Whatever Happened to the Holiday? Recovering the Gift of Rest

Have you ever noticed how exhausting holidays can be?

Long weekends now feel like opportunities to tick off overdue jobs. School breaks get filled with travel, errands, entertainment, and activity. Even when we’re “away,” we’re still on—scrolling, planning, posting.

And yet the word holiday comes from holy day—a day set apart, sacred. Not originally for leisure, but for rest and worship.

The concept of a day of rest is deeply rooted in the Christian story. In the Jewish tradition, the Sabbath was given not as a burden but as a blessing—one day in seven to stop, to delight, to be reminded that we are not slaves, not machines. In Jesus, the idea deepens: “The Sabbath was made for man,” he says, “not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). Rest isn’t just permitted; it’s part of what it means to be human.

The early Church marked its calendar with feasts and fasts, not just to remember, but to re-centre life around God. Work had dignity, but so did stopping.

The fourth-century theologian Augustine wrote, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” That rest is more than sleep. It’s a reorientation.

But modern life has a way of unmaking rest. We’ve replaced it with adrenaline, distraction, and chasing fun. Sunday sport, shopping centres, social media—all promise renewal, but rarely deliver it. It’s no wonder our souls feel thin.

Author Ruth Haley Barton says, “We are starved for quiet, to hear the sound of sheer silence that is the presence of God himself.”

What if holidays became holy again—not in a dour or religious way, but in a deeply human way? What if we recovered rest not as laziness, but as worship?

To stop is to trust. To rest is to say, “I’m not in charge—and that’s okay.” It is to sit in contentment rather than chase what we do not yet have.

Maybe this holiday, we don’t need more fun. Maybe we need more stillness, more space, more God.