Sunday Observance

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 15, 19 April 1923, Page 21

Sunday Observance

Preaching on a. recent Sunday at St. Marie's, Sheffield, where the Redemptorist Fathers were engaged in giving a mission, Father O. R. Vassall-Phillips touched on Sunday observance. When he was a boy (he said) it was customary among those outside the Church to take the strictest possible view of Sunday observance. To suggest the taking of any pleasure on a Sunday was then almost regarded as a sin equal to the sin of stealing. Now the pendulum had swung in the opposite direction, for, with the exception of a' small number of people, those outside the Church had ceased to observe Sunday in any way whatever. On a fine Sunday morning in the summer one could see long lines of motors and cycles leaving any town for the country. He did not object to this, however. To get into the country on a fine summer Sunday was an excellent thing, but only providing it had been preceded by attention to one's religious duties. The Catholic observed this rule by going to Mass first. What was and what was not proper Sunday observance could only be decided by a Church exercising authority; without such authority people had gone from one extreme to the other.