The past few days have been full of grace. The activities have been many, but I have discovered a common theme among three events that I want to mention: the world is full of new life. The biggest news in our family is the word from our son in Boston. He and his wife just bought a house, their first, and they will move themselves and their two children from a rented apartment in the Boston area to make a new home in New Jersey. The second event of note for me was this year’s Rogation Service, celebrated at St. Philip Church in Posey County, Ind., where seeds and soil from garden and field were blessed by our bishop at an evening Mass. And finally, among these busy times, I rejoiced in some quiet moments while pruning the grape vines in our back yard — vines that we transplanted from the home of my mother and father.
* * * My wife and I have prayed and worried and wondered and rejoiced with our son and his family, as they prepare to move from Boston to the New York metropolitan area. Many parents have experienced such feelings of anxiety and elation, for grown-up children who are about to experience a new home, new neighbors, new schools, new life. I can’t help but think about the risks and adventures of our own lives — our uprooting and planting in new locations, and the departure of our two sons into lives of their own in places far from us.
* * * The Rogation Service gave me the opportunity to reflect on the seasons of family life. “Rogation” simply refers simply to asking for blessings – and the service in our part of the country is rich with the realities of everyday life in these early days of spring, a natural time in the cycle of life to ask God’s blessings upon all of our endeavors. Two tractors were parked at the entrance of the church. Packets of garden seeds were splashed on the steps of the altar, alongside sacks of seed corn and soybeans. A parishioner, Esther Stofleth, brought a brown paper bag full of seed packets to be blessed before planting in her garden — beans, lettuce, squash, spinach, radishes, cucumbers and corn. Mike and Beverly Hirsch brought plastic bags full of soil from their vast farm fields, to be blessed and returned to those same fields.
* * * And in the quiet of my own back yard, I spent some reflective hours pruning the grape vines my father had pruned decades ago. Two old vines would soon have new branches, springing from the same root stock that has nourished stubborn life for so many years.
* * * These days for me are filled with grace. It is springtime, for urban garden and family farm, for young families and the parents who planted them with the help of God. It is time to reflect on the graces received, the blessings shared, the work required, the fields to be prepared, the past to be cut away and the new life to be nourished. It is time to reflect on new life — and to thank God for the blessings of a single blossom in the garden and the thousand acres newly green with winter wheat. Take the time to examine and support the new life in your neighborhood – the new family who moved in and the changing family whose children have moved away. Take the time to examine the latest federal farm bill, still under discussion. There are many who say it unjustly favors some producers of commodities while neglecting small family farms, and that the food stamp program must be revised after nearly 30 years without growth or change. Contact your legislators with your concerns, and make a difference.
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