Our Sundays are a work in progress.  It’s been a few months since I’ve tried to make this a focal point in our familial spiritual journey.  We predominately go to the Vigil Mass for Sundays, so it does take a little more effort to sanctify Sunday itself. 

We have made more effort to make Saturday the day for catching up on chores and errands.  I’m sure we are not alone in that pure exhaustion from a long week tempt us to kick back on Saturdays, but we’re steadily creating new habits. 

On Sunday morning, I turn on either Praise or Sacred Music.  We have a computer hooked up to our TV, so I went through Youtube and linked a whole bunch of these type videos, most with the lyrics displayed so the kids who can read can learn and sing along. 

We keep the day primarily for family time, though we may spend some time later in the day with other Catholic families or with our relatives.  No unnecessary work is done.  We did go serve my inlaws one Sunday this summer, by taking over the yard work that had fallen behind due to my father-in-law’s current fight against pancreatic cancer.  We mowed, trimmed, and weeded the 2 acre lot and garden. 

I would like to plan more prayer time throughout the day.  Often we get caught up in fun, like board games or family video games, and push the spiritual focus to the side.  But I think the progress we’ve made just to make Sunday a day of rest is true progress.  It takes time to make new habits.

Bekah,
Thanks for sharing your great ideas!  I love the “singing” one - that’s something that would be so simple to do...just play some great Catholic CDs!  I can actually start doing that one tomorrow.
I will keep your father in law in my prayers!
Lisa

We work hard on keeping Sunday a “family day”.  We start with a very early morning Mass.  My husband often works six days a week so we use Sunday as a time to spend focused more on the family.  We will often come home from Mass and then make plans for the day.  Hmm oldest child wants to play a board game.  Youngest two need some wresting time with dad.  With 7 kids sometimes my husband bounces from one to the next on Sundays (and I fill in where needed) since he doesn’t seem them much during the week.  Sometimes we will get together with other families or we will go on an outing somewhere, although we try to have time alone at home with our family at least every other week.  We are still working on the spiritual aspect and the kids know it’s a Holy Day.  Sometimes we pray the Rosary together, or my husband will give the family a sort of spiritual/virtue talk.  We try very hard not to make it a work catch-up day but we will do things like assembling the bunk bed (’cause everyone enjoys that and doesn’t consider it work) or something similar.

Our kids have come to LOVE Sundays - now we just need to work in some more spiritual aspects to it.

We attend Mass, have Sunday dinner and pray the Rosary as a family. We used to have “No Media Sundays”, and I think I will reinstate this. Sundays are also family days, not running out to play with friends. We need this time to just hang as a family and not have to be running somewhere like we do all week.  Also, we start Sunday at 5:00 PM. We unite from our activities of the day and have pizza/movie night. It is nice to observe this 24 hours of family time (when we are on track).

One thing I have to say that really, really irritates me is ALL of these kids activities that happen on Sundays. It’s bad enough that secular leagues fall into this routine, but when things that are affiliated with the Catholic Church (Scouts or CYO for example) ONLY meet on Sundays, EVERY Sunday, that really frustrates me. It’s family time, and sometimes, even these affiliations don’t respect this.

OOPS! To clarify, we start Sunday at 5:00 PM Saturday night.

Our Sundays generally consist of Mass in the morning, leisure in the afternoon and going to Sunday dinner at a BIL’s.

My rule about chores is that only Kitchen/dining room chores and school planning are done on Sunday and only if absolutely necessary (which reminds me, I need to remind a dd about homework).

Our family attends Mass together followed by brunch at home.  The one thing we don’t do, is shop or dine out.  So I try to either make a meal ahead of time or cook something really easy for dinner.  The dishwasher does the dishes for us on this day too.  All our major time-consuming work and errands are done on Saturday so that we can just enjoy the children and just be on Sundays.

We attend Mass together and have a nice bacon & eggs breakfast on the “good” dishes, something we don’t do on any other day of the week.

We rarely do any shopping on Sundays and work is very limited, such as if it’s rained for six days, Sunday’s dry and the grass has to be cut! Or emergency laundry, etc.

It’s generally a relaxing day for us. I’d like to work some more spiritual/service elements into the day.

We don’t live up to the ideal either.  Here lately we have been attending the vigil Mass, so I consider Sunday as starting then.  We have restful family time morning on Sunday, without the screeching and kicking (usually).  We often go over to spend time with my mother-in-law and have at least one meal.

I do often catch up on things, but I try to keep those things family-related - calling those we haven’t spoken with lately or enough.  I also often do relaxing things - write, read, play - on Sundays.  I try to avoid shopping, but sometimes I just can’t.  (Like when we’re out of milk, bread, etc.) I need to plan better…

We want to give glory to God, and lately it’s been in the everyday way of spending time together, hanging around the house.  Other times, my husband and I will have a “date time” and we’ll go golfing or spend time together just us in some other outdoorsy way.

But that’s just lately.  And I’m making it sound waaaay better than it often is, especially when compared to the ideal you quote from the Catechism.

Thanks for making me think more about this!

You hit the nail on the head, Sarah--planning ahead!  With laundry, shopping, meals, etc.  Most of the time I’m able to get it all done throughout the week--sometimes, it’s a quick trip into the store after mass.  It really does take a good deal of thought throughout the week to make Sunday work-free for us moms.

My biggest frustration/challenge is the secular sports world.  We just got our sons football schedule, 6 out of 9 games are on Sundays!  I am happy to say that we are not the only family upset with this schedule and many of us have contacted the league organizers.  As of now, it’s the “way things are” but maybe if we continue to comment, we can make some changes in the future.  Yes, “get on the board” has often been mentioned but how many “boards” can you be on just to get schedules/practices/modesty-in-costumes/sportsmanlike principles in line with our beliefs?  Maybe the Family Life Coordinators in diocese will take the initiative to contact sports/dance/club organizations with their worship times, etc asking that they provide families with time to keep their faith beliefs in practice.  Frankly, we feel sorry for our Protestant friends, we as Catholics have many different options to worship, most of them have only one so they are actually making the choice to pray or play.

As the DRE of our parish, my Sundays involve working for the church.  We are guilty of having classes and youth group on Sundays.  I would love to be able to have this day to spend with my family and not have to schedule religion classes on Sunday.  BUT.. the “busyness” of the rest of the week make scheduling classes then nearly impossible. Sports, lessons, and other “stuff” seem to take over the week!