Practical Tips We Can Use To Make Sunday Special

Making Sunday special can be a real challenge in our thoroughly secularized world.

Time was, folks would keep Sunday in a shared manner that honored this day, the Lord's Day. It begain with Mass (or some sort of gathering or service on the part of Protestants). You dressed in some special way. You minimized work, especially physical toil, unless your job - your means of making a living and supporting your family - required it. People put a lid on most commercial activity. Hard as it is to either recall or imagine stores closed on Sunday. So - and hold your breath for this one - people didn't (actually pretty much couldn't) shop on Sunday. (Hard to imagine isn't it?)

Oh, and you know all those Sunday sports activities that have parents toting their kids around? They didn't exist. Why? Well...it was Sunday, of course!

Those days are long gone. And here we are, all together, Catholics on a Sunday in the world as it is now. But rather than throw up our hands and totally give in to these secular Sundays, we have the opportunity to make something special of our Sundays. And in that spirit, here are some practical tips that can help us along the way.

We'll keep it simple and focus on prayer. After all, while prayer should be part and parcel of every day, if we keep any kind of real Sunday, we should have at least a few more minutes (or more) for prayer, right? Here Abbot John Chapman, O.S.B. (1865-1933) lends us his personal perspective on prayer, one that we can use to our own personal profit.

First, some thoughts on what makes what he calls a "good" prayer:

“Possibly the best kind of prayer is when we seem unable to do anything, if then, we throw ourselves on God, and stay contentedly before Him; worried, anxious, tired, listless, but – above all and under it all – humbled and abandoned to His will, contented with our own discontent. If we can get ourselves accustomed to this attitude of soul, which is always possible, we have learned how to pray. We are never afraid of prayer and we can pray for any length of time – the longer the better, and at any time.”

Many if not most of us have experienced such moments, maybe even extended moments. Just imagine being able to develop the practice, the habit of "throwing ourselves on God" at such times. 

Let's use some of our authentic Sunday time re-read and meditate on this sort of "good" prayer.

Next, Abbot Chapman shifts his perspective a bit to what would be the "sign" of a good prayer:

“I think you will find that the more time you can reasonably give to being alone with God, the easier it becomes to enjoy it (I don’t mean pleasure, but the feeling that it is worth doing – that you are not simply lazy and wasting time). The test is not whether you feel anything at the time, but whatever afterwards you feel (quite illogically) better and more determined to serve God. The one thing you should gain by quiet prayer (just remaining with God, and making a number of aspirations to keep your imagination from wandering) is to feel the rest of the day that you want God’s will and nothing else.”

Again, some extra time to re-read and meditate is called for. There's not only substance but some degree of subtlety embedded in this. Our abbot clearly understands human psychology. With that understanding, he makes fine distinctions. 

If we take the trouble to penetrate his thoughts, we can reap the reward of not only knowing what is "good" prayer, but also knowing when our own prayer is good,

Just spending time in good prayer would go far in preserving and enhancing Sunday in our thoroughly secularized world. And perhaps, in time and with God's grace, we might find ourselves spending increasing amounts of time in good prayer not only Sunday, but throughout the rest of the week

Happy Sunday!