A Time for Rest : (August 2005)

Schools and colleges are closed and many people are now on holiday; it is one of the best times of the year.

It is a good time to reflect on holiday. They very word holiday comes from "holy day". What is "holy" about a break from work?

The bible tells us how, after six days spent in the work of creation, God rested on the seventh day. Later, when Moses reveals God's commandments, it includes the command to rest of the seventh day:

"Therefore the Israelites shall keep the Sabbath, as a perpetual covenant....it is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed" (Exodus 31;13-17)

In a spelling out of what the rest was to include the law specifies:

Fr Perry Gildea - Vincentian Fathers

Cliftonville Road, Belfast 15

"You shall not do any work; you or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt" - (Deuteronomy 5:6-11)

God Created Heaven and Earth

After a few centuries the Christian community was able to apply the same concept of rest to Sunday, the day of the Resurrection. Judaism and Christianity gave the world an important concept - that of the need for a break from work.

The Sunday tradition of rest has two dimensions; the first is religious and is to remind us to give time to the Creator and Saviour in thanksgiving and worship, the second is a reminder of the necessity of time off, a time to relax and recharge.

Sadly, the western world is fast loosing both these dimensions. In many places Sunday is no longer neither a day for worship nor a restful day.

We talk a lot about stress in modern life. One source of such stress is the inability to find time to rest and relax.

Concern for people's welfare is paramount for all Vincentians and one important aspect of this is the holidays provided for children from inner city areas.

The bible was most anxious that the rights of the poor and the slave were protected. Jesus had compassion on the multitude "because they were harassed and dejected".

It should be the concern of SVP when and wherever possible to encourage and facilitate the harassed and dejected poor to have times of restorative rest. Everyone needs some form of holiday.

It is a holy time, to which everyone has a right.

Fr Perry (August 2005)

Archived Reflections....click here