later see that there are other works, called common, which
require activity of the mind and of the body in about an equal measure
or which enter into the common necessities of life. These are not
forbidden in themselves, although in certain contingencies they may be
adjudged unlawful; but, in the matter of servile works, nothing but
necessity, the greater glory of God, or the good of the neighbor, can
allow us to consider the law non-binding. To break it is a sin, slight
or grievous, according to the nature of the offense.

CHAPTER LIII.
SERVILE WORKS.

BUT, if servile works are prohibited on the Lord's day, it must be
remembered that "the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the
Sabbath," that, for certain good and sufficient reasons, the law ceases
to oblige; and, in these circumstances, works of a purely servile
nature are no longer unlawful. This is a truth Christ made very clear
to the straight-laced Pharisees of the old dispensation who interpreted
too rigorously the divine prohibition; and certain Pharisees of the new
dispensation, who are supposed assiduously to read the Bible, should
jog their memories on the point in order to save themselves from the
ridicule that surrounds the memory of their ancestors of Blue-Law fame.
The Church enters into the spirit of her divine Founder and recognizes
cases in which labor on Sunday may be, and is, more agreeable to God,
and more meritorious to ourselves, than rest from labor.

The law certainly does not intend to forbid a kind of works,
specifically servile in themselves, connected with divine worship,
required by the necessities of public religion, or needed to give to
that worship all the solemnity and pomp which it deserves; provided, of
course, such things could not well be done on another day. All God's
laws are for His greater glory, and to assert that works necessary for
the honoring of God are forbidden by His law is to be guilty of a
contradiction in terms. All things therefore needed for the preparation
and becoming celebration of the rites of religion, even though of a
servile nature, are lawful and do not come under the head of this
prohibition.

The law ceases likewise to bind when its observance would prevent an
act of charity towards the neighbor in distress, necessity, or pressing
need. If the necessity is real and true charity demands it, in matters
not what work, not intrinsically evil, is to be done, on what day or
for how long a time it