“The sacrificial character of the Eucharist is manifested in the very words of institution: 'This is my body which is given for you' and 'This cup which is poured out for you is the New Covenant in my blood.' In the Eucharist Christ gives us the very body which he gave up for us on the cross, the very blood which he 'poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.'...

     “Through the ministry of priests the spiritual sacrifice of the faithful is completed in union with the sacrifice of Christ the only Mediator, which in the Eucharist is offered through the priests' hands in the name of the whole Church in an unbloody and sacramental manner until the Lord himself comes....

     “In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist ‘the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained.’  ‘... it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present.’...

     “The Eucharistic presence of Christ begins at the moment of the consecration and endures as long as the Eucharistic species subsist [thus fully under the control of and discretion of the priest]. Christ is present whole and entire in each of the species and whole and entire in each of their parts...

     “Jesus awaits us in this sacrament of love. Let us not refuse the time to go to meet him in adoration, in contemplation full of faith, and open to making amends for the serious offenses and crimes of the world. Let our adoration never cease.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, Section Two, Chapter One, Article 3, Subsection V, #1365, 1369, 1374, 1377, 1380. http://www.christusrex.org/www1/CDHN/euch2.html#presence).

     "Over one hundred theologians met in Lima, Peru, in January 1982, and recommended unanimously to transmit this agree statement--the Lima text--for the common study and official response of the churches. They represented virtually all the major church traditions: Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Old Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican, Reformed, Methodist, United, Disciples, Baptist, Adventist and Pentecostal.

     "The churches' response to this agreed statement will be a vital step in the ecumenical process of ‘reception’." (Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry, Faith and Order Paper #111, back cover, published by the World Council of Churches, 1982).

     "Recent research clearly reveals that there is no consensus among scholars on some of the most critical issues pertaining to the eucharist....this central celebration of the Christian church....The purpose of this essay is primarily to show how Seventh-day Adventist understanding of the eucharist or the Lord's supper...[and] to highlight Adventist understanding and practice of the eucharist...

     “On occasion Seventh-day Adventists refer to the eucharist as a sacrament....Being conscious of the sacredness of the celebration of the eucharist, Adventists engage in a personal preparation that includes self-examination...In preparation for the celebration of the eucharist Seventh-day Adventists practice the washing of feet..." (Written response of the Seventh-day Adventist Church Council on Inter-Church Relations, November, 1985, published in Churches Respond to BEM (Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry), vol 2, p 341-343, published by the World Council of Churches in 1986).

     "Holy Mother Church believes that she should celebrate the saving work of her divine Spouse in a sacred commemoration on certain days throughout the course of the year. Once each week, on the day which she has called the Lord's Day [Sunday], she keeps the memory of the Lord's resurrection. She also celebrates it once every year, together with his blessed Passion, at Easter, that most solemn of all feasts....

     “Therefore Easter is not simply one feast among others, but the ‘Feast of feasts,’ the ‘Solemnity of solemnities,’ just as the Eucharist is the "Sacrament of sacraments" (the Great Sacrament). St. Athanasius calls Easter ‘the Great Sunday’ and the Eastern Churches call Holy Week ‘the Great Week.’” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, Part Two, Section One, Chapter Two, Article 1, Subsection III, #1163 & 1169. http://www.christusrex.org/www1/CDHN/paschal3.html#WHEN).

     Other SDA churches that have been holding Easter Sunday services are:

  -- California's Burbank SDA church (see Pacific Union Recorder, March 6, 1989, p 26).

  -- California's Elmshaven SDA church (see Recorder, June 16, 1986, p 21).

  -- California's La Sierra Collegiate church (see Recorder, July 18, 1988, p 22).

  -- California's Riverside SDA church (see Recorder, June 16, 1986, p 16).

  -- California's Santa Ana Spanish SDA church (see Recorder, June 1, 1987, p 8).

  -- California's Sunnyvale SDA church (see Church Bulletin, April 11, 1987).

  -- California's Thousand Oaks SDA church (see Recorder, June 3, 1991, p 21).

  -- California's White Memorial SDA church (see Church Bulletin, April 11, 1987).

  -- Hawaii's Aiea SDA church (see Recorder, June 20, 1988, p 17).

  -- Montana's Jordan SDA church (see Gleaner, June 16, 1986, p 18).

  -- Ohio's Toledo First SDA Church (see Church Bulletin, April 3, 1993).

  -- Oregon's (Portland) University Park SDA church (see Gleaner, May 5, 1986, p 17).

  -- Oregon's Mount Tabor SDA church (see Gleaner, July 7, 1986, p 24).

  -- Washington's Pasco Riverview SDA church (see Gleaner, May 19, 1986, p 13).

  -- Washington, D.C.'s Review and Herald (see Adventist Review, April 27, 1989, p 7).

     Samuel Bacchiocchi, Professor of Church History and Theology at Andrews Seventh-day Adventist University, is a well-known SDA lecturer who has presented his “Lord’s Day Seminars” to many SDA churches.  He wrote a book entitled “From Sabbath To Sunday”, wherein the "Lord's day" is referred to as being Sunday and not Saturday over 51 times in just the first 160 pages of this 369 page book!

     In reference to Revelation 1:10 – "I [John] was in the Spirit on the Lord's day" – Bacchiocchi argues that the "Lord's day" is not the seventh day Sabbath, but it either refers to “a (weekly) Sunday” , or an “Easter-Sunday”, or it refers to the time of “Christ's (second) coming” (p 111-113).  He calls the keeping of the moral Sabbath of the 4th commandment a "Jewish tradition" (p 13), a "Jewish religious institution" (p 163), and states that "the eighth day (or Sunday – the day after the Sabbath) far surpassed the seventh day" (p 283). He also states that Paul was warning against those who would promote Seventh-day Sabbath keeping "as indispensable aids to Christian perfection" (p 356).  And then he sums up his whole book in the very last sentence by stating:

     "...Paul rejected the Sabbath as a means of salvation but accepted it as a shadow pointing to the substance which belongs to Christ." (Dr. Samuel Bacchiocchi, in From Sabbath To Sunday, p 368-369, published by the Pontifical Gregorian University Press, Rome in 1977, IMPRIMATUR by R.P. Herve Carrier, S.I., University Rector).

     But does the Seventh-day Adventist Church agree with Bacchiocchi and the Catholic Church – that the Lord’s day is not the seventh day Sabbath, but can be Sunday?

     "...the phrase ‘the Lord's day’ in Revelation 1:10....More attention should be given to the possibility that the phrase refers to an annual resurrection (Sunday) celebration." (The Sabbath in Scripture and History, p 127, published by the Seventh-day Adventist Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1982).

     “Thus, religion and moral and physical well-being are one in demanding this periodic rest, and for many centuries now the Church has set aside Sunday as a special day of rest for the faithful, on which they participate in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the memorial and application of Christ's redemptive work for souls.

     “Heavy in heart, We cannot but deplore the growing tendency in certain quarters to disregard this sacred law, if not to reject it outright. This attitude must inevitably impair the bodily and spiritual health of the workers, whose welfare We have so much at heart.

     “In the name of God, therefore, and for the sake of the material and spiritual interests of men, We call upon all, public authorities, employers and workers, to observe the precepts of God and His Church and to remember their grave responsibilities before God and society.” (Pope John XXIII, in Mater Et Magistra, Encyclical promulgated on May 15, 1961, # 251-253. http://www.papalencyclicals.net/John23/j23mater.htm).

     “And in like manner, in the case of the worker, there are many things which the power of the State should protect; and, first of all, the goods of his soul. For however good and desirable mortal life be, yet it is not the ultimate goal for which we are born, but a road only and a means for perfecting, through knowledge of truth and love of good, the life of the soul. The soul bears the express image and likeness of God, and there resides in it that sovereignty through the medium of which man has been bidden to rule all created nature below him and to make all lands and all seas serve his interests....in this connection a man cannot even by his own free choice allow himself to be treated in a way inconsistent with his nature, and suffer his soul to be enslaved; for there is no question here of rights belonging to man, but of duties owed to God, which are to be religiously observed.

     “Hence follows necessary cessation from toil and work on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation. Let no one, however, understand this in the sense of greater indulgence of idle leisure, and much less in the sense of that kind of cessation from work, such as many desire, which encourages vice and promotes wasteful spending of money, but solely in the sense of a repose from labor made sacred by religion. Rest combined with religion calls man away from toil and the business of daily life to admonish him to ponder on heavenly goods and to pay his just and due homage to the Eternal Deity. This is especially the nature, and this the cause, of the rest to be taken on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation, and God has sanctioned the same in the Old Testament by a special law: ‘Remember thou keep holy the Sabbath Day,’ and He Himself taught it by His own action; namely the mystical rest taken immediately after He had created man: ‘He hath rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.’...

     “Let the worker be exhorted to the worship of God and the pursuit of piety, especially to religious observance of Sundays and Holy Days. Let him learn to reverence and love the Church, the common Mother of all, and likewise to observe her precepts and to frequent her Sacraments, which are the divine means for purifying the soul from the status of sin and for attaining sanctity.” (Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum (On the Condition of the Working Classes), Encyclical promulgated on May 15, 1891, #57-58 & 77. http://www.newadvent.org/docs/le13rn.htm).

     “For several centuries, Christians observed Sunday simply as a day of worship, without being able to give it the specific meaning of Sabbath rest. Only in the fourth century did the civil law of the Roman Empire recognize the weekly recurrence, determining that on "the day of the sun" the judges, the people of the cities and the various trade corporations would not work.  Christians rejoiced to see thus removed the obstacles which until then had sometimes made observance of the Lord's Day heroic. They could now devote themselves to prayer in common without hindrance.

     “It would therefore be wrong to see in this legislation of the rhythm of the week a mere historical circumstance with no special significance for the Church and which she could simply set aside. Even after the fall of the Empire, the Councils did not cease to insist upon the arrangements regarding Sunday rest. In countries where Christians are in the minority and where the festive days of the calendar do not coincide with Sunday, it is still Sunday which remains the Lord's Day, the day on which the faithful come together for the Eucharistic assembly. But this involves real sacrifices. For Christians it is not normal that Sunday, the day of joyful celebration, should not also be a day of rest, and it is difficult for them to keep Sunday holy if they do not have enough free time.

     “By contrast, the link between the Lord's Day and the day of rest in civil society has a meaning and importance which go beyond the distinctly Christian point of view. The alternation between work and rest, built into human nature, is willed by God himself, as appears in the creation story in the Book of Genesis (cf. 2:2-3; Ex 20:8-11): rest is something ‘sacred’, because it is man's way of withdrawing from the sometimes excessively demanding cycle of earthly tasks in order to renew his awareness that everything is the work of God. There is a risk that the prodigious power over creation which God gives to man can lead him to forget that God is the Creator upon whom everything depends. It is all the more urgent to recognize this dependence in our own time, when science and technology have so incredibly increased the power which man exercises through his work.

     “Finally, it should not be forgotten that even in our own day work is very oppressive for many people, either because of miserable working conditions and long hours – especially in the poorer regions of the world -- or because of the persistence in economically more developed societies of too many cases of injustice and exploitation of man by man. When, through the centuries, she has made laws concerning Sunday rest, the Church has had in mind above all the work of servants and workers, certainly not because this work was any less worthy when compared to the spiritual requirements of Sunday observance, but rather because it needed greater regulation to lighten its burden and thus enable everyone to keep the Lord's Day holy. In this matter, my predecessor Pope Leo XIII in his Encyclical Rerum Novarum spoke of Sunday rest as a worker's right which the State must guarantee.

     “In our own historical context there remains the obligation to ensure that everyone can enjoy the freedom, rest and relaxation which human dignity requires, together with the associated religious, family, cultural and interpersonal needs which are difficult to meet if there is no guarantee of at least one day of the week on which people can both rest and celebrate. Naturally, this right of workers to rest presupposes their right to work and, as we reflect on the question of the Christian understanding of Sunday, we cannot but recall with a deep sense of solidarity the hardship of countless men and women who, because of the lack of jobs, are forced to remain inactive on workdays as well.

     “...Therefore, also in the particular circumstances of our own time, Christians will naturally strive to ensure that civil legislation respects their duty to keep Sunday holy. In any case, they are obliged in conscience to arrange their Sunday rest in a way which allows them to take part in the Eucharist, refraining from work and activities which are incompatible with the sanctification of the Lord's Day, with its characteristic joy and necessary rest for spirit and body.” (Pope John Paul II, in Dies Domini (To the Bishops, Clergy and Faithful of the Catholic Church on Keeping the Lord’s Day Holy), Apostolic Letter promulgated on May 31, 1998, Chapter IV, #64-67.

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp_ii_apl_05071998_dies_domini_en.html).