by Fr. Brian Wirth,
Director of Rural Life
One of the greatest blessings growing up on the farm was being able to experience the goodness of the four seasons on the farmland.
I’m not the only one with such experience. God’s creation speaks powerfully to us in many ways. In these graced moments, there is an intimate and tangible beauty within the ebb and flow of the seasons (Sir. 33:8). The contrast of the hope-filled spring planting and growing seasons to the harshness of the barren winter season. The crisp fall harvest season compared to the sun-intensive days of summer and farmers waiting patiently as their crops grow. Or the development of a thunderstorm and its effects, for better or worse: How quickly do we see, pre and post-storm, the sheer power of God’s Being.
Here, we recall the wisdom of Ecclesiastes: “There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens… a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-2). In the farming vocation, there is arguably no other career that relies on faith more, trusting that God will (more often than not) providentially provide good weather and sufficient moisture to provide financial, physical, and spiritual sustenance. Thus, the ebb and flow of seasons mysteriously yet wonderfully proclaims the story of God’s eternal love for us.
God’s story is not only proclaimed physically within the beauty of the natural created order and the seasons, but more, God proclaims His story through the Divine Liturgy and the liturgical seasons.
In the liturgy, we experience the intimate relationship between the physical and the liturgical seasons and how they interact within one another to proclaim God’s Love. Here, we see how the Church views time.
In the West, we understand time as linear. There is a beginning and end. Historically, such understanding was held by the Roman tradition and Roman calendars. In a Scriptural sense, there is a beginning in Genesis and an end in Revelation on Judgment Day. Linear time helps us visualize God’s Narrative.
The Jewish tradition, however, understands time as circular. Biblically, time was measured by the movements of the sun and moon in determining days, weeks, months, years, and seasons (Psalm 104:19; Wisdom 7:18; Sir. 43:6). Here, we see how the liturgical calendar makes use of this mindset as the Church progresses through the liturgical seasons as a cyclical movement (Advent, Christmas, Ordinary Time, Lent, Triduum, Easter, Ordinary Time). As circular, time and seasons are interconnected.
As Catholics, we are both/and people. Therefore, we should understand physical and liturgical time as linear and circular. A good way to understand time in this respect is to think of a corkscrew. A corkscrew has a circular shape but has a beginning and an end point. This analogy helps us understand how God speaks to us within the natural order and liturgical order.
Thus, the liturgical calendar isn’t simply meant for the Church in general. The liturgical calendar gracefully regulates our lives and vocations in how we worship, pray, and labor publicly and privately. In short, the liturgical calendar teaches us that Christianity shouldn’t be merely lived but celebrated in everything we do, especially within the goodness of the natural and liturgical seasons, in good times and bad.
In honor of the 100th anniversary of the National Catholic Rural Life (CRL) Conference, on Nov. 11, 1923, Bishop Wehrle of Bismark, N.D., stated to the small group of priests and laity: “There is something almost sacramental about the life of the rural family.” Fittingly, Bishop Wehrle’s statement is found in the Foreword of the Rural Life Prayerbook.
Recognizing the graced interplay between the physical and spiritual, the human and divine, the Rural Life Prayerbook offers an abundance of prayers and blessings in view of the physical and liturgical seasons throughout the calendar year, beginning with the devotions connected above all in the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Although there is excitement for the new prayer book, it is good to reflect on how CRL, from the start, has properly viewed the importance and goodness of the seasons and by way of the liturgical seasons has enabled our rural families to humbly request God’s blessings throughout the times and the seasons in this life for the sake of the eternal life.
Within time and seasons, at the heart of worship is sacrifice. King David recognized this in his writing of the Psalms, as recorded by Nathan the Prophet: “With his every deed he offered thanks to God Most High, in words of praise. With his whole heart he loved his Maker and daily had his praises sung; He added beauty to the feasts and solemnized the seasons of each year.” (Sir. 47:8-9)
Therefore, like David and all the saints who have gone before us, in our prayerful recognition of the dignity of the God-given vocation of the farmer and the “almost sacramental” nature of the lives of rural farm families, in ongoing adoration, contrition, thanksgiving, and supplication, may we give our Father and Most Wise Creator the glory wholly due to Him. Within the seasons, may we always proclaim God’s story of Eternal Love.
