The other day I attended the launch of a fundraising campaign for the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace. This year, the Canadian bishop's development agency is focusing on supporting small farmers in poorer countries against the encroachments of agribusiness, especially the gobbling of their productive land by companies growing agrifuels. (One of the hellish consequences of the good intentions behind reducing the dependence on oil, but I digress). One of the people who spoke is a member of the National Farmers' Union, an organization that advocates food sovereignty for Canada and bemoans the destruction of farming communities across the nation as small-scale family farms become less and less viable, people flee to the cities, creating more and more suburban sprawl and dependence on the automobile.
Yet as the speakers talked about preserving small-scale farming and the ability of countries like Haiti to grow their own food, I thought about Canada and the fact that I like being able to buy avocados year-round and asked myself it it would make sense to have some government program that ensured that Canada was growing its own food supply even if people were not all that interested in buying only what we can grow in our cold climate and short growing season. Are we trying to impose our notions of community and a nostalgia for what we've lost on people in developing countries who would rather have cell phones and TVs than live in a picturesque hut in a traditional village somewhere.
I've tried the homesteading thing, living on a small farm, where we raised our own beef and pork, kept chickens for eggs, (and tried eating some of them too, but my oh my are they stringy and forget trying to pluck the things), grew beans, alfalfa, got the hay in, shucked piles of cattle corn that would have made Rumpelstiltskin himself blanch, and so on. It's hard work, and after doing it for a few years, while I liked many aspects of it, the romance is off. I like having a lawn, thank you, not something that the chickens have turned into an expanse of dirt with little shallow depressions they like to dust bathe in. And yeah, try keeping a fence intact that keeps your free-range hens from getting loose. To say nothing of washing manure off eggs. As you may have gathered, I am not good at the domestic arts. My bread always came out in stunted, mean little loaves, my jam runny, and well, journalism saved me from all that and gave me an excuse to buy at the grocery store. Homesteading was a form of voluntary poverty and as my grandmother once said in her thick Russian accent, "Being poor is very interesting for a while, but then it becomes very boring."
How does this pertain to the Personal Ordinariate?
Because we have already seen here on this blog a yearning for the stability of a rural or small-town parish. I, too, fantasize about how joyful and wonderful it would be to live in a New England, or Ontario-type small town with a quaint main street, perhaps a village green or a park, and a beautiful Anglican Catholic church within walking distance that was open for Mattins, daily mass and Evensong.
But then I think about certain present day realities–the fact that most of the people who go to our little cathedral parish in Ottawa drive a good distance from all directions, some as much as an hour, to attend on Sunday. We dream of being able to buy a bigger building, as we are overflowing, one that could also house Augustine College and St. Timothy's Classical Christian Academy, and perhaps have a place nearby where we could create or have housing for some of our people, particularly our elderly. But so far, the Lord has not made a way for us in this.
Then I remember what it was like when I tried my farming experiment. It makes me sad to go back to Nova Scotia and see once-productive pastures and fields growing alders and maple saplings; sad that the many people who remain in these rural communities are on pensions or unemployment insurance or some government-program type job. Most people with any initiative have left. Hardly any real jobs remain. But can we turn back the clock? Can we impose that hard-working, simple lifestyle on people? Can we expect our children to keep it going?
How do we preserve what's precious about our traditions, our patrimony, given the trends of our modern society, barring societal collapse (given what's happening in Greece, it may be sooner than later) that may force us all to stay put and buy local? For example, we have the challenge of women working outside the home. So much about what made communities run smoothly was the unpaid labor of women who visited the sick, who looked after children and the elderly and looked after the cleaning and ironing of the fair linen etc. so the priests didn't have to. Well, our Altar Guild is getting a little thin on the ground because the women in my cohort and younger have full time jobs and the juggling of work, home and so on. On the other hand, we have priests who are able to devote more time to ministry because their wives have professional incomes.
How do we encourage families to have children? How do we support them when the cost of having more than two children is prohibitive? What can we do to foster a real sense of cross-generational community in a peer-centered culture? I sure don't have the answers to these questions, but my hope is that the Personal Ordinariates will preserve what is good, beautiful and true, yet at the same time be flexible enough to respond and welcome people who are caught up in our fast-paced, wired, globalized world.
No related posts.
This is a fine and thoughtful posting, and close to my own heart. I and my wife are village dwellers, and are realistic about having to compromise with the modern world. My own work depends on the Internet and e-mail (I’m a freelance translator and the orders come by e-mail and yousendit.com, and the completed work goes out the same way – and I get paid). My wife is working on a project of a small catering concern, which will be viable only in the small town near us, about 15 minutes away by car.
It’s a choice in life, but I understand that town life is virtually impossible to escape. Dependence on the automobile – in our situation – is absolute. When / if the oil runs out, than I hardly see what we will do. You’re certainly realistic enough about the chickens! The older they are, the longer they take to cook Self-sufficiency is an illusion. If the chips are down, the best we can hope for in a village is a barter system, and that is assuming a lot from today’s ultra individualised crowd in which people assume they can get something for nothing.
The Ordinariate? What will it be for me? Assuming I am admitted to be a priest of an Ordinariate, England or elsewhere, as there would be precious little interest for Anglican Catholicism in France, I don’t see much other than going Novus Ordo and helping out with the local parishes, or Tridentine to help out with the traddies. Commuting, probably to a big town like Rouen or Le Havre. Alternatively, I continue as a “married hermit” and blog to justify being a priest. I too find the future difficult to conceptualise.
It all looks pretty bleak to me. I think the only way – if we want an alternative to city dwelling, is to get together as much as possible and flock to places like Fr Phillips’ Atonement parish or monasteries like Fontgombault. I could try arguing it out with my local Archbishop about the idea of doing some parish ministry the old way. I don’t know whether he will buy it. I somehow doubt it.
Let’s keep our heads on and see all this sub specie aeternitatis. It would be so much easier to be a parish vicar in England and never mind about the female bishops and everything else. It’s just a job. I sometimes envy those whose names are in Crockford's! Or perhaps priesthood is something more profound and worth suffering for…. It's not for me to judge, but for each priest to know what he wants.
Great article, and a good reminder to us that we're going to have to be daring and creative in the preservation and nurturing of our patrimony. Fr. Chadwick makes an interesting point about getting together to support places which articulate our life in an Ordinariate. That's exactly our experience at Our Lady of the Atonement. People have moved with their families from great distances, and have purchased homes around the church, so they can worship at the parish and have their children in the school. In fact, when we first began there were very few Catholics in our immediate neighborhood; now we have a very strong Catholic presence here, as people have bought or built homes, many within walking distance. Of course, it wreaked havoc with property values — sending them skyrocketing as people were willing to pay premium prices just to be nearby!
I think this is an opportunity for some of that "creative thinking" which will be so important to us. We may well need to concentrate some of our resources in particular places which would be attractive to people, and we may find they are willing (indeed, eager) to relocate.
The early years of Ordinariate life are going to be interesting indeed!
"The early years of Ordinariate life are going to be interesting indeed!"
And to think we, by the grace of God, are invited to be a part of it all! Many wished to live these days who now rest in the Lord. Their memory must be in our prayers and in our hearts as we move forward.