ, that he may cast light upon it and give it
direction. He is the One who knows the secret of time and the secret of
eternity, and he gives us "his day" as an ever new gift of his love.
The rediscovery of this day is a grace which we must implore, not only so that
we may live the demands of faith to the full, but also so that we may respond
concretely to the deepest human yearnings. Time given to Christ is never time
lost, but is rather time gained, so that our relationships and indeed our whole
life may become more profoundly human (The
Lord’s Day, 7).”
