Restoring the Lord's Day: How Reclaiming Sunday Can Revive Our Human Nature

by Daniel Fitzpatrick

Modern society has forgotten that the joie de vivre and the liturgical life are intertwined. Drawing from his experiences growing up in the Catholic culture of New Orleans, author Daniel Fitzpatrick juxtaposes the beauty of taking time to celebrate the Faith with the ongoing cultural drift toward eliminating the Sabbath. The result is a book that will awaken Christians from their spiritual sloth and enable them to appreciate the Lord's Day more deeply as a means of attaining happiness -- in the here and in the hereafter.

Fitzpatrick masterfully breaks open Scripture, philosophy, psychology, and literature -- from Homer to Dante, from St. John Cassian to Evelyn Waugh -- positing that we have become Pharaohs within, consumed as we are with anxiety and work. The lines for commerce on Sundays, he points out, stretch out further than those for Holy Communion, while inertia blankets us and idleness saps us of our vitality and zeal.

Through his fresh insights and contemporary examples, you will

How to honor the Lord's Day and reclaim the freedom to truly worship GodThree aspects of the noonday devil's approach, and how to recognize and defeat themFive ways to reorder your Sunday activities to restore Sabbath festivity and holinessHow the Holy Eucharist strengthens and enlightens us on our journey to HeavenTechniques for cultivating the silence of contemplationAdditionally, you will see why Aquinas, Augustine, and the Desert Fathers identified acedia as an obstacle to advancement in the spiritual life -- a sin against the Lord's Day that often leads people to experience Sunday as a day of anxiety. You will also see how one comes to neglect the dignity of the human person and risks falling prey to immorality when one loses sight of what is holy. Conversely, you will see how living a holy family life, particularly on Sunday, trains us for the heavenly banquet.

Fitzpatrick also explains how the liturgy is meant to be celebrated in light of the writings of Pope Benedict XVI and other spiritual authors, and how it invites us to partake of the true "heavenly festivity" here on earth while preparing us for everlasting joy with God in Heaven.

Genres: Nonfiction, Catholic, Christian, Religion

256 pages, Paperback

Published April 16, 2024

About the author

Daniel Fitzpatrick is an English teacher at a Jesuit high school in New Orleans, an editor, and an author. He is the moderator of both the Blue Jay Annual yearbook and Jesuit’s National Honor Society chapter. He is aslo the editor of Joie de Vivre: A Journal of Art, Culture, and Letters for South Louisiana. He is a member of the Creative Assembly at the New Orleans Museum of Art, He has published books about Catholic education, books of poetry, and translations of major works, including a complete and unabridged translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy.

Reviews

[Mary Kate Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fantastic book! I came for a deeper understanding of the Sabbath as God intended it to be, and I left with not only that but also with an extremely eye-opening understanding of what the sin of sloth (acedia) really is and just how pervasive and hidden it is and the remedy God created for us to fight this hidden beast.

“Under the yoke of sloth, we have become sick with ourselves, sick with each other, and sick with God.” page 242

[Brad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Excellent read. I found the book through a publication of the first chapter somewhere (The Imaginative Conservative, I think), which laid out the the author's reflection on his Catholic upbringing in New Orleans and how impactful his parish and his family's observance of the church calendar was on his a spiritual life. As a reformed Christian who has only recently discovered the riches of the broader historical church's liturgical riches, it immediately struck a cord and drew my attention.

The book offers a kind of sociological/theological analysis of our culture's abandonment of Sabbath observance, a call to true Sabbath observance and the attendant spiritual blessings (individual and corporate) it would bring.

All in all a great read. There was quite a bit of delving into Second Vatican history and politics that I was frankly not able to follow in full, being largely unread on the council (and not being Catholic).