THIRD COMMANDMENT
SANCTIFY THE FEASTS
(From “The Catholic Moral”, Editorial Luis Vives, Huesca, 1954. Mi home made translation, with my cooments in [ ])
171. What it commands: The Third Commandment commands us to sanctify the feast days, that is, to cease work and to honor the Lord with acts of Cult on Sundays and other feast days of obligation. Included in this, therefore, is the obligation of masters and employers to give time to their servants and dependents to fulfill their religious duties.
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God said to the Hebrews: Six days you shall labor and do your work, and the seventh day is a day of rest, consecrated to Yahweh, your God, and you shall do no work on it. (Exodus XX, 9-10). With these words God commands us to work during the week and to sanctify the day of rest or feast day
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[They have translated Sabbath as “a day of rest”, and they have the defect of quoting incomplete verses of the Bible and then they quote the book and verse of the Bible in case you want to read it complete, nobody is perfect. I think that they copy only part of the verses for teaching purposes, in those times (1954) all versions of Catholic Bibles were good, so it was enough for them to tell us where to find the verses. Nowadays we cannot accept Bibles printed after 1964, (update: I wrote the following sentences thinking in Spanish, I tried to find a Bible copied from a version printed no latter than 1954 and it was impossible, in Argentina and Spain, but in English you can buy good bibles, for example: Douay Rheims, you have to be sure that it is a faithful re-printing) as it is almost impossible to find a faithful copy of those Bibles…, and the one I have… someone keeps on changing the printed words, sometimes I have to make a mosaic based on my Bible and examining other versions, but my Bible still keeps most of true verses. In a Message of Our Lady of the Roses we are told not to accept bibles printed after 1964 (tldm.org changed the year and they put “1965”), we have to pray for those true Bibles to be reprinted and meanwhile we keep on looking for good versions…].
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172. Origin of Feasts: Since the earliest times of mankind there have always been certain days called holy, destined to honor God and to sanctify themselves with works of religion. In the natural law there was no fixed day. Moses in his law appointed the Sabbath.
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God Himself commanded His people the sanctification of feast days: "Ye shall not neglect to keep My Sabbaths, for the Sabbath is between Me and you a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that ye may know that it is I, Yahweh, that sanctify you.
You shall keep the Sabbath, for it is a saint thing. Whoever profanes it shall be chastised with death; whoever works on it shall be cut off from among his people. Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day shall be a day of complete rest, dedicated to Yahweh. He who works on the Sabbath," -He repeats-, "shall be chastised with death. (Ex., XXXI 13-15)
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We Christians sanctify Sundays, in remembrance of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and the coming of the Holy Spirit, and other feast days dedicated to the principal mysteries of the life of Jesus Christ and of the Blessed Virgin, and the feasts of certain Saints.
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Feast days: The Code of the Church, in addition to Sundays, indicates ten Precept feast days (mandatory feast days), namely: Christmas (December 25), the Circumcision (January 1), the Epiphany or Three Wise Men (January 6), the Ascension and Corpus Christi, which are feasts of the Lord; the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption, which are feasts of the Blessed Virgin; and also those of St. Joseph (March 19), St. Peter and St. Paul (June 29) and All Saints (November 1).
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In Spain we also have the feast of St. James the Apostle (July 25) and, because of devotion, the days of Holy Thursday and Good Friday are kept. [Never ever work in a Good Friday!!!!] In addition, there are other regional, diocesan or local ones that are mandatory for being patronal, as Our Lady of the Pillar, in Aragon; Saint Vincent Ferrer in the kingdom of Valencia; Saint Isidore in Madrid; Our Lady of Covadonga in Asturias,;Our Lady of Mercy in Barcelona; Saint Ignatius in Guipúzcoa and Vizcaya.
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[Note: some say that January 6 is no longer a precept feast day, and there are others that may no longer be. Although in some Catholic countries they are not holidays, the feast of the Immaculate Conception (Dec. 8) and the Assumption of the Virgin in body and soul into Heaven (Aug. 15) are precept feasts (so we have to attend Mass). January 1st is now called: Holy Mary, Mother of God. Good Friday is a day of abstinence and prayer, and as it is of strong fasting, one should not work (in the O.T. God is angry against those who demand his servants to work hardly on a day of fasting), it is a day of pain and mourning. And Our Lady of the Roses asks us that on the eves of the great feasts we should not eat meat and to keep a vigil of 3 hours].
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174. Necessity of Sunday rest.- Sunday rest is of imperious necessity for the man from any point of view that is considered. The human body periodically demands some rest in order to recover itself with the opportune interruption of work. In addition to the bodily needs, there are the social, spiritual and religious needs, which must also be attended to.
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They demand and require Sunday rest:
1º The glory of God, since on the other days of the week work prevents us from attending properly to the fulfillment of our religious duties to Him.
2º The interest of our soul, so that it may better attend to the cultivation and development of its higher faculties.
3º The health and well-being of the body, since its strength is limited, and without weekly rest it would end up being exhausted.
4º The life of the family, whose members are often separated during the week, because of work, and they can hardly see each other and talk for a while daily.
5º The good of society, which has time and occasion to pay public worship to God and to attract His blessings, and, moreover, because its members have occasion to maintain and strengthen their social relations and friendships.
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175. Sanctification of Feasts.- To sanctify Sundays and feast days we must fulfill two grave obligations, which are: to cease work and to listen to Holy Mass attentively and devoutly. [They say “listen” because the Mass was in Latin in those times, keeping the right cult, but as some people couldn’t understand Latin, the minimum obligation was to listen to it attentively and devoutly].
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To this law are subject, from the age of seven, all the faithful who usually have the use of reason. To these two obligations the fervent Christian adds the reception of the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist, attendance at Vespers and a sermon [when in Mass, it is called Homily] or Church function, and other works of piety, apostolate and mercy. Apart from that, these are days destined to lead a more intense family life and to allow oneself an honest expansion.
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[When it says "functions" it refers to: 2. f. A task that concerns to an institution or entity, or to its bodies or persons. 3. f. Solemn act, especially a religious act. ]
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176. Precept of listening to Mass: Listening to Mass presupposes continuous bodily presence in a church and sufficient mental attention to be aware that the Holy Sacrifice is being celebrated. He who plays the organ during Mass, who collects alms in the church, and who goes to confession.
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[Remember that we must never talk a word to the neighbor during Mass (except, may be, to make an indication, in very low voice, to a child that is starting to attend Mass), and we must leave the church in silence not to disturb other people’s prayers.]
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The obligation to listen to Mass on Sundays and feast days is imposed on us by the first precept of the Church.
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Some causes can be presented that excuse one from hearing Mass: moral impossibility, a long distance, charity, obligation, etc. (see n. 335)
[{335. Cases which excuse one from hearing Mass: one is dispensed from hearing Mass in case of physical or moral impossibility and grave discomfort, as would be a distance of more than an hour [walking], or somewhat less in bad weather; when charity (fire, care of the sick) or the obligation of the state (mothers, guards, soldiers) do not permit or prevent it; when some grave danger, physical or moral, presents itself; and sometimes because of certain local customs, badly understood, but legitimate.]
No local excuses can prevail against a Commandment, even badly understood!!!! They can never be legitimated.
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From another point:
{228. 4º Sometimes it can be licit to omit a work of precept to avoid scandal. As it would be the case of a young woman who abstains any time from going to Mass on Sunday, not to give occasion of sin to certain person. }
Is that the moral issue they mention? They have explained in the Sixth Commandment (that I have already translated) that our soul is a priority before the others, so, if it is a problem of other person’s soul, she must go to Mass, because the scandal is in the soul of the other individual, she doesn’t provoke it by attending Mass, if there are physical risks, she must advice the police. In this point 176 and those I added, I put Mass in capital letters because they put Mass in lower case in those twisted paragraphs.]
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If for such and such a reason, someone is excused from listening to Mass, he must remember that natural law obliges him to render external worship to God, from which the Church cannot dispense him. Not only should he interrupt his menial tasks, but he should also devote more time than usual to prayer, to some pious reading, etc. If, because he is a civil servant, he cannot listen to Mass in the morning, he is advised to attend some sermon or church function in the afternoon [because there was a time when afternoon/evening Masses were forbidden]
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[Regarding the attention we must keep during Mass, I tanslate a dream of St. John Bosco for you to see the reality.
I translate this Saint John Bosco’s dream from a page that changes things, and many times important things are missing. But It is the only version I found of this dream and what remains is very useful:
<< 36. The distractions in the Church 1861
On November 28, 1861, when many of the youths had just arrived at the Oratory of Don Bosco and were not yet accustomed to pray attentively, the Saint told them this dream: "I dreamed that we were all gathered in the Church and Holy Mass began. And then many little men dressed in red and with horns, that is, little devils, came into the Temple and began to distract the young people while they were praying.
To one they presented the elements of sport, to others a book, to several: a plate full of goodies and to some they showed them a cupboard at the bottom of which was kept a good snack. To some they brought back memories of their village or neighborhood and to others they reminded them of the details of the last game party. Each young man had a little devil who tried to make him think about other things and not about the prayers they were praying.
Some of the little devils were perched on the bodies of some of the youngsters and they would caress them and smooth their hair.
The time for the elevation the Host came, and at the ringing of the bell the young men knelt down, and all the little devils disappeared, except those on the neck, who turned their backs to face the opposite side of the altar.
As soon as the elevation was finished, the little devils came back and once again distracted the young people so that they would not pay attention to what they were praying.
I believe that the explanation of this dream is that the little devils represent the distractions that come to us when we pray. If we pray without thinking about what we are saying, to Whom we are speaking, or what we are asking, then prayer loses much of its value and power.
Those who have the devil around their necks are those who are in mortal sin and do not want to leave that sin. The devil does not leave them because they belong to him, and it is much more difficult for them to pray than for others.>>
You can see that all the disasters start with lack of prayers.]
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177. What the third commandment forbids: It forbids to work and to make others work on Sundays and other feast days in servile works and any other occupations that impede the cult to God.
He who for two to three hours, as the case may be, engages in not allowed servile work, sins gravely. He who, in order to avoid this inconvenience, hires several workers to do a work that would demand him several hours and together they would do it in one hour or less, would sin venially, if there were no scandal, because the venial sins of the workers who work voluntarily do not add up to constitute a mortal sin for the employer. [All this intricacies… when God commands us to REST in feast days, and also our slaves, servants…, and even animals must rest on those days...].
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Under the pretext of avoiding idleness, it is not permitted to devote long periods of time to keep the vegetable or flower garden or other similar tasks.
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A bricklayer, after earning his wages six days a week, spent Sunday building a house for himself. The good people who saw him said that he was stealing that house from God. They were not mistaken, for as soon as he entered it to live in it, an unexpected fire destroyed it. God does not always visibly punish the prevaricator; but the curse of the Lord always pursues him.
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[We have an example in the saint Priest of Ars, Saint John Vianney, when he arrived in the town, the people worked in summer Sundays in the harvest. St. John Vianney told them to stop working in the Lord's Day, that way they would have better harvests. They followed his advice and harvests improved. When he arrived in Ars, only 2 or 3 people attended Mass, when he died more than 40 years later, ALL attended Mass in Ars except 1, the canteens had been eradicated and he had built an orphanage for girls that he financed with donations].
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Sins opposed to the Third Commandment: Christians can sin against this commandment in three ways:
1. By failing to attend Mass without just cause; which is a grave sin, because he fails to fulfill a grave obligation prescribed by the Church.
2. By devoting oneself to servile works which the Church does not permit, or which custom, necessity, or other causes do not authorize. If the time exceeds two hours, or two and a half hours, it is a grave sin.
3º Profaning the feast days with immoral acts or licentious amusements, in dances, cinemas, forbidden theatrical performances, etc., which give death to the soul and put it on the road to perdition.
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The holy Priest of Ars said to his parishioners: "You work, but what you earn ruins your soul and your body. If those who come home from work on Sunday were asked: "Where have you come from, what have you done?" they might answer: "I have come from selling my soul to the devil, from crucifying Our Lord and renouncing to the Holy Baptism; I am on my way to Hell, and, for nothing, I will have to mourn for the eternity. When I see them carrying things on Sunday, I think that they are taking their souls to hell in a cart".
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179. The work in relation to the Third Commandment.- In relation to this precept the works are classified in servile, liberal, judicial and commercial works.
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Servile works are those that demand more effort of the body than of the spirit, such as construction, printing, mining, farming, factories, workshops, sewing, etc., that is to say, those that were formerly performed by slaves and servants.
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Liberal works involve more work of the mind than of the body, such as those of studying, reading, writing, teaching, drawing, painting, etc. They are called liberal because, formerly, they were typical of free persons. With those works, the faculties of the soul are exercised.
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They are called common works those which are common to all kinds of people. In them both the soul and the body are involved, such as traveling, walking, playing, hunting, fishing, etc.
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Judicial or legal works are those that are exercised in the forum, or refer to the judicial forum, such as examining witnesses, taking statements, giving sentences, etc.
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Commercial or civil works are those that refer to buying and selling, or other similar things that are performed in stores, fairs and markets.
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180. Prohibited work: Servile, judicial and commercial work shall be prohibited on Sundays and feast days of precept. The time of prohibition is from midnight on Saturday to midnight on Sunday. Under pain of mortal sin are forbidden:
1º All servile works, even if they are not done for profit or gain, or are done for pure recreation, with good or bad intention, with much fatigue or little fatigue.
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2° All forensic work which involves acting as a judge, in court; but not consulting a lawyer, writing a document, etc.
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3º All civil or commercial work done in public markets, fairs, etc., unless authorized by legitimate custom or special concessions (Canon 1248).
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In all these cases there is parity of matter; in servile work the duration of the labor must not exceed two hours or a little more. In forensic and commercial ones the gravity or parsimony is appreciated by the quality of the work.
[Continuing with these books of catechesis for high school, until now when they put the word Mass in lower case, which does not happen all the time, I corrected it, but in the following point I am going to leave everything as it came, so that you can see how the infiltrated vipers work: Mass in lower case, but Saturday in upper case, when in Spanish we use lower case to write the days of the week (in the previous point Sunday was in lower case), and then, on top of that, they say that (what they rotted in Catholic Church) common and liberal works allowed for gain on Sunday, was because of following “the spirit of Jesus Christ”. That sounds so horrible to me.... that it reminds me of: "Therefore I tell you, every other sin or blasphemy will be forgiven men, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven." St Matthew 12:31
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Jesus never said we could work for money on Sunday. He performed miracles on Sabbaths because He is God, He is Lord of the Sabbath, He made God's work and He said that priests work in the Temple on the Sabbath and do not sin. Jesus Christ allowed the apostles to pluck ears of corn with their hands and rub them and eat them, because they were hungry, they were just eating, not working in a harvest. That goes in the logic that the Sabbath is made for man (and man needs to rest and animals too), it is okay to assist an ill person on Sunday, moreover the Church recommended, as a work of charity, to visit ill persons after Mass. And in the previous point it is not forbidden to study on Sundays, but from my own experience I tell you that it is harmful to study on Sundays. It is necessary to rest thoroughly a complete day and to elevate the soul to God on that day especially].
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181. Permitted works: The universal custom introduced and continued through the centuries, and consented to, or at least tolerated by the Church, permits all kinds of common and liberal works, because they do not hinder attendance at Mass at any hour, or participation in other religious functions, or the practice of works of mercy. They can be performed, even for profit.
[NO!!!, first, because that person do not rest accurately, second because we cannot serve God and money. That last paragraph is a lie and is against the Words of Jesus, that last paragraph is against the costume that endured in the Church till… the 70’s. The Church did not tolerate any betrayal to any of the 10 Commandments. Of course Church does not kill infractors, as other so called religions do, that does not mean that Church consented them. For very grave sins, Church applied excommunication, for the others: it has always preached the true doctrine for sinners’ convertion, in this recent years infiltrated satanists preach lies… for example, that Communion in the hand was common usage in the past. Communion in the hand was done in certain delimited few places but the Church was healthy and that costume was eradicated. Church preferred to let England to leave the Church than to allow divorce, because Catholic Church was loyal to the Words of Jesus and cannot accept divorce. Neither even a Bishop can make an annulment of a marriage made by a true catholic ordained priest, examine the Messages of Our Lady of the Roses.]
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The Apostles and their successors, in permitting Christians to do certain works forbidden to Jews on the Sabbath, did nothing more than follow and put into practice the spirit of Jesus Christ, whom they had seen the Pharisees reproach so many times.
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[Of course, infiltrated synagogue of satan, twisted liars, they calumniate Jesus Christ because to heal someone in Sabbath, to help someone when he is starving, in an emergency, even in Sabbath, it is in the logic of God, for example according to what we read about King David; and to rescue an animal fallen in a pit, to untie an animal to give it water… those were the normal costumes among Jews on Sabbath… if, to keep the health of an animal, they made works… to cure a human should not have had scandalized them. Jesus cured people on Sabbath for many reasons, one of them it is that He showed them that He made miracles on Sabbath on purpose, because it is the Day of the Lord… if they didn’t understand the 5th. Commandment, they should have had understood true miracles. But they misunderstand a Miracle considering it a transgression to the Law of God, and then, in their stupidity, they think that if a so called “transgression” was made, they can make all the transgression they want. So, they do not believe in Jesus Christ, they do not understand God, they hate Him, and they make excuses for their dead souls based in their bad interpretations of God’s Word.
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So, in order that you may see how difficult it is to get to Heaven and that we cannot deviate even if others push us, and we cannot relax even if it seems a great thing to us to have arrived halfway and we are tempted to rest under a bush, I suggest you to read the dream of Saint John Bosco: 30. A WALK TO PARADISE, 1861
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182. Causes that authorize work on feast days.- There are causes that excuse and authorize work on feast days. The principal ones are necessity, charity, piety, public good, legitimate custom, and dispensation. The reason to do them must be all the more serious the longer the work is prolonged, and scandal must be avoided as far as possible. Moreover, the spirit of the law of Sunday rest should always be kept in mind.
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Out of necessity, the work of cooks, bakers, railroad workers, etc., is permitted, but no one is exempted from the obligation of attending Holy Mass, provided there is no incompatibility.
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[Why not to buy the bread on Saturdays????, or to be away from the world and not to go to restaurants of Sundays??? Cooks must have their Sunday rest. Rail road workers should work in turns only one Sunday per month.]
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Charity to one's neighbor authorizes working for the sick and the poor who are in dire need; digging graves for the deceased, etc.
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Piety or love to God permits some servile works attached to the splendor of divine cult; for example, to prepare what is necessary for a coming religious service, to decorate altars, etc.
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The common good excuses many servile works, such as those of firemen, guards, sweepers, and other public services which the common good does not permit to be postponed. For this reason it seems lawful, in certain circumstances, to load and unload wagons and ships, if it is not possible to do otherwise.
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[in Buenos Aires, men that pick up garbage do not work on Saturdays, they work on Sundays… when it is supposed that restaurants take their garbage out after Saturday nights, nowadays, the situation ended in closed restaurants and theatres because of misery, because of murderous hate to God’s Word and Catholics…]
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In particular cases, the bishop and the parish priest can dispense faithful from attending Mass, especially at harvest time, to avoid imminent harm to the farmers.
[In particular cases… then they make those usual cases.]
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In some places, by "legitimate custom", certain work such as watering vegetables, mending clothes, etc., is permitted.
[There can never be a “legitimate custom” against the Law of God]
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Necessity may excuse servants, or children, whose masters or parents oblige them to work, if they cannot easily find another master; maids and mothers, who clean or mend clothes because they cannot do it during the week; the laborer, who repairs the work tools to be used the next day, if he did not have time the day before; foundrymen and blast furnace workers, whose work cannot be interrupted because of the serious economic loss it would cause to the company.
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[Note: There is no "legitimate custom" against the Gospel. And here they begin with those who cannot be excused, they continue with the workers who do not want to get up a few hours earlier on Monday to repair their tools and they go so far as to justify the rich owners of steel furnaces... they care most that “they do not have serious economic losses" than for their souls and the good of the society... Remember that God is Just and He chastises all transgressions to His Word.].
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The urgency of certain works of dressmakers, tailors, shoemakers and others, for imminent weddings, unforeseen trips, funerals, assuming that it has not been possible to prevent or do otherwise, can be excused. Sometimes there will be guilt for not having done them earlier or for having taken more work than they can do for a given date. Those who do this out of habit are guilty of grave fault.
In all these cases, in order not to deceive oneself or be carried away by illusions, it is good and prudent to consult the confessor or the parish priest before acting. [Note: Better that you examine the Messages of Our Lady of the Roses.]
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183. Consequences of profaning the feast days.- The profanation of the feast days brings fatal consequences for the individuals, who are exhausted, materialized, and paganized, and for the peoples, who are degraded and converted into exploited machines, without counting the damages that fall upon them and the divine curses.
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"The violation of Sunday is the precursor of all kinds of misfortunes. It is the extinction of faith, the abandonment of prayer, the forgetting of eternity. It is the suppression of God in the life of man" (Leo XIII).
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The infraction of this commandment is the mockery of Religion; the decomposition of the family, which does not lead a common life; the imbalance of society, because the worker cannot attend to his religious, moral and cultural formation, and lives as a degraded being, next to the wealthy and educated classes. Should we marvel later that mobs of men without faith and without law rise up and promote deep social convulsions and threaten to plunge us into savagery and anarchy?
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The Holy Priest of Ars used to say: I know two infallible means to impoverish oneself: to work on Sundays and to steal.
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"Work on Sundays, joy of the devil", says an Italian proverb.
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Practical lesson: Sunday, day of the Lord... The bells are ringing... It is the voice of God calling us... With their sound, it seems as if the damned, full of rage, were saying: Damn Sunday... Damn Sunday.... On the other hand, with them, the blessed, full of joy, seem to say to us: Blessed Sunday!... blessed Sunday!....
Why is it that the damned curse Sunday and the elect bless it? Let us listen to the answer of both:
-Forever be Sunday accursed, say the damned ones [condemned to the penalties of Hell, reprobate], because on that day we learned to gamble, to frequent bad company, to be perverse and vicious, and to commit the sins that precipitated us into hell.
[TV is a very bad company]
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-Eternally blessed are you, O holy day of the Lord," exclaim the saved souls in Heaven, "because thanks to you we learned Christian doctrine and the way to serve God; we made amends to our bad costumes and corrected our defects by confessing and receiving the Communion, and, giving rest to the body, the soul had time to praise and give glory to God Who is now our joy and our eternal happiness. Let us remember every Sunday and feast day the sermon that the bells preach to us: fulfill your Christian duties, do not sin and you will be saved.
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[That this chapter still allows fishing for money on Sunday and some other things it says, it is the product of blind infiltrators who lead other blind people. Sunday is the day consecrated to the Lord, and since Jesus Christ tells us that we cannot serve God and money, it is clear that there can be no working for money on Sunday. There are people who have the obligation to work in essential jobs, but it must be for a short period of time, not as in a labor day, and must have time to go to Mass, pray, be with the family, and they must be compensated with a day and a half for those not more than 4 hours worked on Sunday. There are those who think that because of tourism it is necessary to take advantage of the summer and be opened on Sundays at Summer, but remember that even foreigners should not work on the Lord's day, the Old Testament says.
In the case of a dressmaker who must work on Sunday to get her work done before an event, she should be told to hire help. Deceivers always raise the tearful case of a poor person who cannot do anything else but violate the law of God, and they excuse that person and then the vipers say that this situation of transgressing is not a sin and that everyone can do it. That argument served them for abortion, divorce... anything. NO. This book tells us the case of a woman who can only mend clothes on Sunday. I think that a poor woman who leaves the house at dawn and comes back at night, 6 days a week, only finds good light to sew on Sunday. But the Church is a family where real charity should reign, not just a few bills to an organization, so the priest would do well to look for a few women among the parishioners who have spare time to chat in the square in the evenings, and who out of charity, do the sewing of the poor woman. The devil and his henchmen throw darkness on us so that we forget the Word of God, and ultimately, God Himself.].