The Eighth Day

 

The Eighth day, ... the Christian substitute for the seventh of the Jewish Sabbath, and... the holy Day of the new people of God.

 “The Synagogue, by God’s command, kept holy the Saturday, or the Sabbath,—and this, in honor of God’s resting after the six days of the creation; but the Church, the Bride of Jesus, is commanded to honor the Work of her Spouse. She allows the Saturday to pass,—it is the day of her Lord’s rest in the Sepulcher: but, now that she is illumined with the brightness of the Resurrection, she devotes to the contemplation of his Work the first day of the week, the Sunday: it is the day of Light, for on it he called forth material Light (which was the first manifestation of order amidst chaos); and, on the same day, He that is the Brightness of the Father, (Hebrews 1:3) and the Light of the world. (John 8:12) rose from the darkness of the Tomb.”

So important, indeed is the Sunday’s liturgy, which, every week, is entrusted to honor such profound mysteries,—that, for a long time, the Roman Pontiffs kept down the number of Feasts which were above the rank of semi-doubles; that thus the Sunday, which is a semi-double, might not be disturbed. It was not till the second half of the 17th Century, that this discipline of reserve was relaxed. Then it was, that it had to give way, in order thereby to meet the attacks, made by the Protestants and their allies the Jansenists, against the cult of the Saints. Need was of reminding the Faithful, that the honor paid to the servants of God detracts not from the glory of their Master; that the cult of the Saints, the Members of Christ, is but the consequence and development of that which is due to Christ their Head. The Church owed it to her Spouse to make a protest against the narrow views of these innovators, who were really aiming at lessening the glory of the Incarnation, by thus denying its grandest consequences. It was, therefore, by a special inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that the Apostolic See then permitted several feasts, both old and new, to be ranked as of a double rite. To strengthen the solemn condemnation she had announced against the heretics of that period, she wisely adopted the course of, from time to time, allowing the Feasts of Saints to be kept on Sundays, although these latter were considered as being especially reserved for the celebration of the leading mysteries of our Catholic faith, and for the obligatory attendance of the people.

The Sunday, or Dominical, Liturgy was not, however, altogether displaced by the celebration of any particular feast on the Lord’s Day; for, no matter how solemn soever that feast, falling on a Sunday, may be, a commemoration must always be made of the Sunday, by adding its Prayers to those of the occurring Feast, and by reading its proper Gospel, instead of that of St. John, at the end of Mass. Neither let us forget, that after the assisting at the solemn Mass and the Canonical Hours, one of the best means for observing the precept of keeping holy the Sabbath-day is our own private meditation upon the Epistle and Gospel appointed by the Church for each Sunday.

(culled from the Lit. Yr)

Then came modernist wreck-novators, for ecumenical reasons, and animated by the same heretical spirit as were the Protestants and Jansenists, executed the wish of the same {removed feasts from Sundays, deed away with commemorations....} while pretending, like all heretics, to 'restore' Sunday to its primitive festivity... 

No surprises: their system is not called the synthesis of all heresies for nothing... Nor are they described as the most pernicious of the adversaries of the Church for no reason...