A Catholic blessing

By PATRICIA ANN SPEELMAN

pspeelman@sdnccg.com

ST. MARYS — The faith­ful came by the hun­dreds. Almost 400 peo­ple, Catholic farm­ers and their fam­i­lies from through­out the St. Marys and Sid­ney deaner­ies of the Cincin­nati Arch­dio­cese, emp­tied con­tain­ers of soil into a large pot as they exited vehi­cles for the recent annual Rural-Urban Mass.

The event was at the farm of Ron and Deb Wilker in rural St. Marys. It was their first time to host the Mass, which cel­e­brates farm­ers and the peo­ple who share in the ben­e­fits of their work. It was also the first time for the Most Rev. Joseph Binzer, bishop of the arch­dio­cese, to offi­ci­ate. And it was the first time the Rev. Marty Brown, of Holy Rosary Church in St. Marys, par­tic­i­pated in a rural-urban Mass.

While there were many firsts, mem­bers of parishes from the two deaner­ies who have attended annu­ally looked for­ward to renew­ing friend­ships, spend­ing time with the bishop and wor­ship­ping with oth­ers of their faith.

“The farm­ing career is totally depen­dent on God,” Brown said. “The fer­tile soil, the rain to grow the seed, the sun­light — we are 100 per­cent depen­dent on God for our success.”

The Wilk­ers bought their farm in 1987. Its 250 acres are sown in corn and soy­beans. There is also a house for lay­ing hens. They opened their large barn for the church ser­vice and Deb Wilker was sur­prised by how many peo­ple showed up.

“I was totally floored. Peo­ple brought 400 chairs from the parishes and almost all of them were full. Ron had to take the sid­ing off the barn because it was so hot. We had set metal trash cans around out­side for later. When a breeze came up dur­ing the Mass, we heard the trash cans rolling down my driveway.”

Brown had asked the Wilk­ers if they would host the evening service.

“We said, ‘Yes, this is some­thing we wanted to do,’” Wilker said. “Then it was, ‘We had to do a lot of clean­ing out. It bet­ter be worth it!’ And then we were awed that they wanted to come here.” Nine parish priests, along with the bishop, attended.

Accord­ing to Brown, the peti­tions that are a reg­u­lar part of the Mass were directed to mak­ing farm­ers more pro­duc­tive. Espe­cially hon­ored were fam­i­lies who could trace their farm own­er­ship back 100 years or more. And Binzer blessed the pot of soil.

“The annual rural-urban Mass is an oppor­tu­nity for farm­ers and the peo­ple who share in the ben­e­fits of an agri­cul­tural com­mu­nity to come together in a prayer­ful way to praise God for the bless­ings of faith: farm and fam­ily,” said Pam Long, regional direc­tor of the Catholic Social Action Office in Cincinnati.

The Catholic Rural Life Con­fer­ence of the St. Marys and Sid­ney deaner­ies plans the rural-urban Mass, alter­nat­ing it between plant­ing and har­vest­ing sea­sons and between the two deaner­ies, said Vern Seger, chair­man of the local Catholic Rural Life Con­fer­ence. The con­fer­ence serves Catholics who directly work in agri­cul­ture or live in com­mu­ni­ties sup­ported by agriculture.

The Albers men, Andrew, Anthony and Michael, who is hold­ing one of the carved cross-shaped plaques, talk with Bishop Joseph Binzer.

“Farm­ers like to talk,” said Brown. “(Cel­e­brat­ing the Mass on a farm) cre­ates an oppor­tu­nity for farm­ers to talk about their work with each other. It’s the idea of get­ting back to the roots. Our church started as a house church. Mem­bers came together to wor­ship in people’s houses, on farms. As the con­gre­ga­tion grew, a church was built. But this takes us back. It’s liv­ing the faith, so peo­ple can come and look at your home and see by your lifestyle the Catholic faith.”

Fol­low­ing the ser­vice, atten­dees min­gled, vis­ited and ate for almost an hour and a half.

“The idea came to serve a chicken din­ner (after the ser­vice). That was a huge suc­cess,” Brown said. The St. Marys Knights of Colum­bus donated and cooked the chicken. Attend­ing fam­i­lies car­ried in side dishes of sal­ads, veg­eta­bles, casseroles and desserts. The United Dairy Farm­ers in Auglaize County donated milk, Wilker said.

Farm­ers dis­cussed how their crops were doing, what the weather pat­terns had been across the sev­eral coun­ties, and what chal­lenges they had to meet.

“How do you han­dle the frus­tra­tion (of bad weather) or the joy (of things going well)?” Brown asked. Through faith.

As the sun began to set on the Wilker farm, every­one helped to clean up. Then, as they left, the fam­i­lies took some of the blessed soil to sprin­kle on their fields. A fit­ting way to acknowl­edge their grat­i­tude for all that God has done.

Posted by Acres Admin on Aug 1 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.