It is right around the feast of St. Valentine each year that we start thinking seriously about making maple syrup. We head out and collect our supplies as we wait for temperatures to fall within the correct range for optimal sap flow so tapping can begin.

From Valentine’s Day, it will likely be another two weeks until we can tap trees, but if we need new bags, taps, lines or any other supplies, they must be procured before tapping. Thankfully, a couple of years ago, we met a maple syrup producer who purchases extra bulk supplies and then resells them to people like us.

We typically round out our syrup season in March, but that first batch of golden liquid is usually ready just in time for St. Patrick’s feast day. Which is perfect, because the kids enjoy having green pancakes in the shape of clovers to commemorate this feast.

Are these connections tentative? Yes, absolutely. There is nothing to tie either of these saints to maple syrup, other than the timing of the season with their memorials. But that’s what I have discovered to be true of so many of the traditions that accompany the memorials of other saints.

I do appreciate when there is a concrete connection between a saint and the traditions that we tie to them. St. Isidore the farm worker died on May 15th, 1130, and so his feast day just so happens to fall at planting time. What a great saint to have praying for us as we ask for blessings on our fields and crops!

It is good to find saints to accompany us on our journey. They don’t have to be the saints that the commercialized world “remembers,” but if you’re looking for an easy way to get started, this is a good place to begin. St. Nicholas, St. Valentine, St. Patrick… begin with the well-known saints and find out their true stories. Sure, there’s confusion over St. Valentine, but the stories of Valentine are about love and supporting the holy vocation of marriage. There is a lot we could learn from that!

When it comes to my association of Sts. Valentine and Patrick with maple syrup, if I need any other motivation for my connection, it is to remember how sweet the Word of God is. Like sap flowing through a tree, God’s Word is life to me.

Of course, the following quote is about honey, but I still feel the correlation. “The decrees of the Lord are firm, and all of them are righteous. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.” -Psalm 19: 9b-10

As we go about our work to prepare for a sweet, golden harvest, we can thank God for the ways in which He provides for us, joyful that He asks for our participation. We can meditate on the lives of the saints, learning from their example, and asking them to pray for us on our pilgrimage to Heaven.

In Christ,
Danielle