I always thought Catholics worshiped on the Sabbath

 

Question:

Until recently, I always thought Catholics worshiped on the Sabbath, and that the early Church moved the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. Is this true?

Answer:

This is a common misunderstanding. Catholics do not worship on the Sabbath, which according to Jewish law is the last day of the week (Saturday), when God rested from all the work he had done in creation (Gen. 2:2-3). Catholics worship on the Lord’s Day, the first day of the week (Sunday, the eighth day); the day when God said “Let there be light” (Gen. 1:3); the day when Christ rose from the dead; the day when the Holy Spirit came upon the Apostles (Day of Pentecost). The Catechism of the Catholic Church says: “The Church celebrates the day of Christ’s Resurrection on the ‘eighth day,’ Sunday, which is rightly called the Lord’s Day” (CCC 2191).

The early Church did not move the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. Instead “The Sabbath, which represented the completion of the first creation, has been replaced by Sunday, which recalls the new creation inaugurated by the Resurrection of Christ” (CCC 2190). Sunday is the day Catholics are bound to keep, not Saturday.

We see evidence of this in Scripture:

• On the first day of the week when we gathered to break bread, Paul spoke to them because he was going to leave on the next day, and he kept on speaking until midnight (Acts 20:7).
• On the first day of the week each of you should set aside and save whatever one can afford, so that collections will not be going on when I come (1 Cor. 16:2).
• Let no one, then, pass judgment on you in matters of food and drink or with regard to a festival or new moon or Sabbath (Col. 2:16).

The Catechism also says:

By a tradition handed down from the apostles which took its origin from the very day of Christ’s Resurrection, the Church celebrates the Paschal mystery every seventh day, which day is appropriately called the Lord’s Day or Sunday. The day of Christ’s Resurrection is both the first day of the week, the memorial of the first day of creation, and the “eighth day,” on which Christ after his “rest” on the great Sabbath inaugurates the “day that the Lord has made,” the “day that knows no evening.” (CCC 1166)

Other CCC references to the Lord’s Day: 349, 2174, 2175, 2191

For more on this topic, see our Q&A, “Did Jesus Alter the Commandment about Observing the Sabbath?” and our tract, “Sabbath or Sunday?“

https://www.catholic.com/qa/did-the-early-church-move-the-sabbath-from-saturday-to-sunday#

Collect for Saturday

 Almighty God, who after the creation of the world rested from all your works and sanctified a day of rest for all your creatures: Grant that we, putting away all earthly anxieties, may be duly prepared for the service of your sanctuary, and that our rest here upon earth may be a preparation for the eternal rest promised to your people in heaven; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (Collect for Saturdays, Morning Prayer II, BCP 1979, page 99)

https://www.stpauls-medina.org/2014/03/march-15-2014-collect-saturday/

Institutes of the Christian Religion by Calvin, John (1509-1564)

 45. By these enactments, holy men wished to retain and ensure the use of frequent communion, as handed down by the apostles themselves; and which, while it was most salutary to believers, they saw gradually falling into desuetude by the negligence of the people. Of his own age, Augustine testifies: “The sacrament of the unity of our Lord’s body is, in some places, provided daily, and in others at certain intervals, at the Lord’s table; and at that table some partake to life, and others to destruction” (August. Tract. 26, in Joann. 6). And in the first Epistle to Januarius he says: “Some communicate daily in the body and blood of the Lord; others receive it on certain days: in some places, not a day intervenes on which it is not offered: in others, it is offered only on the Sabbath and the Lord’s day: in others, on the Lord’s day only.” But since, as we have said, the people were sometimes remiss, holy men urged them with severe rebukes, that they might not seem to connive at their sluggishness. Of this we have an example in Chrysostom, on the Epistle to the Ephesians (Hom. 26). “It was not said to him who dishonoured the feast, Why have you not taken your seat? ‘But how camest thou in?’ (Mt. 22:12). Whoever partakes not of the sacred rites is wicked and impudent in being present: should any one who was invited to a feast come in, wash his hands, take his seat, and seem to prepare to eat, and thereafter taste nothing, would he not, I ask, insult both the feast and the entertainer? So you, standing among those who prepare themselves by prayer to take the sacred food, profess to be one of the number by the mere fact of your not going away, and yet you do not partake,—would it not have been better not to have made your appearance? I am unworthy, you say. Then neither were you worthy of the communion of prayer, which is the preparation for taking the sacred mystery.”

https://ccel.org/ccel/calvin/institutes/institutes.vi.xviii.html?queryID=46016554&resultID=121159

I mean the Sabbath and the Lord's Day, which revolving time brings round each week.

 http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/fathers/asterius_05_sermon5.html