Thoughts about Sundays

"Is it good to be home?"
My friend, Rosa, asked me this question yesterday after our Sunday dinner at her mother's house. She immediately caught her mistake and said, "Well, I guess this isn't really home for you...but you know what I mean."
"I loved being at home this summer," I explained to Rosa. "It was really difficult to leave. But now that I'm here, it's good to be back. And when it's time to go again, it will be difficult to leave."

But I did know what she meant. In fact, eating the traditional "Ragu" with Italian-speaking friends after a beautiful High Mass at St. John's was, in its own way, like coming home. I told her mother, Maria, that tasting her Sunday sauce was like "tasting" home--the home that's been made for me here in Connecticut.
"I knew that's how it would be," Maria nodded. "That's why, when I saw you at Mass, I thought, if you're not doing anything, you should come join us."
Her son Frank (who is married to my dear friend Sharon) says that even just the smell of the Ragu is a comforting thing for him. It carries with it both memories and promises of family time together on Sunday afternoons, time to take a break from work and enjoy one another's company.

Alex, still in high school, excused himself from the table immediately after the meal.
"Where are you going?" his father, Tony, asked.
"I have to finish my Chemistry," he explained.
"You're getting to be just like Shannon," said Maria, referring to my computer-toting, study-between-activities habits of last year's Sundays.
"No, no,"I shook my head. "I'm taking Sundays off this year. They are really going to be my days of rest."
"Yeah, right," Alex challenged.
"I'm serious!" I exclaimed, trying to convince him.
"How long is that going to last?" he retorted.
"All year," I said. "I promise. You can call me on it."
"Don't make promises you can't keep," he continued to tease me.
"I'll keep it. You wait."

I have been appropriately challenged by friends to honor the Lord's Day in all practicality, with all the sacrifices which that might entail.
"It's like tithing," my friend Erin explained to me a few weeks ago. "What makes people think, if they 'cannot' tithe when they're making a few dollars a week, that they're all of a sudden going to be able to tithe when they make a decent paycheck?"
What she was telling me is true. What makes me think that I'm ever going to wake up and say, "Now my life is not as busy; I can start honoring the Sabbath."?
There will always be responsibilities; there will always be more to accomplish. Even when the day comes that I work "normal" hours, I will have to find time to clean house, buy groceries, do laundry, shop for birthday presents, etc. But Sunday is an open day reserved by God for rest, in His honor. What a temptation!
People have done it. It takes time management and determination.

And, of course, plenty of prayer.