Why are some moderates insistent on religious rituals?

[arewethereyet]

Where do you find this flavor of Catholics?

I grew up surrounded by Catholics in an area that was well over 90% Catholic.

We weren't supposed to eat before mass (and communion) on Sundays but I was never sure how that translated when Saturday night mass in place of Sunday morning was implemented.  If there was a memo as to how long we were to go without food prior to mass, I missed it.

As for no work on Sunday...I grew up in a farming area.  You can be sure there was work done on Sundays.  The livestock apparently weren't Catholic and someone had to feed and check on them.  

And you can bet your ass that preparation of a meal for a Catholic-sized farm family required work.

^^^Exactly this.  I recall one of my brothers objecting to farm work on a Sunday and our father very patiently explaining to him that 1) God would understand the necessity; 2) Working the farm was what fed us; and 3) If Mikey didn't give over the goldbricking, he'd be taking his next meal through a tube.

Da had a great gift for putting things into perspective.

Boru

My dad grew up on a farm so I spent time (including Sundays) on my grandparents farm.  Some work was shelved on Sundays but some simply couldn't be.

Dad became a large animal veterinarian in private practice...Sundays, Christmas, Easter...didn't matter when a cow was having trouble calving or had milk fever or when a sow was struggling with farrowing.  Obviously the animals on surrounding farms didn't time things around holy days.  They did seem to behave pretty well for Thursday afternoon men's league at the golf course though.