On May 15th, the Church celebrates the memorial of St. Isidore the Farmer. Patron saint to many a farm and homestead family, he is known for his great love of God, regular attendance at Mass, frequent prayer, and the assistance of angels in his work. St. Isidore lived from 1070-1130 in Madrid, Spain, with his wife Maria and their son (who died in childhood).

St. Isidore is especially know for is piety and faithful devotion to God amidst the duties of his daily life. A farm hand, St. Isidore worked for a farmer. One of his responsibilities was to plow the fields and likely plant them. His faith was so important to him that Isidore would make time for Mass each day, which caused him to arrive late to work, and he would stop to pray throughout the day (perhaps the Angelus?). This upset his fellow workers in the field, as it appeared he was being irresponsible. They reported him to the owner of the farm, who went to watch Isidore at work. Though it was true that he stopped to pray, the owner of the farm discovered angels assisting Isidore in his work. This happened on more than one occasion. The example of the power of Isidore’s faith greatly moved his boss, and he did not get into trouble for prioritizing his faith. Isidore is truly a role model of putting our trust and faith in God, and how our time, rightly ordered toward God can prove to be incredibly fruitful, even though we “give up” time we could be working.

In 1923, the National Catholic Rural Life Conference began under the guidance of Fr. Edwin O’Hara. This organization would go on to choose St. Isidore the Farmer (also known as St. Isidore the Laborer) as their patron saint, a representative of the life of faith lived on the land. Over the years, as the organization has grown and chapters have been established in various diocese around the United States, yearly Masses began to be held for the blessing of the rural population, the work of the land, and the land and animals themselves.

These Masses take place in a variety of locations. For some, they are held in a barn, in others, they are held in small, local parishes, and I believe I’ve read about some that take place with an outdoor Mass. After Mass, blessings are said, often over things such as seed, farm equipment, and even animals. Though the Masses do not need to occur on the feast of St. Isidore, it is a fitting time on which to honor this tradition. My own diocese has held these Masses on a variety of dates throughout the springtime, but this year and last, the Mass is on the feast of St. Isidore.

The year my parish hosted, a small group worked to plan the event. We decided to veer slightly from what we understood the typical event to be like (none of us had ever been to one, so it’s hard to say for sure!), and focused a little more on rural life generally, and not necessarily specifically farm life. Many of the farms in our area are large or even mega farms, but they don’t represent the bulk of the rural population. For a speaker, my friend and I were asked to share how our faith has influenced our life on the land as homesteaders. We opened up two of the rooms adjacent to the parish hall, and in one room, had a display of the history of our area and parish, highlighting the rural nature of our parish. In the other, we had a collection of parishioners and small area businesses put up a display of the types of things that people in the area do: maple syrup and honey production, orchards, mechanical work and metalwork, canning and other methods of preservation, seed businesses, a woolen mill, culinary mushrooms, cider production, and more. The bishop came to this room and blessed all of the items that were on display. (No items were sold at the event, though business cards were available for anyone interested.)

The displays really highlighted the various types of work that are done in our rural area and served as a good reminder that one way we can support rural Catholics is by supporting the work that they engage in. One of the focuses of CRL historically has been to find ways to help and advocate for rural Catholics who have often found themselves in financially challenging situations. (Farmers in particular have regularly suffered the effects of economic turmoil, for example, they are still expected to produce food while not being paid, or are told to dump food that they worked hard to produce because the market is too full. I’ve known multiple dairy farmers who have gone through some incredibly challenging and depressing times because they have taken hit after hit financially. But that is another topic unto itself.) The point being, those who live rurally need support in many ways, and calling to mind all of the different work of the people, we can perhaps draw more attention to the needs of our local communities and be reminded the benefits of supporting those who surround us to the best of our ability.

Separate from the Rural Life Day event, there is another event our parish once hosted as a way to build community between the younger families in our parishes. Our parish has shrunk in size throughout the years, primarily as my own generation left home and many moved away never to return or had fallen away from the Catholic Church. The older generations have decades of life lived together, but the younger families in our parishes have come from a variety of backgrounds, and not all grew up in the area, which means that the community wasn’t automatic for us. We didn’t necessarily grow up together. Our children may not go to the same schools. (I think we have kids at 3 different schools, plus at least 4 homeschooling families within our parish, more if you count our sister parish.) Add to that the heavy involvement of many families in extracurricular activities from things like dance, sports, music, and more, and it’s difficult to get everyone together to just spend time together! Hospitality weekends have been a feature for years, but even then, families don’t always stick around or get the chance to mingle. The point being, Catholic community for those living rurally can be even more difficult to come by if we are not intentional to build it. But I digress…

In an effort to build community, it was decided to host a little carnival for the parish families. A meal would be served, and there would be games and activities. We hosted it close to the feast of St. Isidore the Farmer, and had it sort of farm-themed accordingly. There was a seed-planting station for the kids, so they could plant some flowers to take home, a pie-eating contest, pin the tail on the pig and on the cow, a duck-picking game, three-legged races, and “bull races.” (The bull race was done with those inflatable, bouncing animals for the littles and the larger bouncing balls for the big kids and adults.) We had egg tosses and egg races, and there was face painting, and one of those face cut-outs for a photo op, too (featuring St. Isidore and his angel). Because we didn’t simply want to name the event for a saint without giving due consideration to their life, we asked our priest if the litany of St. Isidore could be prayed at Mass that weekend, and prayer cards were handed out as well. I could see this type of event as being a nice fit for a parish who has the ability to pull off to do separate from or in conjunction with the Rural Life Day event, whether they host the event or not, as a reminder of the need to be a community and as a way of celebrating or rural ways of living, whatever that looks like.

Another year, one of our priests offered to do a blessing of the farms, animals, and gardens on the feast of St. Isidore, we just had to sign up in advance to have him come and do the blessing. (No joke, there was a bush that I had inadvertently killed the year before that came back to life after that blessing!) Somebody organized a little friendly project/competition for the kids in the parishes, too. They were able to make a diorama of a barn or a farm, and the winner received a gift card to Culvers and a few farm animal toys. Between the project and the priest coming to bless our homestead, it made for a fun celebration of the feast of St. Isidore!

If you farm or homestead or just live rurally generally, I would highly recommend finding a way to celebrate the feast of St. Isidore! If your diocese has a chapter of Catholic Rural Life, check to see if and when they host a Rural Life Day Mass, join the chapter and get involved, or maybe put together a celebration of your own for your parish. If you would like to pray the St. Isidore Novena or the Litany of St. Isidore, you can find them at the CRL website. There are many prayer cards available out there, but these are the ones our parish handed out. If you haven’t partaken in the Rogation Day prayers and blessings, it is a good time to invite your parish priest over to do a blessing of your land!

In Christ,
Danielle