I’m the first to confess that I am not very disciplined about taking a Sabbath day each week. I doubt that there are many of us who are so disciplined. If anything, Sunday is a day for me to catch up with projects that I hoped to get to earlier in the week. Or, scary thought, a day to do shopping errands that need attention! Most people have to acknowledge the reality that life can get full and the Sabbath – Sunday, Friday, or any other day – is a day to catch up. But is that what we really want? Couldn’t we just spend the day with family and friends – inserting ourselves more fully into parish life, having a leisurely cappuccino and Danish, going for a leisurely walk, browsing a bookstore (yes, they still exist) or reading a good book!
The first reading for the Third Sunday of Lent is from Exodus. It includes the reminder about keeping holy the Sabbath day. “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it.” If six days is good enough for God, it should be good enough for the rest of us. Today, Psalm 19 speaks of the law of the Lord as “reviving the soul.” That’s a good image of the power and gift of a Sabbath. Reviving the soul!
Paul reminds us that, “God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom.” To a person trying to catch up with work, it seems wise to take a quiet day to catch up – no distractions, no office chatter and politics, and no expectation to answer e-mails. However, the truly wise move is to do nothing and take time to revive the soul, to re-kindle the fire, to charge the batteries. When I take the risk and do take a pause, I usually end up feeling more refreshed and have new psychic and physical energy for my responsibilities. I get through more tasks in less time. I see things in a fresh light. Wendell Berry, the poet and novelist, has a good reminder about Sabbath. “Sabbath observance invites us to stop. It invites us to rest. It asks us to notice that while we rest, the world continues without our help. It invites us to delight in the world’s beauty and abundance.”
Many people in our world take sabbaticals for a few weeks, a few months or a year. I had one seven years ago. At first, my Provincial Superior promised a full year. I was excited! Then, it became three months, because he needed me to do something. I was disappointed. However, two months into the three, I thought that my time of break was long enough. Time to get back to work and be more engaged. I’m no expert, but I think that if we took a Sabbath day once a week, we wouldn’t really need to take a break for a few months – unless we had definite plans to write a book or to attend to some other project that takes time.
As we approach the halfway point of Lent, let’s ask ourselves about our commitment to the Sabbath. Are we convinced that our work is so important that it needs to happen everyday or am I free enough to disappear for a few hours, a day, a week or three months?