Liturgy, Prayer, And Potatoes
By SHAUN KENNEY
Let’s start with the sudden surge for allowing laywomen (and putatively, laymen as well) to give homilies from the pulpit.
No — and not just a little no, but an emphatic no. Reasons for this are simple, as lay members no matter what their education have not been given the charism of the munus docendi — namely, the office of teaching. Priests are specifically given three munera: teaching, sanctifying, and governing.
What is more interesting to me is the suddenness of this “debate” in Catholic media. Fr. James Martin, SJ, is positively enthusiastic about the idea. Cardinal Marx is predictably enthusiastic. The pressure is on in a big way — right up until someone reminds the “reformers of the reform” that the teaching office of a priest is something an undergraduate would know.
Yawn.
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In Virginia, the temperature has dropped considerably from about 110F in the shade to about 65F in about 36 hours. At the moment, it feels like 80F outside — which means it is a great time to reflect on the ol’ farm and how things are going.
One of the great things about praying the Liturgy of the Hours is that you get a sense that the liturgical life of the Church is hardwired to the seasons. We miss that in a post-agrarian society, but it is worth emphasizing time and again that Easter in the spring and Pentecost as summer begins, with Advent as the harvest is brought in and Christmas as the larder is stocked — these are all very important because it connects the life of the Church with the Church in prayer.
Of course, quick readers will recognize that much of this liturgical calendar was stolen, either because we were hiding from Roman legionaries or attempting to convert the pagans of Germania. Naturally it worked, but much like Cicero and the natural law, we tend to adopt from the pagans what is rooted and discard what is ephemeral and transient.
So too in any garden, and ours is readily overgrown in the Virginia heat. We use hay to line the potato rows from time in order to keep the weeds down, and every once in a while the hayseeds poke through and clutter the landscape. We plant on St. Patrick’s Day; we plow when the potatoes have died back — just about now. Given our long, cool and wet winter, the kids will be at work plowing up a good 500 pounds of potatoes and then storing them in sacks in our basement. Most of this we will eat; some of it we will winter over for seed potatoes — though we typically buy new seed potatoes every year.
We rest in Virginia’s gold belt, which means that the soil is terrible, but the water is excellent. Here in Central Virginia is a white-grey sand with very little loam, the term used for friable organic matter. In short, years of tobacco farming combined with corn have utterly depleted the soil, and decades of pine and oak have made the soil acidic.
So we amend. For years, we have planted peas in the spring, rotate potatoes and corn and tomatoes and watermelons and whatever else the kids want to grow in the summer (yes, tobacco as well), and then either winter wheat or rye in the fall to winter over. Occasionally — and I am proud of this fact — we can plant a fall crop of romaine lettuce and get it to winter over for the spring.
This isn’t the limit of what we do. Each fall and spring, the chicken coop gets cleaned out, and the manure is left in a bin to settle for the next year (chicken manure is “hot” in farmer parlance, containing too much nitrogen to be of any immediate use). We feed the chickens corn, and in return we get eggs. Goats get committed to the task of land clearance.
The spring pig — if we have one — goes to work plowing up roots in her pen and becomes bacon by Thanksgiving (though as longtime readers will recall, Mrs. Kenney has been vetoing new pigs ever since one decided to bite back).
Better still, we have experimented with our own tobacco, both as small cigars and as pipe tobacco in true Chestertonian style. Most folks are not aware, but most pipe tobacco is grown in Virginia. So combinations and blends are kept by tobacconists like secret family recipes for pierogi. Tomatoes get canned, wine is racked, beer is brewed, plans are made for next year — such are our agrarian hobbies and pursuits.
Why am I going through all of this? Mostly because this is an America we have forgotten. Not only this, but it is also a Church that we have forgotten.
Food today comes from a freezer pack or a can. No small wonder that we think holiness and virtue can also come from a freezer pack or a can. We rush for the wrong things and treat the Catholic faith as something to be consumed, or worse as an identity.
Yet one cannot be a Catholic simply by obtaining the implements of Catholicism and saying “Aha! I am now a Catholic!” — any more than one could go out, buy a spade and some seeds, throw them into the ground and proclaim that one is a farmer. Of course, you could do this…but you wouldn’t be a very good farmer in the end. Seeds turn into plants, and surrounded by weeds greedy for nutrients and sunlight intended for the fruits of the land? One either remains assiduous or one surrenders the soil to the weeds.
Of course, one might be considering Christ and the parable of the seeds here (Matthew 13). Dare I go deeper? If the line lex orandi, lex credendi means anything, then co-equal in defining one’s creed or belief to prayer (ora) is work (labora). It is not just enough to scatter seed, but to tend to it.
One of the greatest wisdoms about farming I have learned is that fertilizing is the difference between agriculture and mining. Too often, I think, we scatter seeds and reap the fruits without adding back into our own soil as a Church. Too often we curse that six inches of topsoil that sustains the life of the Church and wonder “where is God?” and “why won’t Christ fix this?” when in truth He has already sent workers into the vineyard — us.
I’m not immune to this temptation. I find rakes and shovels left in my yard all the time and wonder why the kids (or my better half) didn’t pick up their mess. “Why is this mess here?!” one could ask. The response? So that you — no one else — could clean it up.
It was meant for you; that’s why it was there. This soil is meant for you; that’s why you are its caretaker. Your parish, our souls, the condition of the Catholic Church in America today — this is our soil, this is the life of our Church.
Hopefully your gardens are better tended than my own. More than this, I hope my children make these connections as well, either by my example or lack thereof. Pulling potatoes out of the ground in 90F sounds like that sort of character building experience, right?
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America magazine has an article entitled “The Catholic Case for Communism.”
There is no Catholic case for Communism. Destroy it.
As of this writing, my friend is 82 days sober and in a home that will continue his recovery. Turns out that the Veterans Administration has indeed established some link between a traumatic brain injury suffered while on duty and his alcoholism.
Better still? My friend is now aware of this link and knows how and why his body reacts to certain stimuli.
So tremendous progress and positive movement. There is a specific medication he is on that will make any relapse rather unpleasant, but his physical recovery is well in hand. Please continue praying for his spiritual recovery as well.
St. Louis de Montfort and Venerable Matt Talbot, pray for us!
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First Teachers encourages readers to submit their thoughts, views, opinions, and insights to the author directly, either via e-mail or by mail. Please send any correspondence to Shaun Kenney c/o First Teachers, 5289 Venable Road, Kents Store, VA 23084 or by e-mail to svk2cr@virginia.edu.
