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Episode 2: Importance of the Catholic Faith in the Homestead
268 Plays1 year ago
On this episode of the Little Way Farm and Homestead podcast, Mathew and Carissa discuss the importance of the Catholic faith on the homestead.
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Transcript
Introduction: Hosts and Episode Focus
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. Welcome back to another episode of the My Catholic Homestead Podcast. On today's episode, we're going to discuss the importance of the Catholic faith on the homestead. So Matthew, if you had to explain to everybody why you think our Catholic faith is integral to the homestead, what would you say?
Centrality of Catholic Faith in Homesteading
00:00:29
Speaker
Wow, I think that's a really good question. I think firstly that the reason it's important to designate our homestead as a Catholic homestead is because it gets to the heart of why it is that we do homestead.
00:00:41
Speaker
Yeah, I totally agree. I think whenever I look back over all the reasons why we've considered living this way and committing to this way of living over the years, I think a lot of it has to do with what we really want to encourage and nurture for our own family's development. And I think that we have found that choosing to live
00:01:04
Speaker
on the homestead and choosing to be more intentional with how we source our food and the type of food we eat and making stuff ourselves. I think on one hand it teaches us discipline, it helps us to grow in virtue, and hopefully we'll also teach those same things to our children as they get older. I think it also encourages us to look for the better way in everything.
00:01:32
Speaker
I think it encourages us to not just take everything at face value and to just do what's set in front of us, but it forces us to really think about what we're doing and the type of decisions we're making for even the small things that what we're feeding ourselves, how we're hydrating ourselves, the type of clothes that we wear. And I think all of that might sound small, but I think it builds a really strong foundation to be able to grow stronger and deeper in our faith.
00:02:01
Speaker
Yeah, I think that ultimately, you know, the reason why it's important to designate our homestead as a Catholic homestead, and subsequently also our farm as a Catholic farm, is that the Catholic faith is at the center of everything that we do here, or I hope that it is, and it's something that we can get better at doing.
Visual Appeal vs. Reality of Homesteading
00:02:18
Speaker
And so, you know, the first question that a lot of people have to answer is why would I want to do home setting to begin with? It is definitely visually appealing. I think, you know, you look online, you see these amazing pictures of the homestead and they're very curated pictures of the chickens and the cows and the produce and the plants.
00:02:35
Speaker
But then the reality of that is behind the scenes of those pictures is that it can often be very muddy and disorganized and there can be a lot of clutter and it can be very difficult to manage a lot of the things that are needed in order to effectively homestead. And so the question becomes, why would I want, you know, put myself through that type of experience and continue to have to do things and what many people would consider an old way of doing it or a harder way of doing it. And then where does the Catholic faith collide with that?
00:03:04
Speaker
And I would say at this point that it is the Catholic faith which inspires us in our homesteading behaviors, which means that we may talk about things like animal management, but really what we're talking about is stewardship. Because ultimately the way that we are choosing to live our lives is from the perspective of and guided by the Catholic faith.
00:03:24
Speaker
And so it's important for us that we make sure that when we go out and we do choose to spend a lot of our time and our energy in these older practices, these agrarian practices where we're cooking more and we're building more and we're doing things in a way that really requires a lot of mental energy and physical energy. Uh, and frankly, in some ways, a lot of spiritual energy too, that it is inspired and guided by the Catholic faith.
00:03:48
Speaker
Yeah. So I think that's a good place to ask what things do you think that we have chosen to do on our specific homestead that were specifically guided by our Catholic
Faith as a Guide in Homesteading Practices
00:04:00
Speaker
faith?
00:04:00
Speaker
Well, originally the name of the farm itself and the homestead was identified as Little Way Farm and Homestead. That's where we live. And obviously a lot of people are going to have their own name. And that name was itself inspired by St. Therese of Lisieux. And for us, it's really important that we remember kind of her witness to the world of God's love in her life. Because one of the things that is often attributed to her is this conversation around what may be called the Little Way.
00:04:27
Speaker
And if I could sum that up really quickly, it would be something like loving God in the everyday ordinary things as small as they are or as big as they are doing everything and anything you can to love and honor God. Whether that means that you are out picking weeds in the garden, you're doing it to honor and glorify God. Whether that means that you are milking a cow or you are doing homeschooling activities or you're reading a book or even in your prayer life. And you would think, well, obviously,
00:04:53
Speaker
I'm praying, so I'm engaged in a relationship with God, but there is certainly a difference between kind of going through some motions of prayer and saying what you think you should be saying and truly sitting down and investing time and energy into building a relationship with God. And I find that on the homestead, because there is so much physical energy and physical things that are required of us,
00:05:14
Speaker
that it provides this really awesome space to just mentally be present or at times even just you know not consumed by things of the world especially the constant barrage of entertainment that seems so prevalent everywhere and it opens up this groundwork for the ability to listen especially
Mental Space for Reflection and Faith
00:05:33
Speaker
to God.
00:05:33
Speaker
Yeah, I think that specifically has been a bit of a challenge for us. I think that I'm proud of the progress that we've made in changing our habits of consumption of entertainment and just filling up empty space with it.
00:05:50
Speaker
But I still have a long way I personally like to go in that but I think that's a huge aspect of it is realizing that all of our time and mental energy does not need to be filled up and that we can allow space for for quiet and for listening and for observing and I think that is actually where a lot of the fruit of this comes into play.
00:06:13
Speaker
I find because I do a lot of the chores outside on the farm and I find, you know, even taking water out to the cows or feeding the chickens or moving chickens that even those there's, there's certainly times where I'm like, I really wish I was not doing this right now. There's certainly something else I'd rather be doing that it does open up this space. And you know, I'm not certain, you know, this is certainly felt in many other places and trades and experiences in life, but it's something about having a task to do that doesn't require a lot of mental energy.
00:06:43
Speaker
that seems to open you up to just allowing this open mental space and that can be a really good opportunity to acknowledge God and recognize God and also it's a really good space to continue to remind yourself why you do these things. I don't know that that necessarily completely answers why Homestead or why Catholic Homestead
00:07:02
Speaker
but I think if we did have to sum it up it would have to be something along the lines of we homestead because we think that for our children it's a really good way of living and for us it is aesthetically appeasing as well as it is just really it's really challenging and it has helped us to learn a lot of skills and it has helped to put us in a position where we really have to be very very very intentional in our life
00:07:26
Speaker
And if it is designated as Catholic, it's because our Catholic faith and our relationship with Jesus is where everything in our life should be oriented too. And so when we do things on the farm, they really are unto, in some ways, unto supporting us in better living out, whatever it is that God's calling us to live out on the farm. Yeah, I totally agree.
00:07:49
Speaker
I like to think of that often, especially with the food portion. So we'll talk about, you know, the way that we raise our meat on the farm, we believe is in a really healthy way that both benefits the ecology of the farm and the homestead, but also is really respectful of the animals and creates a very solid loop of just continual nutrient deposits throughout the farm that support, you know, next season and the next season and the next season.
Regenerative Agriculture and Faith Principles
00:08:16
Speaker
Oftentimes people will talk about this as regenerative agriculture where the way that you engage with the ecology of the farm or the homestead helps to support more fertility across the farm so that your plants grow better each year or the grass gets stronger each year and everything ultimately just continues to strengthen because it's being treated in a particular manner.
00:08:37
Speaker
And we will often look at the way that the meat is being raised. And I like to think that partly the reason that we raise our animals the way we do is because one, it does make it, you know, the end product, the meat tastes better. Two, it does seem significantly healthier as far as I can tell. But three, if it is tastier and it is healthier than it is putting me in a position where theoretically I'm getting, or I think I'm getting,
00:09:03
Speaker
more nutrients that help me to be healthier and stronger and be more able to mentally and physically respond to whatever God is calling me to do.
00:09:13
Speaker
Yeah, so like I mentioned in our previous episode, a lot of what really started me on my own journey and pursuit towards living this way, it started with learning and understanding our health and our bodies. And that journey started to help me to see
00:09:34
Speaker
a greater image of how God impacts our lives, the way that He created us, and then moving on into learning about the way He created the earth and animals and how it's all meant to work together. For me, it was somewhat of a learning backwards, like I had to dig down to understand the foundation of His creation and then how to steward that properly. But in living this way, I hope that we can teach it
00:10:01
Speaker
from the ground up to our children and that we can teach them the foundation of creation, both of the human body and of nature of earth and animals. And it's something that they'll be able to build on top of, and they won't have to dig back down, unlearn some things and start building from that direction.
00:10:21
Speaker
It definitely makes sense out here too on the homestead, like agrarian practices, just in and of themselves, lean an enormous degree of very easy education about the way that things work in the natural world.
Children's Learning and Faith Understanding
00:10:34
Speaker
So for instance, a lot of different plants require different types of nutrients in order to be really successful in their growth. But if you don't support those plants and getting those nutrients, then they're not going to get those nutrients and therefore they're not going to flourish in the way that they could.
00:10:48
Speaker
I think that is something which really helps us explain how the spiritual life and physical health and mental health all work for our children too. And it's really accessible to them. Like they can see on the farm that there's different things that thrive and there's other things that really struggle or things that didn't work. We planted a lot of seeds this last year that frankly just didn't come to fruition. And there's a conversation there about why those particular seeds didn't grow and what we could have done differently. And then there's others on the farm that thrive and we can talk about that too.
00:11:18
Speaker
And for a child, it's very visual and it's easy because it's all around them. It's evident in the natural world. It's not necessarily theoretical and they can go out and they can interact with nature. They can interact with the animals and it creates all of these really awesome experiences for them. But it also opens up the opportunity for sometimes difficult lessons that can be taught very easily in the context of the farm and the homestead.
00:11:43
Speaker
Yeah, difficult lessons is a really good one to hit on because just in our one year of being here on this specific homestead, I think that we've had to face some difficult lessons and arguably they were more difficult for us than our children. Would you agree?
00:12:02
Speaker
I would say so one that stands out. Um, yeah, this one definitely stands out is it seems to me that children really don't have that big of a, they don't, they don't have an issue when it comes to processing animals. Like we process chickens on farm and that doesn't seem to really be a problem for them. I was going to say death in general, facing death with different animals on the farm has obviously been something it's not really avoidable.
00:12:29
Speaker
for whatever reason it's so emotional to us and i'm like i can't believe this is happening and i don't know if it's just because we recall all the time and the energy involved in them and you kind of develop a relationship but for the children sometimes they're just like yeah well it's a part of the life yes it seems very straightforward and practical to them and i think i've tried
00:12:50
Speaker
very intentionally to not let my own feelings and thoughts on losing different animals or having to kill different animals be put on the children. I'm trying to leave space for them to experience it, just whatever naturally comes up for them. But it's actually been kind of motivating and inspiring to watch them face it and take it so well and move on and
00:13:15
Speaker
Yeah, I do also wonder if being around kind of the circle of life in that way, including, you know, the planting of seeds or the, you know, when new chicks arrive on the farm and they get to see those animals or those plants go all the way from seed to a harvest. I think it really just brings alive things in them that are already very evident to us as human beings, that if we don't live around these types of experiences or in these environments,
00:13:43
Speaker
it becomes really difficult to understand it simply later in life because it's always kind of theoretical as in maybe you read about you know things in textbooks or you see things in movies but you don't ever actually experience them in real life and so you only oftentimes see one side of it like when you go to the grocery store and you pick up uh you know a chicken breast from the the grocery store or you go to a restaurant and you order uh a rack of lambs or something like that uh ram ribs
00:14:12
Speaker
But if you're only seeing that end finished product and you don't see any of the beginning of it, it's really easy to become disconnected from it. And then when you have to experience or you do experience something later in life, you just have all of this time built up about not realizing the first parts of it.
00:14:30
Speaker
And so it's really hard to acknowledge it and it can create a very difficult situation where you do begin to have to wrestle with these ideas. And for the children to be raised in it, it seems to create a certain sense of maturity in them, not taking away their childhood at all. In fact, they seem incredibly playful and they seem very receptive to the entirety of the circle of life and the experience there.
00:14:57
Speaker
And it makes me really happy and it makes me very joyful to see them be able to acknowledge all these things. And frankly, it humbles me in a really difficult way sometimes because it sometimes feels as if my children in some ways are more advanced in different categories than even I am.
00:15:16
Speaker
Yeah, I think that experiencing the life cycle and death on the homestead and on the farm, I think it really encourages a lesson of purpose and what we're here for, what are the plants are here for, what the animals are here for.
Purpose and Faith in Homesteading
00:15:35
Speaker
And I think that that lesson can be taken pretty far in life, but being able to see that cycle and see that the purpose isn't that these things live forever and that they never die, but the purpose is that they're here and they're meant to nourish us. And ultimately,
00:15:55
Speaker
I think our Catholic faith would encourage us to believe that the purpose of these things is meant to elevate us in our faith. It's meant to help us to know, love, and serve God to the best of our abilities. I would agree. Either because they help to support us simply in living or because even in their very existence, the plants and the animals, they show us something of God. Yeah, definitely. I think it's twofold. I think we see God in nature.
00:16:24
Speaker
And I think practically speaking, food is what gives us energy and energy is how we set out to do what God has called us to in this world. Yeah. I love being on the homestead. I do too. It is so much fun, but it is a lot of hard work.
00:16:39
Speaker
very hard a lot of people are interested though like what would what would be different like visually is there something different on a catholic homestead as opposed to just someone else who's really doing a great job of taking care of the land but maybe not doing it from a catholic perspective
00:16:55
Speaker
Well, I think that there are definitely people who are not Catholic who would still agree with a lot of the practices that we have. But I think we agree with these practices because of our Catholic faith. So one example that stands out to me is pest control on plants, which I think that you could probably explain a little better. But there is a more modern way of spraying pest repellents on plants to keep animals or bugs
00:17:24
Speaker
off of them so that it can save and reserve it for the people to eat it. But I think that our understanding of that is different.
00:17:33
Speaker
No, exactly. Because in an example like that, you know, where many people may use herbicides or specifically pesticides, which we would find to be probably offensive to human health and the environment at large, is that we can simply work with nature. So we can plant other different plants around the plants that we don't want those pests on, which will help to deter the pests from attacking those plants or consuming them or whatever it is that they want to do to them.
00:17:57
Speaker
And that really mirrors again, the way that we understand the Catholic faith, which is not so much that we have to constantly be in, including different things to change us, but that we need to involve ourselves in working with God's design and with God's creation. We need to repent of sin and we need to forwardly respond to God's graces. And that doesn't mean that we always have to bring in outside interventions. Right.
Integrating Faith into Daily Routines
00:18:21
Speaker
Similarly, on the homestead, I think there is a very clear degree of evidence of the liturgical life. So for example, one thing that we do each day that many people who will come and visit us will quickly know is that we pray the Angelus at 12 and 6 o'clock.
00:18:37
Speaker
So if you happen to be on the homestead visiting us, you will have the opportunity to pray with us, the Angelus. And if you're not familiar with the Angelus, I would really encourage you to take a look at the Angelus Prayer because it is a remarkable prayer that's really quick, but it's very powerful because it helps to acknowledge the reality of Christ coming down from heaven and being present with us on earth. I love the Angelus and I love that it's a part of our family and our homestead.
00:19:04
Speaker
And the fact that it forces you to pause and to say prayers, to bring God back into the day, if you've been getting carried away with life and maybe he's just not at the front of your mind. I just love that it has these bullet points in our day where it brings us back down and it reminds us again why we're doing all of this. Yeah.
00:19:27
Speaker
There are some other things that people can incorporate into a homestead or you know wherever they may live that are also going to bring in more elements of the Catholic faith. One that I really like that we haven't gotten too good at yet, well I say haven't gotten too good like we really haven't started on this at all yet, is doing things like Marian Gardens or specific like parts of the farm that are maybe
00:19:48
Speaker
uh created in honor of a particular saint or as a memory of a particular saint because you know the more that we can acknowledge those men and women who have been canonized who have gone before us and responded positively to god it helps us to remember that there are people among us who are in heaven who are praying for us or can pray for us
00:20:05
Speaker
And so there are some things like we have honeybees and I really want to explore like how to make a like there's a famous quote from St. John and Chrysostom and St. Ambrose is often associated with bees and so I really want to find a way to acknowledge those two individuals at the bees because it helps us not just to talk about you know here are some really cool things that we do ecologically with the bees to support the environment but if we take that to another level we involve the spiritual aspect of it
00:20:35
Speaker
and that's ultimately what really separates us from, or separates a Catholic homestead from any other type of farm or homestead, is that everything on the farm, just like how a church is often built, is designed to elevate your mind and your spirit to God.
00:20:50
Speaker
And so when people come here and they visit us or when they come to someone else's house where they were designated as a Catholic homestead, or even just when you step into someone's house, if there are things in there that are obviously Catholic and religious in the Catholic tradition, then it's going to help to elevate you.
00:21:09
Speaker
uh, your mind, your spirit, your body, even towards God. And I think that that is really what separates a lot of maybe other farms and homesteads that do things really, really well ecologically or have great animal management, but they don't have that spiritual aspect because at the end of the day, everything in the way that we design it, or we can design it, if it helps to elevate people's minds and spirits to God, then it makes it a lot more simple and a lot more understandable why it is
00:21:38
Speaker
that we go through the process of building out a homestead yeah just thinking about the home itself not even including the land because truthfully in our nine years we have mostly had a home but not necessarily land so there are many beautiful things you can do on the land but i have
00:22:00
Speaker
gone through a lot of thought of how to incorporate our faith into our home and i've found that placing beautiful artwork beautiful religious artwork around the house and crucifixes and just little statues of different saints
00:22:18
Speaker
All of it are small reminders. It's beauty that surrounds you. And like you said, it's small reminders that are constantly pointing your mind towards heaven and towards God. And I think that's so important because I think we keep coming back to the small things, but I think that they make such a huge difference. Whenever you take time and intention with the small things, it just creates such a great environment for lots of fruit to grow from.
00:22:48
Speaker
Yeah. Do you think there's any really strong lessons at the same time, like about either the Catholic faith or any, uh, experiences that you've had on the homestead specifically that have helped you in your faith?
Personal Reflections on Faith and Homesteading
00:22:59
Speaker
Yeah, I think that the lessons for me are really countless and they continue to come so quickly. I am always astounded by how often a small thing like planting seeds that often takes us late into the night. It just reminds me, it brings me back to the faith and what God is trying to teach us every day. But one lesson that really stands out for me actually just happened this past winter. I was having some pretty hard health issues
00:23:28
Speaker
after moving and having our third baby and it created for me a pretty dark spiritual time and I went out on a walk on the farm one day to try to just pray and find some peace
00:23:43
Speaker
on a really hard day and I remember walking a path that we had just walked a week previously with the kids out by our pond and there were some wildflowers surrounding the pond and as I walked that day I noticed that the wildflowers had died
00:23:59
Speaker
and that the air was crisper and you could feel winter coming. And I was praying and asked God if there's anything he wanted to share with me. And it struck me that there was just life here. Life was just present. So soon, I could still remember exactly what it looked like and I could still remember what the air felt like and so quickly how things had changed. And I remember feeling
00:24:26
Speaker
like the idea that winter was coming and how often winter people hate winter and they think that winter is darkness and it's cold and it's death and they just want to rush through winter so that they can get back to the light and to the warmth and to the fun of summer
00:24:44
Speaker
But I remember feeling and remembering after all these years of learning little basics about plants and how they grow and understanding that the plants aren't actually dying a lot of times. A lot of times there's still a lot that's going on beneath the surface under the soil. And a lot of times for plants that come back every year,
00:25:04
Speaker
They're becoming stronger in that cold time. The roots are growing deeper and are strengthening. And that way when it comes back and when the sun comes back in the warmth and it's time for new life again, they're stronger and they're more fruitful than they were the year before.
00:25:22
Speaker
And that was such a powerful lesson for me because I knew that things weren't necessarily getting better. For me personally, in my health journey, I knew things were going to get a little harder before they got better. And just being able to see that reflection of nature and of what actually happens in the winter, it gave me hope to see the winter as essential and important and good for my spiritual life.
00:25:49
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's a, that's a really good, I don't know if I've ever heard you say that before. That was really good. Wow. What a powerful lesson because, and see now as I look at the winter upcoming, all I can think is finally I get to take a little bit of a break. I know I do see it that way now. I appreciate the rest and the quiet in the winter.
00:26:09
Speaker
I'm thinking sitting by the fireside and reading a book. This winter is going to be very pleasant. Even the longer nights, I'm like, we get more sleep. The sun goes down sooner, so all the children want to go to bed earlier. That was really hard, frankly, when the sun started staying up longer or the day got longer and then everyone was like, I'm not going to bed. The sun's up.
00:26:31
Speaker
I know I'm at the time of the year right now where I appreciate every day when the sunset happens just a couple minutes earlier than the day before.
00:26:42
Speaker
Yeah, there's so many lessons out here, though. For myself, I think it's mostly around discipline as well and also around the development of humility. And I don't think I ever realized how prideful, frankly, I was until this farm, this homestead, continues to physically humble me.
00:27:03
Speaker
And what's interesting is as much as I absolutely love the physical activity of it, I love the hard work. Uh, maybe that's an anomaly. I really, I love it. It's fun for me. There are times when I, I really do feel my age starting to catch up with me and my body just simply not able to manage the amount of physical stress that it's being put under.
00:27:23
Speaker
And then what happens then is it starts to affect my mental strength. And then when it affects my mental strength, I find that I am quicker to, you know, lose my temper a little bit or say things I wish I didn't say, or cut corners on different things that I shouldn't cut corners on or say, well, yeah, we'll get the dishes in the morning after we've rested and not, you know, finish up our chores for the day or worse. Push off prayer time, uh, for another time, you know, say something like, Oh, we'll just catch up on it tomorrow.
00:27:53
Speaker
Well, I don't think that's the way that it really works. I don't think it's a catch-up kind of experience. And so I find that I am becoming more and more and more aware of my need for God's grace because it starts with really me being humble, humbled in my physical capabilities and it continues from there.
00:28:16
Speaker
So I'm very honored to have that experience now. I say it and it sounds like I'm being, like I'm really happy and pleasant about it right now, but like there are times where I'm like,
00:28:24
Speaker
Why will my body just not move faster or like, why can I not just walk a little bit longer? Certainly more energy sustain me throughout the day. Yes. Like certainly if I just will it hard enough, I can get better at this. And there's just a, there's some degree of a limit to that. And it reminds me that, you know, I'm destined for heaven, not destined to be here. Immortally on earth forever.
00:28:51
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's really challenged me to try to understand what it means to do this, not in my strength, but in God's strength and what it means to surrender and allow him to carry me through it because it's hard and a lot of what we're doing is well beyond us.
00:29:08
Speaker
I'm amazed at what we've been able to accomplish in the last year but I simply can't explain it except for by saying it's through God's grace that he's offered us and that we have participated in to be able to accomplish this and looking forward into the future I know there's so much ahead of us and we have so much more to do and
00:29:30
Speaker
I think that trying to grasp that this year and understanding that I have to rely on his strength because I can't do it on my own.
00:29:39
Speaker
Yeah. And frankly, maybe that's currently, at least for the current season that we're in here at the farm and the homestead and what many people will find themselves at when they begin their homesteading journey. I wonder if that's really why some of us are feeling drawn to the homestead lifestyle is that it's not so much about us separating from, you know, the modern world or secular society or anything like that.
00:30:02
Speaker
as much as it is a call for us to be incredibly humbled and to be set aside in a manner that we have the opportunity and the time to dedicate to listening to God and recognizing how much we need God in our lives. Yeah. And that is probably a great place to stop as we look forward to the next conversation on the My Catholic Homestead Podcast.