Family in Feast and Feria

First of all, thank you so much for all the sweet comments and prayers for our baby. We really, really appreciate it.

Today is the optional memorial of St. Isidore the Farmer. While I'm by no means a farmer, I have particularly love for this saint. It all started with reading the cookbook on my mother's shelf, Cooking for Christ by Florence Berger. It was published in 1949 by the National Catholic Rural Life Conference that was founded in the 1920s, whose patrons are St. Isidore and his wife Maria. I delved into NCRLC's publications and was fascinated by the connection of the Faith, family, and the land. So fascinated that I did my undergrad thesis on the subject.

Right now my vegetable and flower garden is awaiting the planting. I am having a late start this year, but baby comes first. Meanwhile, I'll keep praying to St. Isidore for rain and to help our garden flourish this year.

Prayer to St. Isidore the Farmer

(St. Isidore, patron saint o farmers, was himself a farm born in the city of Madrid, Spain, about the year 1110; His chief appeal is to those who, as he did, work the land. But his good qualities-whole-hearted trust in God, his enthusiasm and vigor in doing his job, his spirit of prayer and devotion to religious practice--these can profitably be admired and imitated by all laboring men, just as his wife Maria, can serve as a model for working men's wives. His feast day is celebrated through out the United States on May 15.)

Good Saint, we are told that your devotion to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was so great that you would rise before it was light in order to be able to attend Mass before beginning your work in the fields. Obtain for us, we pray you, some of that loving devotion to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. There it is that the fruits of our farm labor, bread and wine, are brought and offered to God by the priest. Then, in the consecration, Christ Himself, Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, becomes present on our altars under the appearances of this same bread and wine. And in what was the altar bread, He comes to us to be the very food of our souls. If we deeply realize the value and beauty of Holy Mass, we will be very happy to attend as often as we possibly can.

Help us to understand that in the Mass we offer ourselves to God with Christ by the hands of the priest. There we can bring to God all that we do, and offer it to Him in union with His Holy Sacrifice. The oftener we do this now, the happier we shall be hereafter. Good Saint Isidore, bless us and our labors, that we may some day reap the reward of good works with you in heaven. Amen.

-- unrevised from The Rural Life Prayerbook, 1956, National Catholic Rural Life Conference.