Holy days or holidays?

Readers of The Southern Cross possibly more than most Catholics know what these days are. Over time one wonders are they holy days or did they become holidays?

In South Africa, Ascension Thursday used to be a public holiday, while the Assumption on August 15 was always only a religious day, even though it is South Africa’s patronal feast. Depending on the local Church, New Year’s Day, All Saints’ and the Immaculate Conception have also been holidays in various countries. Nowadays clearly Halloween has overtaken All Saints’ Day and now is unfortunately purely a secular, even irreligious celebration.

To refresh our memories, observing holy days of obligation is one of the precepts of the Church and according to the Catechism the “precepts of the Church are set in the context of a moral life bound to and nourished by liturgical life”. Holy days of obligation, therefore, literally oblige us to participate in the principal liturgical feasts that do not fall on a Sunday, for our moral well-being, nourished by the liturgy.

Apart from participation in the Mass, ideally there should be some degree of sabbath rest. All very well for Christmas and Good Friday, one might think, but the others are normal working days. I think that even for Christmas some people are so busy preparing for a big family meal that they might have a problem getting to Mass.

Churches are full on Good Friday with hundreds of once-or-twice-a-year Catholics. Does that then become superstition or pure ritualism? Or do these special occasions at least keep just a toe in the open door of Holy Mother Church?

We can take this to a family-friendly level with the Church’s more particular emphasis on the laity in recent years and, as I keep noting, the laity in their primary context of family life. So I was considering what would be appropriate holidays/holydays to observe in a family, possibly apart from, or in addition to, the formal ones.

I often say: “Family moments are faith moments” and the calendar of a growing family might have dates for First Communion or Confirmation marked. Then there are baptisms, weddings and funerals. If we think of a family as the little church of the home, with many family events marking the passage of time, should remembering those events not be family holy days of obligation too?

Wedding anniversaries in the family are remembered by some more than others. I must admit, I don’t always remember the children’s wedding anniversaries, nor the grandchildren’s baptismal dates. Almost everyone remembers birthdays, and some parishes have also adopted the idea of blessing birthday people and those celebrating a major wedding anniversary. Do we in our home churches offer a blessing to one another on birthdays?

In November while we pray for those who have died in Church, do we remember them in prayer at home too? Especially on the anniversary of their death, do we as a family gather to share our cherished memories?

While visiting the Kuils River parish in Cape Town recently, I suggested that the parish could possibly also in communion with its families remember in prayer the anniversaries of deaths.

December’s family life theme is “Family, a growing gift.” It concludes the theme for the year of “Marriage and Family Growing Together”. A little survey published in the current issue of the Marriage and Family Living magazine asks families to reflect on how they have grown together during this year. One hopes that there has been growth. In an increasingly rushed and secular world some of us instead become increasingly isolated.

Whatever the situation while reflecting on life during this period of Advent and Christmas and looking ahead, it would be good for families to note on their 2010 calendars their own holy days of obligation, days that are precious to them, family moments that are faith moments. Praying around these occasions and marking your holy days of obligation is a way of building up each little church of the home that forms a building block of the bigger parish and universal Church.

In doing so may your Christmas be a source of joy in your families and so bring JOY TO THE WORLD, as the MARFAM Advent and Christmas reflection programme proclaims.