Eight Days a Week

In December of 1964, the Beatles made the UK release of the song that would become their 7^th number one hit in the US: “Eight Days a Week.” I’ll have to set aside for the moment my considerable reservations regarding its lyrical monotony. For example, the song consists of 124 words, of which

• 32 are found in repetitions of the phrase “eight days a week,”
• 13 are the word “love,”
• 8 are “me,”
• 8 are “you,” and
• 6 are “I”

This means that the majority of the lyrics – 54% – could be almost equally reconstructed by multiple repetitions of the phrase: “I love you / love me / eight days a week.”

Despite that, the Beatles seem to have hit upon an essential truth. In declaring their need for love (for those counting, “need” and “hold” each appear four times) as well as professing their reciprocal affection, the “Fab Four” point out that time with one’s beloved is never enough. There are only seven days in a week, but in a sense their love could fill eight days; indeed, even “eight days a week is not enough to show I care.”

Love and Time

This idea that love can influence our perception of time is not simply a lyrical invention of the Beatles. Indeed, we could say that the idea is even biblical: in Genesis 29:20, we read that “Jacob served seven years for Rachel, yet they seemed to him like a few days because of his love for her.” Seven years of hard labor, nights in the fields looking after notoriously careless sheep, seemed just like a few days. We can also think of the saints who passed hours in prayer with God: for instance, Padre Pio’s Masses could last up to three hours, yet Padre Pio was undeterred by complaints or distractions.

I might dare to say that even the eight-day week is not solely a lyrical invention of the Beatles. In order to show her love and reverence for certain mysteries and feasts, the Church has the long-standing tradition of the eight-day week: the celebration of the octaves of important feasts. By octave, we mean the eight-day celebration that follows a major feast or solemnity; an octave begins on the feast itself, and continues for the following seven days.

Liturgical Octaves

At present, there are only two major octaves in the Latin Church’s liturgical calendar for the ordinary form: the octave of Christmas, which begins on Christmas and ends on New Year’s Day (the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God), and the octave of Easter, which begins on Easter Sunday and ends the following Sunday, Dominica in albis or Divine Mercy Sunday.

However, over the centuries there were many other octaves that are no longer included in the current calendar: these include the octaves of

• Pentecost (which ends with the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, as it has for centuries, but previously the entire octave was centered on the Holy Spirit);
• Epiphany (which, as a fixed feast, always ended with the feast of the Baptism of the Lord);
• Corpus Christi (the day after the octave ends was the original date assigned to the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart, although Corpus Christi is now usually celebrated on Sunday, rather than on Thursday, the feast of the Sacred Heart remains on the second Friday after Pentecost); and
• Ascension.

There are other eight-day relationships scattered throughout the liturgical year: some of these are vestiges of previous octaves, such as the Solemnity of the Assumption and the Queenship of Mary, celebrated on August 15^th and 22^nd, respectively.

Others, like the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin and the memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows, on September 8^th and 15^th, might not have a liturgical foundation in the past, but still they encourage us contemplate how, just as Jesus entered the world to save us, so too Mary entered the world to participate in His work of redemption.

The Primary Octave

However, there is another eight-day week that we Catholics are privileged to celebrate constantly: every Sunday is an “eighth” day.

In the book of Genesis, the creation account tells us that God created for six days and rested on the seventh. That seventh day became the model for the Jewish Sabbath, which is Saturday. Hence, stepping back in the week, this would mean that Sunday was the first day, and also the “eighth” day. When Jesus rose from the dead on the morning of Easter Sunday, He began a new creation as salvation was brought to the world.

However, Sunday is not simply a celebration of the new creation: it also points us to eternity. Like Christ, who is both the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End, the Alpha and the Omega, as the first and eighth day, Sunday reminds us that our final goal is not to remain here on earth, but rather to enter into eternal life. (See Pope Saint John Paul II’s Apostolic Letter Dies Domini.)

All of this is simply to say that the celebration of Sunday is not merely about “keeping a precept” or “going to Mass because we have to.” On the contrary, Sunday Mass, with its prayer in community, the Eucharist, and reflection, is the way to keep our love for Christ alive. Even if “eight days a week is not enough to show I care,” at least on the eighth day I can attempt to show that love in a special way.

Doing Our Souls a Favor

It is sometimes tempting to think that by going to Mass on Sunday, we are somehow doing God a favor. However, the contrary is true: in a very real sense, we are doing ourselves a favor when we take time to draw near to the altar. As John Paul II wrote in Dies Domini, The Lord’s Day:

To experience the joy of the Risen Lord deep within is to share fully the love which pulses in his heart: there is no joy without love! Jesus himself explains this, linking the “new commandment” with the gift of joy:

If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept the Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you this that my own joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. This is my commandment: that you love one another as I have loved you. (Jn 15:10-12)

If the week seems to drag on, if there is no joy in our family life, our work life, if there is no joy in our communities, it is likely that there is love missing in our relationship with Jesus. Without love, there is no joy; with love, everything seems lighter.

Indeed, perhaps the Beatles were right on another score. Maybe “all we need is love”: an ordered love, certainly, and one directed first and foremost to God, but love. If we see that the long, cold, lonely winter has passed, with the ice slowly melting, it is because the Son is coming. Indeed, He comes every day, but in a particular way on the eighth day of the week.