ASK FATHER: Golf on Sundays

From a reader…

QUAERITUR:

As long as a person fulfills their Sunday Obligation, and sanctifies the day with prayer and time with family, can a person go golfing even though that would require someone to work on Sunday?

GUEST PRIEST RESPONSE: Fr. Tim Ferguson

One is obliged, on Sundays and Holy Days, to “abstain from such work or business that would inhibit the worship to be given to God, the joy proper to the Lord’s Day, or the due relaxation of mind and body.”

It has long been a question of whether one should forgo any leisure activity which might cause another to have to work on Sunday. The Orthodox Jews tend to take a very strict interpretation of the rest required of the Sabbath. My oven came programmed with a “Sabbath setting” for such persons, which would allow the delayed cooking of a brisket without the owner having to push a button or turn a knob on Saturday. In some places, Jews would hire a “shabbas goy” – a non-Jewish neighbor who would come to turn the lights on and off. We are not Orthodox Jews.

Still, we should be mindful not only of avoiding servile labor on the Lord’s day, but also how our leisure activities might require others to labor. Not changing the oil in one’s car (unless one considers tinkering to be a relaxation, especially when a father uses it to spend time with his sons) might be virtuous, but taking one’s car to a dealership for them to change the oil while one sits in the vehicle feeling virtuous about one’s avoidance of servile labor would seem to be beyond the pale.

Perhaps the most common question involves eating in a restaurant on a Sunday. Eating out can be an enjoyable leisure activity. But it also requires others to work. We could all wax eloquent about the good old days when all restaurants – and pretty much everything else – were closed on Sundays. We don’t live in those times. We have to make choices and decisions. I think a decision to forgo eating out on Sundays can be a wonderful thing, but I would be loathe to ascribe sin to those who choose to go for a brunch with friends and family after Sunday Mass (to further discuss the important parts of Father’s insightful homily, and the choir’s rhapsodic take on Tallis). Hopefully, those who dine out on Sunday are overly generous with their tips.

Almost all leisure activities outside the home require others to work. Even driving on the road requires the presence of our brave police officers. A walk through a park necessitates the labor of park attendants. And yes, getting to the point of the question (finally), golfing requires the services of greenskeepers, attendants, perhaps a caddy, and various and sundry other workers.

The catechism states, “Sanctifying Sundays and holy days requires a common effort. Every Christian should avoid making unnecessary demands on others that would hinder them from observing the Lord’s Day. Traditional activities (sport, restaurants, etc.), and social necessities (public services, etc.), require some people to work on Sundays, but everyone should still take care to set aside sufficient time for leisure. With temperance and charity the faithful will see to it that they avoid the excesses and violence sometimes associated with popular leisure activities. In spite of economic constraints, public authorities should ensure citizens a time intended for rest and divine worship. Employers have a similar obligation toward their employees (CCC 2187).” So it seems that the Church permits that eating out, engaging in some sports or other leisure activity is not necessarily sinful on Sunday, as long as efforts are made to ensure that laws provide reasonable rest and time for worship and employers safeguard their employees right to get in some leisure and the worship of God.

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6 Comments

  1. Joe in Canada says:

    one could choose to go against the spirit of the world and not to go to a restaurant on Sunday.

  2. Imrahil says:

    We could all wax eloquent about the good old days when all restaurants – and pretty much everything else – were closed on Sundays. We don’t live in those times. We have to make choices and decisions. I think a decision to forgo eating out on Sundays can be a wonderful thing,

    Though there rest is quite accurate, here I (who have not been asked) disagree. (In the main. I don’t doubt such an abstention could occasionally be wonderful, if not accompanied with the idea that the others should do so as well, etc. There really is something personal about personal decisions. But in the main:)

    Eating out on a Sunday is not only a pardonable self-indulgence, but a positively virtuous action. not, of course, in the way fasting is; but still in its own manner. If not on Sundays, when would we?

    It is laudable to strive to be better (except if the temptation to pride would in the concrete occasion be the greater evil). But normally this would not mean “let’s not eat out on Sundays”. It would mean “let’s replace the burger by a fine dining”. In fact, I would consider “let’s not stay at home and watch a netflix series; we can do that on some weekday for leisure; on Sunday let’s rather go out to a theater” to be a way to celebrate one’s Sundays better, not worse. (Always assuming the necessary monetary funds.)

    Catholic princes never closed the restaurants on Sundays. Some Protestants might have done that in the United States or Scotland (not, to my knowledge, in England except for Cromwell), but that’s an example of what not to do. Sunday is not only not the Jewish Sabbath, but also it is not Good Friday.

    In fact, in Bavaria the saying is “nach der Meß die Maß”, after Mass the liter of beer, and that would be consumed in a restaurant. An aside: this is still wellknown enough that some less practising people remembered it in this era and said, as a joke of course but as a somewhat serious joke: “Let’s go back to Mass and then claim the restaurant-after-Mass as part of our freedom of religion.”

  3. iamlucky13 says:

    Back when she was working as a server, my wife was very familiar with the crowd of customers that always came in when the service at the nearby evangelical church concluded.

    One morning, one of her customers from this crowd decided to lecture my wife on the sin of working on Sundays. Anyone who has worked in food service knows the servers have almost no leeway to set their own schedules. My wife could work the assigned shift, or lose her job.

    I found the irony amusing, but it was, of course, frustrating for my wife to be admonished as a sinning by the same person seeking out her services on a Sunday. I keep this in mind when planning my own Sunday activities.

  4. William Cody says:

    We have to make choices and decisions. I think a decision to forgo eating out on Sundays can be a wonderful thing, but I would be loathe to ascribe sin to those who choose to go for a brunch with friends and family after Sunday Mass (to further discuss the important parts of Father’s insightful homily, and the choir’s rhapsodic take on Tallis). Hopefully, those who dine out on Sunday are overly generous with their tips.

    Hmm….a second tithe could become a thing, no?

    I found the irony amusing, but it was, of course, frustrating for my wife to be admonished as a sinning by the same person seeking out her services on a Sunday.

    Funny the way we compartmentalize our behaviors right? I’ve likewise heard people argue that watching porn is morally acceptable, but everything involved with making it (eg. fornication, exhibitionism, de factor prostitution, etc.) is not.

    It breaks down as:

    Category 1: What I do (good).
    Category 2: What others do (bad).

    Simple as pie.

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  6. chuckharold says:

    I’ve often wondered if it is better to be on the golf course thinking about God, or in church thinking about golf.
    It’s like the question often asked, and quoted in The Two Popes; Is it permissible to smoke while praying or is it permissible to pray while smoking.

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