Believe in my experience, you will find something more in the forest than in the books. The woods and the rocks will take you to what you cannot learn from any master. Do not you think that you can suck the honey from a stone and oil from the hardest rock? Do no the mountains distill the sweetness? Do not milk and honey flow from hills, and do not valleys contain wheat in abundance?
Letter from Bernard of Clairvaux to Abbe Vauclair (12th century).
The liturgical memorial of St. Rita of Cascia (1381-1457) is today. Several years ago when I was visiting a friend in Italy we visited the Benedictine monks at Norcia and by surprise, we were taken to Cascia to venerate the relics of St. Rita and imbibe the monastic house. At that time I didn’t really have a devotion to St. Rita even though her personal narrative is quite interesting; only recently two friends, independent of one another, told me of St Rita’s love and affection for honey bees. As a beekeeper I am always looking for divine intercession as I care for the bees.
Due various things in her life, Rita eventually became an Augustinian nun giving witness to the meaning of forgiveness, prayer, humility, patience, and perseverance. She dedicated her life to heroic charity and penance as she closely united herself and her life of deep suffering to Christ. Notice in the image that Rita has something in her forehead. While praying before a crucifix, St. Rita mystically received a thorn in her forehead (stigmata) from Jesus’ Crown of Thorns.
St. Rita is the patron saint of impossible causes, difficult marriages, abuse victims, and honey bees. Can we model St. Rita’s perseverance today?
It seems that many of the clergy and laity neglect beseeching God for blessings upon agriculture. I suppose they neither see the necessity nor value in doing such. Imagine no longer giving thanks for a gift and asking for guidance! An acquaintance in New York told me the priest in her village basically refused to come to the farm to bless her cows and lands. I am happy to say that the Dominican Friars are very willing to impart the requested blessings upon cows, swine, laying hens, honey bees, the pastures, forest and gardens. We did this pious act this morning with Father Joachim, OP.
The prayers are striking for their supplication and reverence for God the Father as creator and sustainer of creation. The prayers are beautiful for the Old Testament typology and New Testament salvation in Jesus Christ. The Paschal Mystery, hence, is clearly central as is the well-being of humanity.
Why bless agriculture? In part, the blessings give perspective: God is the one who fashions all things and it is God who gives. He is the author of all nature. Moreover, it is a recognition that we live and find our true happiness in the given-ness of the world’s sacramentality. We don’t give ourselves anything. The prayers and act of praying reminds us that we are dependent on Another, that is, we are dependent on the Blessed Trinity who gives life. Theologically, without a recognition of God holding all creation in the palm of His hands we focus on ourselves and not on Him and others we are impoverished at rather deep level.
For me, the blessing of agriculture is critical these days because we our thinking and working in area of having good food for health and happiness, food security, and respect, love and beauty for the land. Blessing agriculture is educative; blessing of agriculture helps me to reflective on the place true Catholic faith and ecology intersect and interpenetrate (here I am thinking of what the Western and Eastern churches teach).
Let us pray through the intercession of Our Lady, the saints and angels, for God’s continued blessings upon us, “from whom every good has its beginning and from whom it receives its increase.”
Urgent! Please come to Hartford Tuesday at Noon!
Your action is needed to help protect life in Connecticut!
TOMORRROW, Tuesday, May 21, there will be a rally at the State Capitol in Hartford supporting life and opposing legislation that will harm pro-life pregnancy care centers.
As you may know, this past week the Connecticut House of Representatives voted to pass H.B. 7070 which subjects the advertising of pro-life pregnancy care centers to the oversight and authority of the Attorney General of Connecticut. The Attorney General would have sole discretion in determining whether the advertising is deceptive or not.
The 24 pregnancy care centers across Connecticut are serving women with life-affirming, pro-woman counseling and health care services. The Knights of Columbus, for example, have supported these centers for many years and they are in great need of our help once again.
Please make every effort to participate in this important rally on May 21 at noon at the State Capitol, and be sure to invite your family, friends, parishioners, and Brother Knights to join you.
Thank you for all of your work to support life in Connecticut!
Rogation Days 2019 are coming… May 27-29.
If you have a farm or extensive vegetable garden, then ask your priest to come and pray the rogation prayers.
Read:
Today in 2004, Pope Saint John Paul II canonized Gianna Beretta Molla. Our patron saint is an incredible witness and builder of peace. Saint Gianna’s feast day is April 28.
Saint Gianna is not only a holy person in love with her Savior, but a wife, mother, and physician who continues to show us that it possible to follow the Gospel closely and faithfully. She is known as a patron for ProLife work and marriage. In fact, our pregnancy resource center in New Haven (CT) is named for this great woman and disciple of Jesus, Saint Gianna.
The sainted pope said in his homily:
… simple, but more than ever, significant messenger of divine love. In a letter to her future husband a few days before their marriage, she wrote: “Love is the most beautiful sentiment the Lord has put into the soul of men and women”.
Following the example of Christ, who “having loved his own… loved them to the end” (Jn 13: 1), this holy mother of a family remained heroically faithful to the commitment she made on the day of her marriage. The extreme sacrifice she sealed with her life testifies that only those who have the courage to give of themselves totally to God and to others are able to fulfil themselves.
Through the example of Gianna Beretta Molla, may our age rediscover the pure, chaste and fruitful beauty of conjugal love, lived as a response to the divine call!
Not to be missed! The Field Afar: The life story of Vincent Capodanno, a Catholic Priest who received the Medal of Honor for his valor as a chaplain to the Marine Corps during some of the most harrowing battles of the Vietnam war and whose Cause for Canonization is currently open in Rome.
Showing as part of the New Haven International Film Festival on Thursday, May 16 – 8:35 PM at Gateway Community College, 20 Church Street, New Haven.
Tickets: https://filmfreeway.com/NewHavenFilmFestival/tickets
An incredible close-up documentary on honey bees. A new level of respect and love for these creatures. As I compose these thoughts, 2019 is the third year of keeping bees. So far, I have 7 hives of honey bees.
https://www.kqed.org/science/1940898/honey-bees-make-honey-and-bread
We must aim at heaven with all our strength. Man will have to re-learn, much more positively and intensively than before, that life leads from the personal dialogue with God to the actual personal encounter and the experience of unity with God.
He will have to learn that this is his heaven and his real, his only, home. Then he will learn to pray, not merely as a duty and in obedience, but with intense vitality and with all the driving force of his own free will.
The Prison Meditations of Alfred Delp
Fr. Alfred Delp, SJ
Happy Mother’s Day!
Love you!