The Catholic Parish of
Saint John Henry Newman

 Covering most of East Leeds

A Holy or Shopping Day?

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God commanded the people to rest after six days of work and keep the Sabbath Holy. Christians of course, no longer observe Sabbath Day, instead they keep holy the Lords Day, Sunday, the first day of the week ..... or do they?

As we approach Christmas the pressure is on to “Shop till you drop”

In many places today, Sunday has become the day for remembering shopping, rather than God. In the words of one of our well known supermarkets, “For the benefit of our customers, we are now open 24hrs a day, seven days a week.” As a cynic I would ask, “Is this really for the benefit of their customers, or has it more to do with increasing their already vast profits?”

We all have to eat, to live, so we must all buy food, but is it really necessary to follow the commercial line and shop seven days a week. One supermarket group recently announced that its smaller stores would open on Christmas Day, run by staff who have volunteered to work. Again, to use that well known phrase, ”When I was a lad,” we had in place a Sunday trading law which banned most shops from opening on this day. Did we all become undernourished and suffer from malnutrition due to this harsh law? I don’t think so.

So how should we keep Sunday Holy? As Catholic Christians, the most important way of keeping the Lord’s Day, is our regular attendance at Mass and receiving the Holy Eucharist each Sunday. An early writer once put it this way, “Leave everything on the Lord’s Day and run diligently to your assembly and praise God. What excuse will they make to God, those who do not come together on the Lord’s Day, to hear the word of lifeand feed on his divine nourishment, which lasts forever?”

“Be proud to just be yourself and generate for yourself
a sense of calmness, relaxation and peace.”



Published Sat 10th Dec 2016 00:10:02
Last Modified on Sat 10th Dec 2016 00:10:36

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