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THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY

Thought for the Day # 54 - Friday, May 8, 2020

“The 7th Day”

Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Reading of the book of Genesis:

By the seventh day God had completed the work he had made. He rested on the
seventh day from all the work he had done. And God blessed the seventh day; he
sanctified it because on that day he rested from all the work of creation that he
had made.

The seventh day is a day of rest. And perhaps by reading again this experience
that we have been living for several weeks, we have rediscovered how
important it is to stop. We were made to stop, we had no choice. We are still
paused. We can’t wait to start all over again. In the meantime we may have
discovered the benefits of being able to stop, to take a break. Benefit for the
person, benefit for the family, benefit for society, benefit for the planet.
As a mason spoke with me at one point and drew my attention to the fact that
a stone breathes! We wouldn’t think that a stone breathes! Yes, stones do
breathe! The earth breathes! To breathe is to have a rhythm! There is a rhythm
of work, but also a rhythm of rest. Rest is part of breathing.

In the sixties I was training in swimming. At that time it was discovered that
rest is a big part of training. One has not only to train but one has also to
exercise and to rest! Exercise without rest is less effective than exercise with
rest. Therefore we have to learn again how to rest, relearn the rhythm of rest,
relearn the 7th day! We have to relearn the day of rest in a weekly rhythm, from
one day to another, from one Sunday to the other.

Collection of texts by the Most Rev. Christian Lépine 65