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Episode 3: Getting Started - Four Things to Consider Before or Early On in the Development of Your Homestead
373 Plays2 years ago
Mathew and Carissa discuss four things to consider as you begin, or prepare to begin, the development of your Homestead.
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Transcript
Introduction to My Catholic Homestead Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to the My Catholic Homestead Podcast. We are your hosts. I'm Matthew. And I'm Carissa. We're excited for you to join us as we talk about the Catholic faith on the homestead.
How to Begin a Catholic Homestead?
00:00:12
Speaker
Welcome to another episode of the My Catholic Homestead podcast. I will say I'm extremely excited about this particular conversation because I believe it is one of the most highly anticipated episodes or a series of conversations that we will have, which ultimately centers around how do you begin a Catholic Homestead. We've been here for over a year at this point. We've been running this farm and we've started a Catholic Homestead.
00:00:34
Speaker
And I'm sure that there's a few different things that we could probably point to at this point that we have recognized would be very important to consider if we could go back and start all over again. So for those people who may be considering beginning a Catholic homestead today, where would you start?
Four Key Areas of a Catholic Homestead
00:00:50
Speaker
Yeah, I think that looking at the ideas that we've come up with, these are actually things that we did focus on in our time leading up to finding the land and really starting what we consider our homestead. But there were four things that just came up a lot that we spent a lot of time investing in to develop our understanding and get us to the homestead. That being community.
00:01:14
Speaker
all things food, the family rule, and liturgical life and prayer on the homestead.
Finding and Building Community
00:01:21
Speaker
Wonderful. I think it'd be good. So maybe we could take each of those items and we can just break them down because there are a lot of people who are listening to this who are wondering where do in fact I begin. And that can be very difficult. Yeah, I think that one of the most natural places to begin is finding community of other people that have similar goals and are homesteading.
00:01:44
Speaker
I think that that can be really important because choosing to live this way is kind of counter-cultural and you can receive a lot of pushback from people who might not understand it or haven't heard about it or just don't value the same things and that can be really discouraging because it is challenging to learn a lot of new skills.
00:02:04
Speaker
Yeah, I think one thing that we've found over maybe not even after just having been here for a year but even within that time frame is that even some of the people who are within our community or people that we are aware of who are also homesteading and oftentimes are Catholic also is that they become seemingly discouraged and I think you can see that oftentimes just in the way that people carry themselves or in the way that they talk about their homesteads
00:02:28
Speaker
is that the burden of maintaining the lifestyle of the homestead becomes particularly challenging over time simply because it's very difficult, it's manual, it's time-consuming. Oftentimes it requires a hefty capital investment up front and if we fail to understand that those things are going to eventually pay off or that they are a part of a vision for a Catholic homestead,
00:02:50
Speaker
then it can become particularly discouraging. And if you have community or you have people around you who are willing to support you and interested in the same things that you're either interested in or recognize the value of them, then it becomes very encouraging and constantly supportive to continue to do those things that often, as you mentioned, are maybe countercultural or seemingly just not a part of modern life.
00:03:14
Speaker
Yeah, I think that good community can give hope and motivation and encouragement. One thing that I think a lot of us tend to get caught up in in pursuing this homesteading goal is looking towards our ancestors for encouragement. Like while our grandparents or our great parents did all of this, so I can do it because they did it, but then a lot of times it feels defeating. Like well,
00:03:41
Speaker
how are they doing all of this because it's actually really hard and i feel like i can't do it and how were they doing it but i think that it might be healthier for us to not necessarily use our ancestors as our community and as our motivator because their life circumstances were completely different
00:04:01
Speaker
than ours. So looking to the people present right now that are doing this, that are having the same struggles as you, that are getting the same hang ups, that are learning the same hard lessons, I think that that might be a much better place to put your focus in building the encouragement in the community.
00:04:20
Speaker
Yeah. So maybe that would be for a lot of people, you know, we can certainly be inspired by our ancestral roots or we can be inspired by some of our lineage and we can also take wisdom from that, but we should also be very mindful that our times and our circumstances.
00:04:36
Speaker
including our financial situations, our education levels, whether or not we were raised with agrarian lifestyle, whether or not we are in a vocation of marriage or a sink or we're currently maybe in a single position or pursuing a religious life. All of those things make it so that right now your circumstances are unique and different and that's acceptable and understandable for where you are. So I suppose then it would be, if we're saying that a community is important, where would that community come
Using the Internet and Local Resources
00:05:05
Speaker
from?
00:05:05
Speaker
Well, I think that we have actually found a lot of community within our church and then just kind of connecting with different families that we meet one family that's homesteading and they connect us with another family. And then you go to a meetup of something and then you meet five more families that are homesteading. And I think that's been one of the most natural and organic ways for us to build community. But before we even knew friends that had these same goals,
00:05:34
Speaker
There was a lot of people online that I know you and I both looked at for encouragement and motivation and like, okay, how would we make this work? There's a lot of people on YouTube that are homesteading and that style of community is probably more so a how-to. You can learn new skills really well by watching somebody
00:06:00
Speaker
lay it out practically in a video and just getting more creative ideas of like how did they find land? How did they build a house out of cob or whatever? Just thinking outside of the box. I think that internet communities like that can help you to get creative.
00:06:18
Speaker
So I guess maybe to add on to that, I think a lot of people will listen to a conversation around folks who are interested in home setting and they may be shy of the Internet. And I would argue that the Internet is simply a tool and nothing more. It is neither inherently bad nor inherently good. Oftentimes, and I think I would definitely argue for this, it is probably a net negative to the world at this point. Yet it does also present an opportunity for conversations like this, even if we couldn't have this conversation without the Internet.
00:06:45
Speaker
And yet I would say that if you are interested in utilizing the internet, it is basically a substitution for what would otherwise be written information, which you could also go do by visiting a library and gathering information that way. And in some ways being a part of that communal environment. But ultimately I would make sure that people understand that the internet is effectively reserved to how to environment and an opportunity to learn from people around the world.
00:07:10
Speaker
I would like to comment on, because I think it's important that if you're looking for people who are also home setting or at least involved in that home setting realm as you begin it, you're often not going to find families that are exactly like yours who are faith motivated and home setting all at the same time.
00:07:27
Speaker
But what you might find is that you may find a friend in a neighbor who has been farming for X amount of years, who lives in a degree of proximity to you. I was told by some friends when I first moved out here that a neighbor is anyone within 15 minutes of you. So take that for what it's worth. But some other places that you may find homesteading or people who are at least familiar with skills that you would want to learn from would be, for example, when you have cows or any type of ruminant animal and you need hay for the winter.
00:07:57
Speaker
There is someone who's going to, you know, you could go online and you could find someone who's selling hay nearby you. Well, that person is going to have some idea of what it means to raise animals. And that's a place where you could learn a lot of information from. But what I would encourage people in that is not just to allow it to be a transaction where you pay money for the hay, but to take time to ask questions about what is going on in that person's life, what their experiences are at home setting, or at least living in a country setting.
00:08:25
Speaker
and also possibly being willing to invite them into your home for dinner, a meal, or fellowship and friendship. And that can go a long way in creating phenomenal relationships and also extending community because likely what you'll find is that when you live in a country setting, trust is an enormous part of it.
00:08:42
Speaker
And in order for you to become a part of the community at large in the country, you must become a familiar face within the community. And sometimes that simply means patronizing the people within the community and being willing to take time to have conversations.
00:08:57
Speaker
Yeah, one of the things that I think we really emphasized whenever we first moved out here was having people over for dinner or going to meet new families around us that we knew were also homesteading and going over to their place to see the homestead to maybe have a meal together and to just have build that community of where we're doing this together and here's
00:09:22
Speaker
what we've learned here's how we can help you or you can help us and I think that that was a little bit outside of our comfort zone but I think that it's really helped us to build our connections and meet other families that are doing the same thing as us entirely we've met not only I mean we've met multiple different groups of people I would say
00:09:43
Speaker
I would argue that honestly, one of the most important relationships that has been developed out here is from a, you know, I won't name him, but it's from a neighbor out here who has really helped me in many ways that I don't think I could really thank him for effectively. And oftentimes that's as simple as providing me with guidance or recommendation or allowing me to use certain equipment of his, but it has been a game changer in allowing me to really generate the confidence in order to be able to take on the land by myself.
00:10:10
Speaker
Because as I've learned, there's a lot of things that we can plan for out here, especially with what it might look like to deal with larger animals. It is a whole nother thing to have a helpful guide who can help you, not just in teaching you what to do, but supporting you so that you maintain and develop the confidence needed to work with these types of animals that we do work without here.
00:10:32
Speaker
yeah a couple of the things that have been super helpful are when specifically when we've been dealing with cows and we come across an issue that we have no idea how to handle it because we've never owned cows and we've never known anyone that owns cows and you have five friends that are cattle farmers that you can call up and be like okay this situation came up how do you handle it and
00:10:59
Speaker
So another thing that actually has been helpful with that is looking for other local small farms, just looking for people who are farming regeneratively, have similar values in how they're raising food. That's another way that you've actually met a lot of people is calling them up and having a conversation we buy from them.
00:11:20
Speaker
We buy meat from them when we're out of it or when it's just not something that we raise ourselves. And that has been a really good way to also meet people and find support when we come across new issues. That's a great point because I think a lot of, if you can find folks who specifically identify their farms, and this is maybe very specific to the year 2023 or times around that, but if you can find, and that's based on marketing terms. That's why I call that out.
00:11:47
Speaker
But if you can find people around you who farm in a way that they describe as regenerative, then you're likely going to find people who very much care about the land and are engaged with utilizing the land in a stewardship manner or in a regenerative manner that is necessarily important to the ecology of the land, but is probably very similar to the way that you envision utilizing the land from a Catholic perspective.
00:12:11
Speaker
That's because there can be elements of truth that may not be identified as Catholic, but still are Catholic in nature. And so if you find someone who is running what they may describe as a regenerative farm or an ecologically friendly or sound farm, then they're probably also homesteading because they likely understand at least the very natural importance of good health and good nutrition.
Managing Food on the Homestead
00:12:35
Speaker
Yeah. So finding community and building community is something that should probably always be present in your homestead. It's going to be something that grows. You're going to probably make new friends and people will leave your community, but something that is always a part of the homestead is the food.
00:12:54
Speaker
So point number two would be basically all things food. So you've got community number one. Number two is all things food. This one is unique because I think we almost take it for granted that when you begin home setting, you're just going to have good, healthy, awesome food. But there are a few things that at least I was not prepared for. Some of which are the quantity of food that you'll actually have.
00:13:17
Speaker
It takes a lot less garden space and a lot fewer seeds to grow an enormous amount of food, more food than you can possibly eat more food than a family of four, six, eight, 10 can honestly eat. And so it becomes a question of not how do we eat this amount of food, but how do we store this amount of food?
00:13:38
Speaker
Yeah, so it's more than you can probably eat in this season, but if you store it properly and preserve it, then it might feed your family for most of the non-growing season, which I think is ultimately the goal. I'm always going to emphasize, if you haven't been able to do anything else, start in your kitchen.
00:13:59
Speaker
start focusing on buying food, whole foods, buy vegetables, buy meat, and start learning how to cook it and get comfortable cooking it and find ways to make a rhythm out of cooking. Something that I focused on the last couple years before moving out here and really being able to dig into growing our own food
00:14:22
Speaker
was shopping seasonally. So I was still shopping at the grocery store. I still shop at the grocery store a lot less frequently, but I still do it. But I try really hard to buy seasonally. So you go to the grocery store and you can buy any vegetables you want. But if you start learning what's growing in the spring, what's growing in the summer, the fall, the winter, and you push yourself to only buy in season,
00:14:49
Speaker
And that also has to do with the region that you live in. Some things might be in season in other regions, but they're not in season in your region, which is going to be more akin to how you will be growing your own food. So learning what is seasonal.
00:15:06
Speaker
buying what's seasonal cooking with the seasons is all something that it's helpful to get in that rhythm before you're even on the farm and you're growing that stuff because then you already know it's spring we have a lot more greens we have broccoli and cabbage and carrots and this is how I'm gonna be cooking these are the recipes I like to use in the spring or similar in the fall
00:15:30
Speaker
And I think that is actually a huge foundational piece that makes things flow a lot smoother once you're on land and you have a lot more food coming in. Yeah, that's a great point. So a lot of this is like, if you're not on land right now or not in a homestead environment where you can grow your own food, it's really, really wise to learn to cook seasonally. And I think as you mentioned, actually, I think this is probably the wisest thing.
00:15:53
Speaker
is not just cooked seasonally, but cooked seasonally based on where you live. Because if you have an ambition or a goal of growing your own food, then that means that you are going to in some ways be bound to the season and where you live. For example, we don't grow avocados in zone 6b where we live, which is in southeastern Indiana, because avocados don't grow well here.
00:16:17
Speaker
But what does grow very well here, especially as we move towards things like the autumn time or in the springtime, are root crops, carrots, beets, potatoes, things of that nature, which means that we have an opportunity to learn how to use them extensively in our food. And if our recipes that we normally use don't currently include them, then it would be very wise for us to learn how to use them in recipes, either incorporating them into current recipes
00:16:43
Speaker
or possibly just identifying new recipes and learning to appreciate the changes in the tastes of the seasons as we experience some where we live, which I think is really important because we recognize that people who listen to our podcasts, we've already recognized is effectively international, which means that there may be people all around the world who don't have any familiarity with some of the crops that we ourselves grow at our farm.
00:17:09
Speaker
So it would be difficult for us to even offer advice on foods or recipes to grow or to cook because where you are, they may be different. And so it's simply important to recognize that wherever you live, it's really important to pay attention to the type of plants that grow where you are, even the types of animals that can be effectively raised where you live and develop your recipes and your palate and your, your, your cooking in your kitchen around those types of foods.
00:17:39
Speaker
Yeah, I think that is a huge point to focus on. I think that another area that you can look to is sourcing food. So even when you're homesteading and you are raising a lot of your food, there's likely going to be things that either didn't grow well for you that year or that you can't grow on your property or animals that you don't have space to raise.
00:18:09
Speaker
It's something whether you're on land and you have a big built-out homestead or you're in the suburbs and you have a little garden in your backyard
00:18:21
Speaker
Learning how to source your food outside of the grocery store is huge, it's freeing, it helps you find really good quality food, and it also helps you make connections and build community. So looking for local farms, there's also a lot of people that are trying to help make it more convenient to buy food from local farms. There's farmers markets I think are growing a lot more than
00:18:49
Speaker
At least it's becoming a lot more familiar to me. I'm noticing them in all communities now. Sometimes you even have courier services that offer online services for delivery from local farmers market ask. And you can search for those in the internet where you are and find those. And those can be really helpful. Sometimes there's bulk food services as well that you may become familiar with that can deliver bulk food from particular parts of the country.
00:19:16
Speaker
That may not help you mostly in eating seasonally unless you are very committed to simply limiting yourself and reserving yourself to only ordering food that would be within season of you. Yeah. It's a little more similar to shopping at the grocery store. Sure. But ultimately I think the idea there is that it's important to become intentional in what you cook and how you cook.
00:19:37
Speaker
And maybe you don't even cook yet. And that's fine. I mean, you gotta start somewhere. And so maybe part of this conversation is simply to offer encouragement and inspiration that you can cook and that you can change your cooking style if you haven't already to only consider the things that are grown locally around you. And I would also offer as an encouragement to anyone that we really shouldn't allow the pursuit of perfection to be the enemy of progress.
00:20:05
Speaker
And so if you find yourself in a situation where you are simply frustrated, I would say at the end of the day, it's just food. And there may be a goal in making the food more localized to where you are, but if that goal is interfering in your spiritual progress because it's causing you frustration, then simply set it aside for the time being and don't allow yourself to become frustrated because it is a lower priority at the end of the day with regards to what it is to be a Catholic homestead.
00:20:32
Speaker
meaning that the word Catholic comes before homestead. Yeah, I think that this is one of the areas that I would consider myself pretty confident and comfortable in is the kitchen and with the food. But it's also something that I can look back on and really see the progression that I've made in my own cooking journey.
00:20:54
Speaker
And I hear a lot from other people that cooking can be really intimidating. If it's not something that seems to come naturally to you, I think cooking can be intimidating as well. But I also find it exciting to take risks and to push myself into try new things with cooking. That's not a strength of mine in other areas of my life.
00:21:15
Speaker
To be fair, your cooking is like a five plus star restaurant, though. And so it also helps all of us in the household that when you cook, which is every day, it's phenomenal. But it wasn't when you met me, was it?
00:21:30
Speaker
Uh, I do recall that you didn't like onions when we first met. I didn't like onions. I pushed myself pretty quickly though, to develop a palette for them. And it's now one of my favorite foods. I mean, it adds to everything that you can cook, basically. We eat a lot of onions and garlic.
00:21:48
Speaker
I will say though that cooking has taught me what I think is a foundational lesson to homesteading and to life in general and that everything you're building on top of everything one small thing at a time learning how to comfortably chop vegetables so that that does not feel overwhelming and that's not what keeps you from making a home cooked meal
00:22:12
Speaker
is a huge small step to make in the kitchen. Learning how to make a soup is like one recipe but once you learn how to make one soup you can make most any soup after that. So focus on the small things and consider them wins.
00:22:32
Speaker
and then just build on top of it. In 10 years, you'll look back and you'll see how far you came and it was all just small steps that you built on top of. That is the lesson of life as well. It's something that I'm trying to learn in all the other areas of my life. But for me, it's really easy to see that progression happen in the kitchen.
00:22:50
Speaker
Yeah, I have been privileged to see it in you and also be a recipient of much of your cooking. And so I'm very thankful of that, but I have recognized more and more. And I think it's just simply important to finalize this particular point and conclude it with this statement or something like this, which is that we're all starting somewhere. And if you are identifying yourself as someone who is beginning this trend in your lineage, or you are trying to learn these skills to pass on to your children.
00:23:17
Speaker
then the reality is that you're probably starting this from ground zero and that's okay.
Establishing a Family Rule
00:23:23
Speaker
So I think that brings us to probably the third point, which would be the family rule. I think this is a very exciting point and something that we should all consider. Frankly, something that we have a lot of opportunity to develop and get better at. And that is a caveat to maybe says like,
00:23:41
Speaker
This could change over time or become more important over time, but ultimately it should stand as a cornerstone of what it is to be a Catholic homestead. Yes, I think that this probably is the area that we could use the most growth on currently. It's not something that I think we were really familiar with the concept of earlier in our marriage, but I think it's become very obvious that it's a very important part of the homestead.
00:24:06
Speaker
right so when we say something like the family rule probably what that calls to mind is something like a monastic order their rule a religious order their rule which is basically you know when they pray when they eat how they pray what their day looks like almost like a scheduled environment and in fact i shouldn't even say almost it is a scheduled environment and it includes all of their basic necessities as well as
00:24:32
Speaker
specifically dedicated time to the execution or carrying out of their vocation, which is oftentimes oriented towards prayer. Now, as lay people who are involved in the vocation of marriage or committed to the vocation of marriage or just a single people, our lives look a lot different than a religious brother or religious sister or a priest or a nun, etc.
00:24:54
Speaker
So we have to consider on our own, inspired by the Holy Spirit, what does it look like to develop a family rule that supports not only the basic needs of our family, which often means we are bringing in either the revenue or the goods themselves from the fields through harvest or slaughter, and also inviting liturgical life prayer into our life.
00:25:17
Speaker
How do we create family rules that support both of those needs and ultimately move us closer to heaven?
00:25:25
Speaker
Something that I think is important to consider in that is trying to understand your family or your own, if you are single or religious, call in life. Like what is it that God is asking of you? And I think that that can help you to develop the foundation, the mission statement of your rule, because when you look at different orders, they all have a different charism that guides them.
00:25:54
Speaker
And I think that in homesteads, we have a lot in common with other homesteads, like the animals that we're raising or the type of vegetables we're growing. But we're still not going to be able to take the person next door that's homesteading
00:26:10
Speaker
their rule of life and apply it exactly to our life. And it's flow so smoothly because we have our own carisms in our family. We have our own call. We have our own mission in life and being able to discern that together or just discern it individually with God, I think is foundational in being able to create your rule.
00:26:33
Speaker
and a
00:26:52
Speaker
It is incumbent upon the husband and the wife to create a household that is oriented towards liturgical life that supports prayer, supports the development of the spiritual growth of their children, including also themselves and one another, and ultimately orients everything that happens on their home inside and on the land towards God.
00:27:13
Speaker
And so I would say and suggest that it is very important that the husband and the wife come together in prayer and they confidently identify a charism that can abound within their household that they want to welcome their children into form their children into that is guided by the principles of the Catholic faith and oriented towards everyone identifying their own vocations
00:27:36
Speaker
the children, and obviously, because the husband and wife have already identified their vocation, but ultimately supports their growth in that spiritual development. And so I would encourage you in this instance to really write that out. What does prayer look like in your household? For us, the Angelus has taken a very strong hold of our household.
00:27:58
Speaker
And the Angelus for us has been a staple in our household of grounding our family in prayer. If no other prayer occurs in the day, it is the Angelus. Now in our household also, we say a morning prayer as a family and we say an evening prayer. And the evening prayer includes a Confiteor, which is a confession or ultimately an admission of our sin as a individual.
00:28:21
Speaker
which allows us to ask for God's mercy. And then we also typically petition various saints who may be integral to the life of our family or to the farm or something else that may be going on in our life that calls a particular patronage of a particular saint at the time. But we have morning prayer, evening prayer, not the liturgical divine office morning and evening prayer, but our own family's morning and evening prayer, as well as the Angelus as staples.
00:28:48
Speaker
And I could say confidently at this point that those are markers of the charism of our family's rule of life, which probably needs a little bit more organization, but is a good start. I agree. Yeah. So I think once you can identify your charism and your mission in your own family, I think that that helps to guide your understanding of what your rule looks like and how to create order for your home.
00:29:16
Speaker
And your rule can even include when your meal times are and when prayer times are and when homeschool times are. And that's what I would encourage people, not that you have to block every minute of your day, but that there needs to be a general order in your day and on your homestead. Because ultimately what can happen then is that if you don't have such an order, the homestead itself will command so much of your attention that you will lose your time to actually be productive in the things that you ought to be productive in.
00:29:44
Speaker
Yes, this is particularly one of my weak spots and I think that I often get overwhelmed by everything that needs to be accomplished that I don't end up accomplishing much of what I wanted to do in the first place because of the overwhelm but having that order in place helps
00:30:04
Speaker
to be able to tackle all the things that are going to come up in the day, whether they're planned things or unplanned things, being able to have a guide of the direction that your day is going to go in and to know that ahead of time, I think helps to make the homestead flow better.
Liturgical Life and Prayer on the Homestead
00:30:23
Speaker
I think it helps to develop discipline in the family. And I think it helps to encourage the growth of both the spiritual life and the community in the family.
00:30:34
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. I think this brings us maybe to the most important part, which is also our fourth point here, which is basically all things liturgical life and prayer on the homestead. And you may think, well, we just talked about that in the rule of the family.
00:30:50
Speaker
Well, you're right. We talked about scheduling it in, and that's ultimately what we are trying to guide towards. But the idea that there is a presence and an active understanding on the homestead, that there is a liturgical life present, one that conforms to the life of the Catholic faith, and a prayer life is incredibly important.
00:31:10
Speaker
And ultimately, everything on the homestead is absent of meaning if it does not include prayer. And I think that's something that people should be very aware of, including ourselves. I think that something, both when you're talking about order and a rule and prayer, I think that something that comes up a lot is that people think that there's a right way, like there is
00:31:34
Speaker
certain prayers that you have to say and like certain times that you have to wake up or eat meals or do certain things in the day. But I think that something that's important is learning that you can find what fits and what works for your family. You can try different things out. Some like we have gone through periods where we say a nightly rosary and I think we would both agree that we really enjoy doing that.
00:32:03
Speaker
at certain seasons of our life, it doesn't fit in as well. And it's a lot harder to make work. But like you said, we have the Angeles. That's something that we've found flows very well in our family and we're able to come back to it. We come back to it over and over again. And it's just a part, like our day doesn't function. Like we don't go through the day without the Angeles. It just happens.
00:32:24
Speaker
I think today our oldest daughter attempted to interrupt me on a work call because it was time to pray the Angelus and I appreciated that and I also did not appreciate that and I think it was a good teaching moment for Prudence but it was quite beautiful that she was very concerned that it was time to pray the Angelus.
00:32:47
Speaker
I think I just wanted to encourage that sometimes we can beat ourselves up for not being committed to novenas or the daily rosary or whatever devotion it is that you're trying to incorporate into your life.
00:33:04
Speaker
But just one continuing to push through and try to develop the discipline, because if you're not used to saying a daily prayer, it can be challenging to make it a part of your routine. But also being open to trying new devotions as you learn about them, or if you keep hearing somebody talk about the Divine Mercy Chaplet or any type of devotion, and it's something that you keep hearing come up in your life, like maybe give it a try and see how it fits.
00:33:33
Speaker
See the fruits that come from it in your family and don't beat yourself up. Just keep going and trying. Yeah. So I think, you know, the importance of this fourth point about basically all things prayer is that one, you need to have prayer in your life and prayer needs to be a part of your homestead. And if it's not, then you need to prioritize it immediately as being a part of your homestead.
00:34:00
Speaker
In fact, I would argue that you should stop this recording and say a prayer simply to incorporate prayer into your homestead in this moment and today. And secondly, I would encourage you to consider being patient with yourself that the development of a prayer life on the homestead is one that takes time and it takes discipline.
00:34:21
Speaker
That is not an excuse to not have prayer as a staple of your homestead, but as an encouragement that we as humans have moral failings and bodily failings and spiritual failings. And God is patient, merciful, and just. And that if we simply are continually committed to Him and to developing a prayer life, which is ultimately a relationship with God, that He is, I hope and I pray very pleased with that.
00:34:47
Speaker
And that is something that I take a lot of comfort in because I certainly and I'm sure we as a family certainly have a lot of opportunity to grow in this specific point.
Conclusion and Encouragement
00:34:57
Speaker
Definitely. But ultimately those four points are incredibly important to consider and something that we should all be aware of when regarding the building out of our Catholic homestead.
00:35:07
Speaker
community, things related to food, the family rule, liturgical life and prayer on the homestead, all things incredibly important as you either consider beginning your homestead or maybe you are a few steps into your homestead already and you're wondering, where do I go from here? How do I get control of this? And what does this look like going forward? You can do it. And that is a great place to conclude until next time on the My Catholic Homestead Podcast.