|  Meditations Before Mass
by Romano Guardini
X. Holy Day
THE HOLY place, set apart
from the rest of the world, came into being when God's Son appeared
on earth: when He was conceived in Nazareth, born in Bethlehem,
lived among us in Palestine and in such a manner that it could be
said: "There He is; there He goes." Is there perhaps a
holy time as well?
Again it is a question of a
time not of man's making. There exists no deed, no experience, no
dedication by which man of himself can so sanctify a day or an hour
that it becomes holy in God's sight. God alone can sanctify a period
of time by personally entering into it. I am "in time"
because I live and unfold in time, act in it, experience destiny;
but are such things conceivable of God? Our answer is spontaneous;
it is "No." God lives not only forever, but eternally; His
life has nothing to do with time. He neither grows nor declines.
develops nor changes all that would involve time but realizes His
infinite essence wholly and perfectly in purest actuality. He did
create time, as He created everything else that exists; more
correctly, He created the world, which exists in time. Thus He is
present in all time, in its smallest as in its largest fraction: in
the day, hour, minute; in the infinitesimally brief flashes known to
physicists, as well as in years, centuries, millennia and those no
longer conceivable masses of time in which astronomers reckon. God
fills them all, and no one period is holier than another. What is
decisive is whether the universally governing sanctity of God is
able to step to the fore in a specific instance, moving men and
engraving itself into the historical memory.
We are not concerned here
with the problem just stated. Such a "holy hour" could
appear at any time: in the evolution of nature; in the relations
between members of a family; in history. When the liturgy speaks of
sacred time it means something specific, similar to the specificity
of the sacred place. What it is, however, only revelation can say.
And it does say, with all clarity: one of the seven days of the week
is sacred to God, the day on which He "rested" after
creating the universe.
The message given us by
revelation is meant to be taken realistically. It signifies
something mysterious, yes, but also something explicit. In the Book
of Genesis God's handiwork is described as being completed in the
course of a week. Six days long God creates; on the seventh He
rests. The biblical report has nothing to do with the question:
when, in what period did the stars, plants, animals come into
existence? "Week" does not signify a period of time in the
ordinary sense of the word; it is rather a symbol for the wise,
humanly intelligible order in which creation took place. But over
and above this, the word "week" means something very
precise: from the earliest beginnings of the world God arranged its
seven days in such a fashion as to allow man six for his work; the
seventh, however, He reserved for Himself, setting it apart because
"on this day," having completed creation, He entered into
His rest.
The holiness of the Sabbath
does not stem, then, from man's repose. It is not a natural part of
the rhythm of life: the idea, for instance, that man is bound,
oppressed by his duties and objectives for six days and that on the
seventh he is free to devote himself to holy acts. This is also
true; in the rhythm of work and relaxation a mystery of religious
repose really can be experienced. But what faith and the liturgy
have in mind is something quite different: the sacredness of the
Lord's Day is due not to any experience of man, however holy, but to
God and to His resting on that day. Or to put it more precisely,
there exists for God in connection with creation a mystery known as
"divine repose." We cannot understand it what could it
possibly mean, rest for the Omnipotent? When we accept this mystery
on faith, however, we do sense the presence of something very
profound. God is not only the eternal Spirit who is spoken of in
philosophical absolutes; He is also the Acting One, of whom it may
be said that He decides, that He rises, creates, forms, arranges,
and that He rests. (See Gen. 2:2.)
It is this mystery of God's
rest which permeates the seventh day of the week, as the others are
permeated by the mystery of divine activity. The whole week is a
mystery; in fact, all time is. Not essentially, in itself; not
through human life, but through divine creativeness. Hence it is a
mystery which cannot be plumbed by geological or anthropological
research. It can only be known through revelation.[8]
Sunday has an almost
sacramental character. In the sacrament, a natural process, like
that of bathing or of confessing one's guilt is related to the
governing of grace. During the natural act, supernatural grace
becomes effective, much as the movements of the soul activate the
body. Something similar is to be found in the mystery of the
Sabbath.
The natural tension caused by
six days of work and its slackening on the day of rest create the
form into which God has sunk the mystery of His repose in order to
convey it to us. To keep the Sabbath is to become aware of the
mystery of divine rest, to revere it and to express it in our
arrangement of the day.
The thought is as beautiful
as its realization is difficult. If discussed at all, it should not
be distorted by day-dreams, but should be considered realistically.
Precisely because Sunday is
not a product of the natural life-rhythm, it is vulnerable. The
merely natural somehow manages to assert itself; the roots of
Sunday, however, lie in revelation. Thus it is easily destroyed, in
spite of the important natural need which it also meets. Other
considerations economic, social or what have you constantly shove it
aside. Work gnaws at it; amusement elbows its way into it, crowding
out holiness; the significance of "keeping holy" is itself
misunderstood and rest is imposed with a resultant boredom that is
worse than if work had continued. Thus Sunday poses a real problem,
which each of us must solve according to his own particular
circumstances.
The day is important for the
individual, but above all for the family. We must understand what is
at stake, realize its value for us, and tackle the problem as
energetically and wholeheartedly as we do other matters important to
us.
One more point. From the
liturgy it is clear that the day does not begin with the morning,
nor with midnight, but on the evening before, with the vigil. There
is a profound insight in this. It is not a question of the
astronomical, but of the living day. The one is a mathematically
exact fraction of time, which begins with a certain second,
regardless of what takes place in it; whereas the other, living day,
is a continuously renewed life-form. Then when does it begin? We
could say at the moment of our deepest sleep, when life is at its
stillest, on condition that our sleep itself begins and moves and
ends properly. Then the day would stretch from this moment to a
corresponding moment in the following night. That moment is unknown.
We do not "accomplish" sleep; it is something that happens
to us. Hence we must place the beginning we sought somewhere before
the moment of falling asleep. Sleep is profoundly influenced by the
hours that immediately precede it; therefore the problem of Sunday
begins on Saturday evening, and it is up to each of us to see how he
can meet its sacred challenge.
[8] The link between the
seventh day of Creation and the Christian Sunday, which is the first
day of the week, will be discussed in the following chapter
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