``Where
the Bishop is, there let the multitude of believers be;
even as where Jesus is, there is the Catholic Church'' Ignatius of
Antioch, 1st c. A.D
Feast of St. Isidore the Farmer
(also known as St. Isidore the Laborer)
Isidro de Merlo
y Quintana -- known to us as St. Isidore the Farmer (or "the Laborer"
-- Labrador in Spanish) --
was born in 1070, near Madrid, Spain. His
parents were very devout, and named him after St. Isidore of Seville,
the great theologian and archbishop.
When he became a man, he worked as a farmer in the service of a man
named Juan de Vargas, and though he had little, he shared what he had
with the poor. He married a woman named Maria Torribia, and had a son.
So far, he sounds like a mere simple and kindly peasant, one of many of
the day. But Isidore was different, standing out because of his deep
love for God, and the miracles that God effected through him. His
parents' piety rubbed off on him, and he attended Mass daily. Because
he attended in the mornings before work, he would sometimes be late
showing up for his labors. One day when he was late, Juan de Vargas
went looking for him --- only to find Isidore at prayer while an angel
was doing his plowing for him. He was also seen plowing while two
angels worked alongside him such that the work of three laborers got
done by the end of the day.
Then there were life-saving miracles: his son once fell into a deep
well, and through Isidore's prayers, the well's waters rose up higher
and higher until it was level with the ground, thereby delivering the
boy safely and soundly. In praise of God for this miracle, Isidore and
his wife pledged sexual continence, and thereafter lived separately.
Isidore also, by the power of God, brought back to life Juan de
Vargas's daughter. And once, the life saved was that of his donkey: he
was again at prayer when two boys came to alert him that a wolf was
attacking his donkey. He told the boys to go in peace and let God's
will be done. When he was done praying, he found his donkey healed of
its wounds, and the wolf lying dead next to it.
There were also a number of miracles akin to Christ's multiplication of
the loaves and fishes: once, he brought home some poor, hungry man, but
his wife told him the stew pot was empty. He told her to look again,
and when she did, she found the pot full of enough food to feed all
present. Another time, when he was en route to a mill with wheat to be
ground, he dipped into the sack to give half of his grain to hungry
pigeons. People witnessing this mocked him, but when he got to the
mill, his bag was full. Another time, Juan de Vargas complained that he
was thirsty, so Isidore struck the rocky ground with his rod and a
spring of water gushed forth.
Isidore died on May 15, 1130. Forty years after his death, his relics
were moved from the cemetery and taken to the Church of St. Andrew.
Then, he appeared
in a vision to King Alfonso VIII of Castille and showed him a hidden
path he could use to defeat the Muslims in one of the battles of the
Reconquista. St. Isidore interceded for a monarch once again: after
King Philip III of Spain was cured by God
through St. Isidore's relics, he had his relics interred in a
beautiful, silver reliquary and arranged for the cause of his
beatification to be opened. Charles III of Spain later had his relics
moved to a church named in St. Isidore's honor: San Isidro church in
Madrid, and that is where his relics remain to this day.
His wife, who has been beatified, is buried alongside him in the
church. After her husband's death (their son had died long before), she
went on to live as a hermit who
was blessed with visions and who was also used by God to effect
miracles. Her head is often carried in processions
for the purpose of ending drought, for which she has become known as
St. Mary of the Head (Santa María de
la Cabeza).
St. Isidore is the patron of Madrid and of farmers and laborers. He's
usually shown in art as plowing with a team of oxen, holding the rod
with which he struck the ground to produce a spring of water, or as
holding a spade. He is also shown with his wife, Maria, often in
imagery that evokes the Holy Family.
Customs
As with Rogation Days, the focus
today is on praying for farmers. Consider the frightening troubles
farmers are always up against -- drought, disease, frost, pests,
meddlesome and ignorant government! Farming Catholics might prepare for
this feast by
praying a Novena to St.
Isidore
starting on May 6 and ending on May 14, the eve of his feast.
Grant unto us,
we beseech Thee, O merciful God, that through the intercession of Thy
Confessor, holy Isidore, the Farmer, we may take no pride in knowledge
but rather, by his merits and example, we may always serve Thee with a
humility that is pleasing to Thee. Through our Lord, Jesus Christ, your
Son, Who livest and reignest with Thee and the Holy Spirit, one God,
forever and ever.
St. Isidore's feast is celebrated in big ways in Madrid and in other
Spanish cities. New World countries with a big Spanish influence follow
suit, especially Peru, Nicaragua, and Chile. Many, many cities in the
Philippines celebrate the Feast of St. Isidore in grand, public ways,
with some feasting for many days. In Pulilan, Bulacan there, painted
and otherwise adorned water buffalo (carabos) are trained to
kneel in front of the local church named in St. Isidore's honor.
Marvelous!
A hymn for the day is this Spanish one:
Oh Glorioso
Patrón San Isidro,
hoy nos tienes postrados aquí,
implorando tu ayuda y tu auxilio,
para un pueblo que tiene fe en ti.
Este pueblo que fuera tu pueblo,
al que fiel tú supiste servir,
y que guarda constante el recuerdo,
de quien vela y protege a Madrid.
En tus manos el rústico apero,
es emblema de paz y virtud,
pues con él, como humilde labriego,
de la Gloria acreedor fuiste tú.
Trabajando afanoso y callado,
en la vida imitaste a Jesús,
y trazando los surcos de arado,
con paciencia abrazaste su Cruz.
Oh Glorioso Patrón San Isidro,
hoy nos tienes postrados aquí,
implorando tu ayuda y tu auxilio,
para un pueblo que tiene fe en ti.
Este pueblo que fuera tu pueblo,
al que fiel tú supiste servir,
y que guarda constante el recuerdo,
de quien vela y protege a Madrid.
Oh Glorious
Patron San Isidro,
Today you have us prostrate here,
imploring your help and your assistance,
for a people that has faith in you.
This town that was your town,
which you faithfully knew how to serve,
and that keeps the memory constant,
who watches over and protects Madrid.
In your hands the rustic implement,
It is an emblem of peace and virtue,
Well with him, like a humble farmer,
You were the creditor of Glory.
Working hard and quietly,
In life you imitated Jesus,
and tracing the plow furrows,
With patience you embraced his Cross.
Oh Glorious Patron San Isidro,
Today you have us prostrate here,
imploring your help and your assistance,
for a people that has faith in you.
This town that was your town,
which you faithfully knew how to serve,
and that keeps the memory constant,
who watches over and protects Madrid.
As to honoring the feast of St. Isidore in the home, today is a good
day to pray for and thank God for farmers, and to do what I've
recommended elsewhere on the site a number of
times, such as on the page on Gratitude:
make sure your children know
where food comes from.1
Start with telling them about God creating foods in their original
forms
in the Garden of Eden and how God said (Genesis 1:29-30):
Behold I have
given you every herb bearing seed upon the earth, and all trees that
have in themselves seed of their own kind, to be your meat: And
to all beasts of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to all
that move upon the earth, and wherein there is life, that they may have
to feed upon. And it was so done.
Teach them how man sinned, so God told Adam (Genesis 3:18-19):
Thorns and
thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herbs of
the earth. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till
thou return to the earth, out of which thou wast taken: for dust thou
art, and into dust thou shalt return.
Then teach about how, ever since, man has had to work so much harder to
feed himself. Teach them about seeds/birth, planting, how different
plants grow (e.g., carrots, potatoes, and peanuts grow underground;
lettuce and cabbage and zucchini grow above ground, how different seeds
are planted and crops are harvested at different times, etc.), the
importance of bees to crops, the horrors of not enough rain or of hail
or high winds or parasites and pests, the raising of various types of
animals, the harvesting of crops, the moving of food from farms to
processing plants to grocery stores to their tables, the importance of
truckers and trains in all this, etc.
If they're city kids, try to find
a farm to visit, and plant at least a small garden or plants in pots
(especially edible plants), Make a contest of it: give each kid some
seeds, and let them have a contest to see who can grow the largest or
most beautiful vegetable from it. Find the U-Pick farms and orchards in
your area, and take your kids to pick their own foods (strawberries in
the Summer, and apples and pumpkins in the Fall are always popular).
Teach them about how foods that are not obviously vegetables, fruits,
or meat all go back to God's creation and to the need to be cultivated
by farmers: i.e., do they know where eggs, honey, maple syrup, milk,
flour, cheese, coffee, tea, and chocolate come from? What about
processed foods, such as potato chips, pretzels, spaghetti and other
pasta, store-bought bread or cakes? What about non-edible farm products
such as cotton, leather or wool?
To help you with this, I've made a little game for you to print out and
play with your children. You'll just need a 6-sided die and little
things (such as coins) to use as tokens. The goal of the game is to
"make blueberry pancakes," but to do so, players must visit a wheat
farmer to get flour, a chicken farmer to get eggs, a dairy farmer to
get milk, and a blueberry farmer to get blueberries:
Finally, in the same way English speakers say "April showers bring May
flowers," Spanish speakers say about the Feast of St. Isidore: "San
Isidro, Labrador quita el agua y pone el sol" ("St. Isidore the
Laborer
puts away the rain and brings out the Sun").
Readings
On Rural Life
Speech delivered
by His Holiness, Pope Pius XII, to the delegates
at the
Convention of the National Confederation of Farm Owner-Operators in Rome
A Welcome
We always experience particular pleasure in welcoming representatives
of occupations that make up the economic and social life of a people.
We have added satisfaction on this occasion in greeting you, beloved
sons, delegates of a vast National Confederation, comprised of a large
number of owner-operator farmers. The lands that you cultivate are the
“sweet fields,” “dulcia arva,” so dear to the gentle Vergil (Eclogue,
1, 3). They are the lands of Italy, whose perennial and life-giving
healthfulness, whose fertile fields, sunny hills, and shadowy woods,
whose generous vines and olive trees, whose sleek flocks were exalted
by Pliny (Nat. Hist. 1. III, 5, n. 41). “O fortunatos nimium, sua si
bona norint, agricolas!” (Verg., Georg. II, 458-459). “O more than
happy husbandmen,” exclaimed the great poet of the country, “did they
but know their blessings!” Hence We could not let this occasion pass
without speaking some word of encouragement and exhortation, especially
since we are all well aware how much the moral recovery of our whole
people depends on a class of farmers socially sound and religiously
firm.
Contact with Nature
More than anyone else. you live in continual contact with nature. It is
actual contact, since your lives are lived in places still remote from
the excesses of an artificial civilization. Under the sun of the
Heavenly Father your lives are dedicated to bringing forth from the
depths of the earth the abundant riches which His hand has hidden there
for you. Your contact with Mother Earth has also a deep social
significance, because your families are not merely consumer-communities
but also and especially producer-communities.
Rooted in the Family
Your lives are rooted in the family — universally, deeply, and
completely; consequently, they conform very closely to nature. In this
fact lies your economic strength and your ability to withstand
adversity in critical times. Your being so strongly rooted in the
family constitutes the importance of your contribution to the correct
development of the private and public order of society. You are called
upon for this reason to perform an indispensable function as source and
defense of a stainless moral and religious life. For the land is a kind
of nursery which supplies men, sound in soul and body, for all
occupations, for the Church, and for the State.
Rural Culture
So much the more, then, must great care be taken to preserve for the
nation the essential elements of what might be called genuine rural
culture. We must preserve the qualities of industriousness, simple and
honest living, respect for authority, especially for parental
authority, love of country, and loyalty to traditions which have proved
a source of good throughout the centuries. We must preserve readiness
to aid one another within the family circle and amongst families, from
home to home. All of these qualities we must have animated with a true
religious spirit, for without such a spirit these very virtues tend to
degenerate into unbridled greed for profit. May the fear of God and
faith in God, a faith which finds daily expression in prayers recited
together by the whole family, sustain and guide the life of the workers
of the fields. Let the Church remain the heart of the village, the
shrine of the people. Sunday after Sunday, may it gather the faithful,
true to the sacred traditions of their ancestors. There may they lift
their minds above material things to the praise and service of God and
to supplication for the strength to think and live in a truly Christian
manner during the coming week.
Balanced Rewards
Farming has essentially a family character and is, therefore, very
important to the social and economic prosperity of the whole people. In
consequence, the tiller of the soil has a special right to a proper
reward from his labor. During the last century and even at the present
time there have been discouraging examples of attempts to sacrifice
farming to other ends. If one is looking for the highest and most
rapidly increasing national economy or for the cheapest possible
provisioning of the nation with farm products, there will be, in either
case, a temptation to sacrifice the farming enterprise.
Duties to Soil and Neighbor
It devolves upon you, therefore, to demonstrate that on account of its
family character farming does not exclude the advantages of other kinds
of business, and, furthermore, that it avoids their evils. Be
adaptable, attentive, and active stewards of your native soil, which is
to be used but never exploited. Let it be seen that you are thinking,
thrifty men, open to progress, men who courageously employ your own and
others’ capital to help and supplement your labor, provided that such
expenditure does not endanger the future of your families. Show that
you are honest in your sales, that you are not greedily shrewd at the
expense of the public, and that you are well-disposed buyers in your
country’s markets.
We know well how often it is possible to fall short of this ideal.
Notwithstanding uprightness of intention and dignity of conduct upon
which many farmers may pride themselves, it is none the less true that
the present day demands great firmness of principle and strength of
will. You must prefer to earn a living in the sweat of your brow rather
than succumb to the diabolical temptation of easy gain, which would
take advantage of the dire need of a neighbor.
Education for Rural Life
Another exhibition of selfishness frequently manifests itself through
the fault of parents who put their children to work too early in life
to the neglect of their spiritual formation, their education, their
scholastic instruction, and their special occupational training. There
is no more mistaken idea than the notion that the man who tills the
soil does not need a serious and adequate education to enable him to
perform the varied duties of the season in timely fashion.
Sin, the Land, and Labor
Sin did, in truth, render labor in the fields burdensome, but it was
not sin that introduced such labor into the world. Before there was any
sin, “God gave man the earth for his cultivation as the most beautiful
and honorable occupation in the natural order.” In the wake of the
original sin of our first parents, all the actual sins of humanity have
caused the curse to weigh upon the earth with increasing heaviness. The
soil has suffered successive scourges of every kind-floods,
earthquakes, pestilence, devastating wars, and land mines. In some
places it has become sterile, barren, and unwholesome, and has refused
to yield to man its hidden treasures. The earth is a huge wounded
creature; she is ill. Bending over her, not as a slave over the clod,
but as the physician over a prostrate sufferer, the tiller lovingly
showers on her his care. But love, for all that it is so necessary, is
not enough. To know nature, to know, so to speak, the temperament of
one’s own piece of land, sometimes so different from that of the very
next plot; to be able to discover the germs that spoil it, the rodents
that would burrow beneath it, the worms that would eat its fruits, the
weeds that would infest its crops; to determine what elements it lacks
and to choose the successive plantings that will enrich it even while
it rests — these and so many other things require wide and varied
knowledge and information.
Land Reforms
Besides all this, and quite apart from the rehabilitation made
necessary by the war, in many places the land demands that careful and
well-planned preliminary measures be taken before any reform can be
accomplished in the matter of land ownership and farm contracts.
Without such measures, improvised reform, as history and experience
teach us, would develop into sheer demagoguery. Therefore, far from
being beneficial, it would be both useless and dangerous, particularly
today when humanity must still fear for its daily bread. Quite often in
times past, the incoherent, deceptive vaunting of unprincipled orators
has made rural populations the unwitting victims of exploitation and
slaves to a domination from which they would have instinctively shrunk.
City or Country
Because the farmer’s life is so close to nature and based so
substantially upon the family, certain prevalent types of injustice
show up the more flagrantly in relation to that life. Such injustice
finds its most evident expression in the conflict between city and
country. What is the reason for this conflict, which, unfortunately, is
especially characteristic of our own time?
Modern cities, with their constant growth and great concentration of
inhabitants, are the typical product of the control wielded over
economic life and the very life of man by the interests of large
capital. As Our glorious Predecessor, Pius XI, has so effectively shown
in his Encyclical, “Quadragesimo Anno,” it happens too often that human
needs do not, in accordance with their natural and objective
importance, rule economic life and the use of capital. On the contrary,
capital and its desire for gain determine what the needs of man should
be and to what extent they are to be satisfied. Therefore, it is not
human labor in the service of the common welfare that attracts capital
to it and presses it into its service. Rather, capital tosses labor and
man himself here and there like a ball in a game. If the inhabitant of
the city suffers from this unnatural state of affairs, so much the more
is it contrary to the very essence of the farmer’s life.
Notwithstanding all his difficulties, the tiller of the soil still
represents the natural order of things willed by God. The farmer knows
that man, by his labor, is to control material things; that material
things are not to control man.
The Flight to the City
This, then, is the deep-seated cause of the modern conflict between
city and country; each viewpoint produces altogether different men. The
difference of viewpoints becomes all the more pronounced the more
capital, having abdicated its noble mission to promote the good of all
groups in society, penetrates the farmer’s world or otherwise involves
it in its evils. It glitters its gold and a life of pleasure before the
dazzled eyes of the farm-worker to lure him from his land to the city
where he may squander his hard-won savings. The city usually holds
nothing for him but disillusionment; often he loses his health, his
strength, his happiness, his honor, and his very soul there.
Land Monopoly
After the land has been so abandoned, capital hastens to make it its
own; the land then becomes no longer the object of love but of cold
exploitation. Generous nurse of the city as well as of the country; it
is made to produce only for speculation — while the people suffer
hunger; while the farmer, burdening himself with debts, slowly
approaches ruin; while the national economy becomes exhausted from
paying high prices for the provisions it is forced to import from
abroad. This perversion of private rural property is seriously harmful.
The new ownership has no love or concern for the plot that so many
generations had lovingly tilled, and is heartless towards the families
who till it and dwell upon it now. Private ownership, even though it
sometimes leads to exploitation, is not, however, the cause of this
perversion. Even in those instances where the State completely
arrogates capital and the means of production to itself, industrial
interests and foreign trade, characteristic of the city, have the upper
hand. The real tiller of the soil then suffers even more. In any case,
the fundamental truth consistently maintained by the social teaching of
the Church is violated. The Church teaches that the whole economy of
the people is organic and that all the productive capacities of
national territory should be developed in healthy proportion. The
conflict between country and city would never have become so great if
this fundamental truth had been observed.
To Each His Share
You farmers certainly do not desire any such conflict; you want every
part of the national economy to have its share; however, you also want
to keep your share. Therefore, you must have the help of sensible
political planning and sound legislation. But your principal help must
came from yourselves, from your cooperative unions, especially from
your credit unions. Perhaps, then, the recovery of the whole economy
may come from the field of agriculture.
A Community of Labor
And finally a word about labor. You tillers of the soil form within
your families a community of labor. You and your fellow-members and
associates also form another community of labor. Finally, you desire to
form with all the other occupational groups a great community of labor.
This is in keeping with what has been ordained by God and nature. This
is the true Catholic concept of labor. Work unites all men in common
service to the needs of the people and in a unified effort towards
perfection of self in honor of the Creator and Redeemer. In any case,
remain firm in regarding your labor from the point of view of its
essential value. You and your families are contributing to the public
welfare; such labor protects your fundamental right to an income
sufficient to maintain you in accordance with your dignity and cultural
needs as men. It implies also your recognition of the necessity of
uniting with all other occupational groups who labor for the various
needs of society. Your labor therefore, embodies your support of the
principles of social peace.
A Parting Blessing
With all Our heart, dear sons, We invoke heaven’s choicest blessings on
you and on your families. The Church has always blessed you in a
particular manner, and in many ways has brought your working year into
her liturgical year. We invoke these blessings upon the work of your
hands, from which the holy altar of God receives the bread and wine.
May the Lord give you, in the words of Holy Scripture, “the dew of
heaven, and of the fatness of the earth, abundance of corn and wine!”
(Gen., XXVII:28) May your lands, like the fertile Etruscan fields
between Fiesole and Arezzo, so greatly admired by Livy, “be rich in
grain and cattle and an abundance of all things,” “frumenti ac pecoris
et omnium copia rerum opulenti” (Livy, Ab Urbe Condita 1. XXII, cap.
3). With these sentiments and these wishes We impart to you and to all
those dear to you Our paternal Apostolic Blessing.
Pope Leo XII Speaks Fifty-five Years Earlier
Values of Land Ownership
“. . . If working people can be encouraged to look forward to obtaining
a share in the land, the consequence will be that the gulf between vast
wealth and sheer poverty will be bridged over, and the respective
classes will be brought nearer to one another. A further consequence
will result in the greater abundance of the fruits of the earth. Men
always work harder and more readily when they work on that which
belongs to them, nay, they learn to love the very soil that yields in
response to the labor of their hands, not only food to eat, but an
abundance of good things for themselves and those that are dear to
them. That such a spirit of willing labor would add to the produce of
the earth and to the wealth of the community is self- evident. And a
third advantage would spring from this: men would cling to the country
in which they were born; for no one would exchange his country for a
foreign land if his own afforded him the means of living a decent and
happy life . . .”
Leo XIII, “Rerum Novarum,” May 15, 1891
Footnotes:
1 Don't let your children be ignorant
about this. 7% of adults think chocolate milk comes from brown cows. 1
in 5 adults don't know that hamburger comes from beef, which comes from
cows. More than half of urban Californian 4th-6th graders "didn’t know
pickles were cucumbers, or that onions and lettuce were plants. Four in
10 didn’t know that hamburgers came from cows. And 3 in 10 didn’t know
that cheese is made from milk." This is outrageous. Source:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/06/15/seven-percent-of-americans-think-
chocolate-milk-comes-from-brown-cows-and-thats-not-even-the-scary-part/
