1. The Lord’s Day (Sunday) is the First Day

If we follow the order of the weeks, Sunday is the first day of the week, Monday the second, Tuesday the third, etc. In the Mediterranean area, where Christianity was formed, the first day of the week was understood as that of the sun (Sun-day), meanwhile the other days were linked to the various planets, known at that time.

For us Christians, it was "on the first day of the week that Mary of Magdala and the other Mary went to the sepulchre" (Mt 28:1) and found it empty. The angel said to them: "He is not here, for he has risen as he said he would" (Mt 28:6). We read also in the Gospel of St. John: "In the evening of the same day, the first day of the week, the doors were closed in the room where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews. Jesus came and stood among them. He said to them: Peace be with you" (20:19). The book of Revelation confirms the Christian meaning of Sunday: "It was the Lord’s day and the Spirit possessed me" (Rev 1:10).

The centre of the first day of the week (Sunday) is the Eucharist, according to the will of Jesus. In fact, in order to express his plan to remain with us forever (Mt 28:20, "I am with you always; yes, to the end of time"), he ordered: "Do this as memorial of me" (Lk 22:19). The Eucharist is the foundation of our faith and the source of fraternal charity. There cannot be a Lord’s Day without the Eucharist. Otherwise, Sunday will be only a working day, like the other days of the week. This is the danger to which we are exposed to in the Gulf: to consider Sunday as any other day, since we have already fulfilled our obligation by attending our Sunday Mass on Friday. If we neglect Sunday, the day of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus, we neglect our Christian faith and gradually we may reach the conclusion that what is important is to believe in God and that, finally, all the religions are the same. The resurrection of Jesus on the first day of the week must remain the basis of our life, the source of everything we do. Sunday without the Eucharist is like a day without the sun!

The first day of the week is also the day of the beginning of creation: "God said: Let there be light, and there was light. God saw that light was good and God divided light from darkness. God called light ‘day’, and darkness he called it ‘night’. Evening came and morning came: the first day" (Gen 1:3). Therefore, the Christian Sunday is also the feast of creation: thanksgiving for the gift of creation, for the "Let there be" with which God started to create the universe. It is a thanksgiving because God doesn’t allow that creation be destroyed but he restores it after the destruction made by the man. We see very well how sin destroys creation (from abortion to the ruin of the environment), so we see in this first day the idea of St. Paul that "The whole creation is eagerly waiting for God to reveal his sons" (Rom 8:19). As creation may be destroyed by men, in the same way it can be healed when the sons of God are there. So, Sunday is explicit in the role that we read in the text of creation: "Fill the earth and conquer it" (Gen 1:28). This "conquer it" doesn’t mean: make it slave! Plunder it! Make of it what you want! But: recognize it as a gift from God! Take care of it as children take care of the paternal inheritance. Keep it so that it becomes a true garden of God and for it to be realised as the plan of God that he be "All in all" (1 Cor 15:28).

With the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ on the first day of the week, a new creation started. Now there is a man, Jesus Christ, perfectly obedient to God, he is even glorified and all the universe looks to him and hopes to be one day like him and with him forever.

We pray in the Preface III of the Sundays in Ordinary Time:

We see your infinite power

In your loving plan of salvation.

You came to our rescue by your power as God,

But you wanted us to be saved by one like us.

Man refused your friendship,

But man himself was to restore it

Through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The drama of the Eucharist is that it is very often understood as a devotion besides other traditional devotions or as an obligation, and not as an historic event (the resurrection of Jesus Christ) which enlightens all our life.

2. The Lord’s Day (Sunday) is the Third Day

Besides Sunday as first day, there is in the New Testament another formula which we find in 1 Cor 15:4 and entered also in the Creed of the Church: On the third day he rose again in fulfilment of the Scriptures.

The most ancient tradition kept this mention of the "third day" and with that it kept the memory of the empty sepulchre and of the first apparitions of the Risen Lord. Why this specification "in fulfilment of the Scriptures"? Was it necessary? Why was it not enough to say just "On the third day he rose again"? The first Church remembered that the third day was the day announced by Scriptures, in the Old Testament itself, of this fundamental event in world history. Or better still, not of the history of the world but to the freeing of the history of the world, in the exit from killing and death to a beginning of new life. In the description of the Covenant on Mount Sinai in the Old Testament, the third day is always the day in which God manifests himself. We read in the book of Exodus: "On the third day the Lord will descend on the mountain of Sinai in the sight of all the people (19:11). So, the mention of the "third day" means that the resurrection of Jesus is the definitive Covenant: the real and definitive entry of God in history, he becomes a God whom we can hear, see, touch and embrace: "That life was made visible: we saw it and we are giving our testimony" (1 Jn 1:2). Resurrection means that God has power over history, he has not abandoned the world to itself, God made himself present to the world. The "third day" is a sign that God is there, death is not the last step of our life, death has been destroyed. We pray in the first Preface of Christian death:

In him, who rose from the dead,

Our hope of resurrection dawned.

The sadness of death gives way

To the bright promise of immortality.

Lord, for your faithful people life is changed, not ended.

When the body of our earthly dwelling lies in death

We gain an everlasting dwelling place in heaven.

Resurrection means that God, through the labyrinth of sin, has power even over evil, he free us from many slaveries, he can change our lives!

Resurrection is not an event among other events, something that came and went. Resurrection is the beginning of a new status, a new life which never will end. The Risen Lord continues to give himself in the Eucharist. The third day after Jesus’ death is the first day of the week, the day of creation in which God said: "Let there be light, and there was light" (Gen 1:3). In the first Church a Sunday without Eucharist was unthinkable. It is in the celebration of the Eucharist that we affirm, on the Lord’s Day, that we belong to God. That day is property of the Lord, it is really the "Lord’s Day". The Eucharist of that day enlightens all the day and the life of the Christians. We should come out from the celebration of the Eucharist with a new life, ready to witness the love of God for all, to reconcile ourselves with all. The Eucharist is our "spiritual lung" which makes us to feel that we belong only to God. A Sunday without the Eucharist is an empty day, this "third day" will mean nothing for us and we shall remain unbelievers.

3. The Lord’s Day (Sunday) is the Eighth Day

The Fathers of the Church (theologians and spiritual Fathers who lived until the fifth century) called Sunday also the "Eighth Day". They counted Sunday as the first day, then the six days of the week adding Sunday again, so it became the eighth day of the week. We know that the days of the week are seven and not eight, but they counted Sunday twice (at the beginning of the week and at the end) and wanted with that to say that Sunday, as the eighth day, is beyond the natural system of our universe and beyond our natural life, it reminds us that we have been created for eternity, to live forever! On Sunday we celebrate the Sun which never knows sunset: Jesus Christ. This day takes us to the future and invites us to look ahead, when we will be definitely with God. In that time there will be no days, nor weeks, but only one day, without end. We are called to run through a new way, to complete a new "exodus" towards our meeting with God, in full and definitive communion with him. This challenge suggests to us to abandon our persistent comforts and stimulates us to engage ourselves in a newness of life where justice and peace reign in us. Therefore the eighth day is a call to be vigilant so that we wait for the "Lord’s Day" not in fear but in joy, in hope and in the perseverance of faith. Sunday is neither just a memory of an event which occurred in the past, nor an empty sign, but the reality of a future in which we live here partially but will live it totally after our death. The eighth day is the new time which began with the resurrection. Starting from this symbol of the eighth day, many Baptisteries (the place where the sacrament of Baptism is celebrated) have been built on octagonal basis, to signify that the Baptism is a birth in the new time that the resurrection has disclosed. Sunday is the feast of the resurrection of the Christians which recurs every week. The solemnity of Easter started to be celebrated long time after the celebration of Sunday.

On Sunday we are called to celebrate it as the first day, the beginning of a new creation, as the third day, the day of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, as the eighth day, the day which has no evening because God will be its light forever: "They (the disciples of Jesus) will see him face to face, and his name will be written on their foreheads. It will never be night again and they will not need lamplight or sunlight, because the Lord God will be shining on them. They will reign forever and ever" (Rev 22:4-5).

4. Saturday and Sunday

We spoke until now about Sunday, but how did the change take place from Saturday to Sunday?

Saturday is prescribed by the divine commandment: "Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy" (Ex 20:8) because God rested from his work on this day. We also read: "You must keep the Sabbath, then; it is to be held sacred by you" (Ex 31:14). Here is the foundation of the Sabbath.

But already during the Apostles time the day of the resurrection was the day of the Christian assembly. This was the "Lord’s Day" (Rev 1:10 "It was the Lord’s day and the Spirit possessed me...!), the day in which he entered in the midst of his disciples and they met him. To gather together with the Risen Lord meant that he broke the bread again for them (Cfr Lk 24:30-35).

The Sabbath was related to creation because on this day God rested from his work of creating, but the first day of the week, Sunday, is the beginning of a new creation. The resurrection gathers together the old and the new creation. In fact, St. Paul says in his hymn: "He is the image of the unseen God and the first born of all creation" (Col 1:15) and "As he is the Beginning, he was the first to be born from the dead, so that he should be the first in every way" (Col 1:18). So, Jesus Christ is presented either as the first born of all creation or the first born of all the resurrected.

The shift from Saturday to Sunday reflects the continuity and the newness of Christianity.

John Paul II wrote in his Apostolic Letter "Dies Domini" (Lord’s Day):

Because the Third Commandment depends upon the remembrance of God’s saving works and because Christians saw the definitive time inaugurated by Christ as a new beginning, they made the first day after the Sabbath, a festive day, for that was the day on which the Lord rose from the dead ... as Saint Gregory the Great declares: ‘ For us the true Sabbath is the person of our Redeemer, our Lord Jesus Christ... It was in the Paschal Mystery that humanity, and with it the whole creation ‘groaning in birth-pangs until now ‘ (Rom 8:22), came to know its new ‘exodus’ into the freedom of God’s children who can cry out with Christ, ‘Abba, Father’ (Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6). In the light of this mystery, the meaning of the Old Testament precept concerning the Lord’s Day is recovered, perfected and fully revealed in the glory which shines on the face of the Risen Christ (Cfr 2 Cor 4:6). We move from the ‘Sabbath’ to the ‘first day after the Sabbath’, from the seventh day to the first day: the Dies Domini (Lord’s Day) becomes the Dies Christi (Christ’s Day)" (DD, 18).

5. The Lord’s Day (Sunday) is the Day of the Church

We hear sometimes that, as the Moslems do, the Christians also can pray alone in their house; no need to go to Church. This is not applicable for our Christian faith. Nor can we accept the idea of those who say that they prefer to go to church alone, to pray alone, to avoid the crowds, they say that they pray better when they are alone. Of course personal prayer is always necessary but it cannot replace prayer with the Christian community. It is essential for us Christians to gather in the church together, to live in unity, to proclaim together the marvellous wonders that God has done and is doing for me, my family, for us all. The call to the Christian faith is individual, God calls every one personally, individually, to know Jesus Christ and to experience how life with him is. But God doesn’t leave the person alone; every one is invited to join a family, the family of God. We find this family of God in the Catholic Church. This "call from God" to join the Church is the fruit of the work of the Holy Spirit. We don’t gather together because we find good friends in the church, but because we are nudged by the Holy Spirit to enter into the family of God. Jesus said: "Where two or three meet in my name, I shall be there with them" (Mt 18:20). Therefore, a Christian assembly is the sign of the presence of Jesus Christ in the world. Jesus gives us the communion that he has with the Father and the Holy Spirit. This marvellous gift that Jesus promised to us in the Last Supper (Cfr Jn 17) is always there, in every Eucharist, because the Holy Spirit introduces us to the Body of Jesus, the Church.

We pray with the VIII Preface of Sundays in Ordinary Time:

When your children sinned

And wandered far from your friendship,

You reunited them with yourself

Through the blood of your Son

And the power of the Holy Spirit.

You call them to be your people,

To praise your wisdom in all your works.

You make them the body of Christ

And the dwelling-place of the Holy Spirit.

The celebration on Sunday is in itself an experience of communion. Pope John Paul II stressed very much this aspect in his Apostolic Letter:

Those who have received the grace of baptism are not saved as individuals alone, but as members of the Mystical Body, having become part of the People of God. It is important therefore that they come together to express fully the very identity of the Church, the ‘ekklesia’, the assembly called together by the Risen Lord who offered his life ‘to reunite the scattered children of God’ (Jn 11:52)... This unity becomes visible when Christians gather together... The Eucharist is not only a particularly intense expression of the reality of the Church’s life, but also in a sense its ‘fountain-head’... Because of this vital link with the sacrament of the Body and Blood of the Lord, the mystery of the Church is savoured, proclaimed, and lived supremely in the Eucharist" (DD 31-32).

On Sunday the disciples are called to pass from dispersion to unity, from being scattered to the communion in the Holy Spirit. The vocation to communion is proper of everyone who has chosen Jesus Christ. For the Christian Sunday is not a day to execute a Rite or a commandment that became compulsory by the tradition or by the law or by the social convenience, but the day on which he is called to be in communion with his brothers in faith in order to share with them the only meaning of life: to experience the death-resurrection of Jesus Christ. Anyone who has chosen Jesus Christ as teacher and light of his life is not afraid to dedicate time to the Liturgical assembly. Without the Liturgical assembly, Sunday would be a Sunday without the Lord because, as we read in the Acts of the Martyrs, (Saturninus and his companions were killed in the year 305 AD during the persecutions of the Roman Emperor Diocletian): "We cannot omit the celebration of the Divine Mysteries. The Christian cannot live without the Eucharist and the Eucharist without the Christian. Don’t you know that the Christian exists for the Eucharist and the Eucharist for the Christian? Yes, I participated with the brothers in the meeting, I celebrated the mysteries of the Lord and I have here with me, written in my heart, Divine Scripture. The Eucharist is the hope and the salvation of Christians".

Pope John Paul II wrote:

The Sunday assembly is the privileged place of unity: it is the setting for the celebration of the Sacramentum Unitatis which profoundly marks the Church as a people gathered ‘by’ and ‘in’ the unity of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. For Christian families, the Sunday assembly is one of the most outstanding expressions of their identity and their ‘ministry’ as ‘domestic churches’, when parents share with their children at the one Table of the Word and of the Bread of Life" (DD, 36).

The Lord wants to be present among his disciples and to be "seen", therefore he inspires a desire of communion, stimulates them to share the same faith, makes them docile to the Holy Spirit, gives them the desire of conversion; he wants to be known as the Risen Lord, able to change their life from sin to grace.

6. The Lord’s Day (Sunday) is the Day of the Word of God

The communion between Jesus Christ and the assembly is realised by the word of God which is read in the assembly:

As in every Eucharistic celebration, the Risen Lord is encountered in the Sunday assembly at the twofold table of the word and of the Bread of Life. The table of the word offers the same understanding of the history of salvation and especially of the Paschal Mystery which the Risen Jesus himself gave to his disciples: it is Christ who speaks, present as he is in his word ‘when Sacred Scripture is read in the Church’ " (DD, 39).

The reading of the Scripture accompanies and enlightens the Christian in his daily life and calls him to conversion:

It should also be borne in mind that the liturgical proclamation of the word of God, especially in the Eucharistic assembly, is not so much time for meditation and catechesis as a dialogue between God and his People, a dialogue in which the wonders of salvation are proclaimed and the demands of the Covenant are continually restated. On their part, the People of God are drawn to respond to this dialogue of love by giving thanks and praise, also by demonstrating their fidelity to the task of continual conversion. The Sunday assembly commits us therefore to an inner renewal of our baptismal promises, which are in a sense implicit in the recitation of the Creed (DD, 41).

So, from Sunday to Sunday, we become adults in faith.

7. The Lord’s Day (Sunday) is the Day of the table of the Body of Christ

The disciples of Christ are called to imitate Jesus Christ:

The table of the word leads naturally to the table of the Eucharistic Bread and prepares the community to live its many aspects, which in the Sunday Eucharist assumes an especially solemn character. As the whole community gathers to celebrate "the Lord’s Day", the Eucharist appears more clearly than on other days as the great ‘thanksgiving’ in which the Sprit-filled Church turns to the Father, becoming one with Christ and speaking in the name of all humanity. The rhythm of the week prompts us to gather up in grateful memory the events of the days which have just passed, to review them in the light of God and to thank him for his countless gifts, glorifying him ‘through Christ, with Christ and in Christ, in the unity of the Holy Spirit’. The Christian community thus comes to a renewed awareness of the fact that all things were created through Christ (Cfr Col 1:16; Jn 1:3), and that in Christ, who came in the form of a slave to take on and redeem our human condition, all things have been restored (Cfr Eph 1:10), in order to be handed over to God the Father, from whom all things come to be and draw their life. Then, giving assent to the Eucharistic doxology with their ‘Amen’, the People of God look in faith and hope towards the eschatological end, when Christ ‘will deliver the kingdom to God the Father... so that God may be everything to everyone’ (1 Cor 15:24.28) (DD, 42).

8. The Lord’s Day (Sunday) is the Day of Mission

A community gathered in faith, love and "united in heart and soul) (Acts 4:32) is the first sign of the presence of the Risen Lord among his disciples, his visible Body! That’s why the apostle Paul invited the Christians of Corinth to a serious examination of conscience before receiving the bread and drinking the cup of God, in order not to offend the same body and blood and not to eat the personal condemnation: "Anyone who eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will be behaving unworthily towards the body and blood of the Lord" (1Cor 11:27). This unworthy participation concerns especially those who consume privately his supper without sharing with his poor brothers. Here it is clear that the sin of individualism towards the poor is a sin against the Body of Jesus: the horizontal level and the vertical one are together, the Eucharist cannot be disassociated from sharing, and by consequence it supposes solidarity and communion with the participants. There is an essential relation between the Eucharist (the sacramental body of the Lord) and the assembly (the ecclesial body of the Lord) and this deep relation should be realised in an authentic love for the brothers. On Sunday this love is called to become visible and working in words and deeds of friendship and fraternity, of witness and service, of solidarity and sharing, especially for those who don’t have or are less, be they inside or outside the assembly.

It is also important to be ever mindful that communion with Christ is deeply tied to communion with our brothers and sisters. The Sunday Eucharist gathering is an experience of brotherhood, which the celebration should demonstrate clearly, while ever respecting the nature of the liturgical action (DD, 44).

The Sunday Eucharist, not only does not absolve the faithful from the duties of charity, but on the contrary commits them even more (DD, 69).

Saint Ambrose addressed words of fire to the rich who presumed to fulfil their religious obligations by attending church without sharing their goods with the poor, and who perhaps even exploited them (DD, 71).

The gathering of the assembly is not for its own purpose, but it is the true reason of the Christian engagement in the world, which has its source in the Eucharist. The Eucharistic meeting with the Risen Lord arouses in the disciples the desire to continue the same mission of Jesus, to communicate to the others the experience we get in the Eucharist: "We have found the Messiah" (Jn 1:41), said Andrew to his brother Peter. This should be our experience after the Sunday Eucharist.

Receiving the Bread of Life, the disciples of Christ ready themselves to undertake with the strength of the Risen Lord and his Spirit the tasks which await them in their ordinary life. For the faithful who have understood the meaning of what they have done, the Eucharistic celebration does not stop at the church door. Like the first witnesses of the Resurrection, Christians who gather each Sunday to experience and proclaim the presence of the Risen Lord are called to evangelize and bear witness in their daily life (DD, 45).

The mission which springs from the Eucharist consists in calling those whom we can meet to recognize in the Risen Lord the centre of our life, the life of every creature and of all mankind. I know that in many countries we cannot say anything about our Christian experience, otherwise we will be charged of proselytising, but we can always and everywhere show our joy for having found the Messiah. If we fill with joy every brother or sister we meet in our life, we prepare ourselves to the final meeting with Jesus, in the heavenly Jerusalem.

9. The Lord’s Day (Sunday) is the Day of Rest

Pope John Paul II had a concrete understanding of our particular situation concerning Sunday as the day of rest and he wrote:

For several centuries, Christians observed Sunday simply as a day of worship, without being able to give it the specific meaning of Sabbath rest. Only in the fourth century did the civil law of the Roman Empire recognize the weekly recurrence, determining that on ‘the day of the sun’ the judges, the people of the cities and the various trade corporations would not work. Christians rejoiced to see thus removed the obstacles which until then had sometimes made observance of the Lord’s Day heroic. They could now devote themselves to prayer in common without hindrance... In countries where Christians are in the minority and where the festive days of the calendar do not coincide with Sunday, it is still Sunday which remains the Lord’s Day, the day on which the faithful come together for the Eucharistic assembly. But this involves real sacrifices. For Christians it is not normal that Sunday, the day of joyful celebration, should not also be a day of rest, and it is difficult for them to keep Sunday holy if they do not have enough free time (DD, 64).

It should not be forgotten that even in our own day, work is very oppressive for many people, either because of miserable working conditions and long hours ... or because of the persistence in economically more developed societies of too many cases of injustice and exploitation of man by man (DD, 66).

We understand from this text that "rest" doesn’t mean doing nothing, just to sleep, but to be with ourselves and with the assembly, to pray together, to balance and to revise our life, to adore The One who is the Only One who gives meaning and true happiness to our life. In a word, we understand that it is not the rest which generates the cult but the cult which generates the rest:

Through Sunday rest, daily concerns and tasks can find their proper perspective: the material things about which we worry give way to spiritual values; in a moment of encounter and less pressured exchange, we see the true face of the people with whom we live... As the day on which man is at peace with God, with himself and with others, Sunday becomes a moment when people can look upon the wonders of nature... Believers are therefore called to satisfy this need in a way consistent with the manifestation of their personal and community faith, as expressed in the celebration and sanctification of the Lord’s Day (DD, 67).

In the Eucharist the disciple rediscovers himself created by God the Father, redeemed by the Son and sanctified by the Holy Spirit. The Eucharist can be compared to the miracles that Jesus performed to heal humanity. In fact, in the Eucharist we are inserted in Christ and we find again true health: the freedom which is given us by the Holy Spirit.

10. Are the Virgin Mary and the Saints obscuring
the central role of Christ?

In the Catholic Church we honour the Virgin Mary and the Saints very much. Very often we are misunderstood by other Christians on these very important points of our Catholic faith. We have to know that the Virgin Mary shared with Christ his saving work. From the very beginning to the end she was there at the most important moments of his life on earth.

The Saints are people who prove that the Risen Lord changed their life; the resurrection of Jesus Christ became their resurrection. They are a concrete hope that where the Virgin Mary and the Saints arrived, we also can arrive if, like them, we are obedient to God and put into practice what the Virgin Mary said in Cana of Galilee: "Do whatever he tells you" (Jn 2:5).

The Holy Church venerates with special love the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, united forever with the saving work of her Son. In similar way, by inserting into the annual cycle the commemoration of the martyrs and other saints on the occasion of their anniversaries, the Church proclaims the Easter mystery of the saints who suffered with Christ and with him are now glorified. When celebrated in the true spirit of the Liturgy, the commemoration of the saints does not obscure the centrality of Christ, but on the contrary extols it, demonstrating as it does the power of the redemption wrought by him (DD, 78).

Sunday is the celebration of all the family of God: the Virgin Mary, the Saints, all those who preceded us on this earth and all those who are still with us: Sunday is the day of joy and the day of rest precisely because it is the "Lord’s Day", the day of the Risen Lord (DD, 82).

11. The Lord’s Day (Sunday) is the Day of the Family

Allow me to repeat here what I have already quoted above: For Christian families, the Sunday assembly is one of the most outstanding expressions of their identity and their ‘ministry’ as ‘domestic churches’, when parents share with their children at the one Table of the Word and of the Bread of Life" (DD, 36).

This year, 2010-2011, we shall have as theme of our Pastoral Plan the family. The Unity Congress III (08-12 NOV 2010) will be concentrated on this subject. The various aspects and problems of the family will be studied and discussed on that occasion. I would like to remind here only the importance of Sunday for the family. Even though Sunday for us is a working day, can we not have on Sunday a special contact with our family: to attend a Mass in the afternoon, to pray together at home, to have a special meal, etc.; in a word, to make known to yourselves and your children that Sunday is a special day, not like any other days of the week. Forty years ago when I was a very young priest serving in Cairo I remember that every Sunday a French Lady of the Parish used to offer an apple to the priests (during that time apples were very expensive because they were all imported). Once I asked her the reason of this appreciated gift. She answered me: to make you to feel that we are in Sunday!

Many years later I had another experience in Egypt. I still have good photos of that. A family, parents and four children, after having participated together in the Eucharist on Saturday evening, they were celebrating the Morning Prayer (Laudes) together at home. All dressed as though for the feast, they were praying and singing before a crucifix placed on the table which was covered with a white napkin and adorned with some flowers and a candle. They were really the "domestic church" mentioned above in the text of the Pope. Like this family, many other families in Cairo were doing the same. Besides that, they were using the occasion of Sunday to visit sick people, relatives, friends, etc. Sunday was the day of the meeting with God, the family and the Christian community. The Neo-Catechumenal Way had conducted them to be a domestic church.

I wish for you all that Sunday not be only a working day, a day like any other, but the day of the renewal of your personal life and the life of your family.

12. Conclusion

I suggest as conclusion of this reflection on Sunday the reading of these two very beautiful texts of Pope John Paul II:

The spiritual and pastoral riches of Sunday, as it has been handed on to us by tradition, are truly great. When its significance and implications are understood in their entirety, Sunday in a way becomes a synthesis of the Christian life and a condition for living it well. It is clear therefore why the observance of the Lord’s Day is so close to the Church’s heart, and why in the Church’s discipline it remains a real obligation. Yet more than as a precept, the observance should be seen as a need rising from the depths of Christian life. It is crucially important that all the faithful should be convinced that they cannot live their faith or share fully in the life of the Christian community unless they take part regularly in the Sunday Eucharistic assembly. The Eucharist is the full realization of the worship which humanity owes to God, and it cannot be compared to any other religious experience. A particularly efficacious expression of this is the Sunday gathering of the entire community, obedient to the voice of the Risen Lord who calls the faithful together to give them the light of his word and the nourishment of his Body as the perennial sacramental wellspring of redemption. The grace following from this wellspring renews mankind, life and history (DD, 81).

From Sunday to Sunday, enlightened by Christ, the Church goes forward towards the unending Sunday of the heavenly Jerusalem, which ‘has no need of the sun or moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God is its light and its lamp is the Lamb’ (Rev 21:23) (DD, 84).

My dear brothers and sisters, may God give you to experience always in your life the joy of Sunday and bless your children and all the members of your family.

Your Bishop

+ Camillo Ballin, mccj

Vicar Apostolic of Kuwait

2 September 2010, fifth anniversary of my Episcopal Ordination.