Catholic Dictionary

Find accurate definitions of over 5,000 Catholic terms and phrases (including abbreviations). Based on Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

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SUNDAY REST

Abstention from servile, judicial, or commercial work on Sundays. Its religious purpose is to commemorate Christ's Resurrection on Easter Sunday and the descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost Sunday, allow the faithful to make the first day of each week a day of joy and of freedom from work, and enable them to celebrate the Eucharist in a fitting manner. "Other celebrations, unless they be truly of the greatest importance, shall not have precedence over Sunday, which is the foundationand center of the whole liturgical year" (Second Vatican Council, Constitution on the Liturgy, V, 106). Holy days of obligation are also to be days of rest.