Our family has never had a vegetable garden. The only field on our property is a septic field. The closest thing to produce that we've managed to grow is onion grass. Obviously, ours is not an agrarian lifestyle.
But when the kids were growing up, we would process around our property once a year, sidestepping vole burrows and yard toys to earnestly sprinkle holy water over the whole scraggly acreage while praying for a fruitful harvest.
Were we devout? Or just crazy?
Under the old Church calendar, April 25 was Major Rogation Day, one of four Rogation Days in the liturgical year. Rogation Days – from the Latin verb “rogare,” which means “to ask” – were times of fasting, prayer, and petition for a bountiful harvest. Since every individual ultimately depends on God for his temporal needs, Rogation Days used to be observed by farmer and city-dweller alike.
In our family, Major Rogation Day was a much-anticipated family celebration. Its highlight was a procession, preceded immediately by an enthusiastic gathering of musical instruments. The instruments ranged from paper cup maracas and a cheese grater with spoon striker, to a tin whistle, bodhran drum, and violin.
The oldest boy in the family would not join the band, but instead serve as processional cross-bearer. With the cross-bearer leading the column, and the younger children making a joyful noise, our Major Rogation Day procession would wend its way along the fence that enclosed our rocky, sloping – and sometimes April-rains-sogged – yard.
The unbridled musical revelry would continue until the kids – mercifully, and never a moment too soon – put down their instruments. Hymn-singing would follow, with everyone joining in on all four verses of “For the Beauty of the Earth” and most of “Holy God, We Praise Thy Name.”
Afterwards, my husband Mike would lead the Litany of the Saints, reading from an old prayer book replete with “thees” and “thous” and “wouldsts.”
During the litany, I would sprinkle the ground with holy water as we processed, adding silent prayers of my own where appropriate: at the steepest grade of the yard (“that no one should ever hit the brick wall while sledding”), near the shrub that had harbored a hornets nest (“that no one should get stung this summer”), and at the gate of the fence (“that no evil should enter”).
At the close of the procession, we would attach tiny crucifixes to the bark of several trees in the yard, while Mike read the “Blessing of Crosses to be Placed in Fields and Vineyards.”
It was fitting that a Major Rogation Day observance include a partaking of the fruits of the field, so we would always end our celebration with strawberry shortcake.
Today, those grater-strumming, hymn-lisping, shortcake-devouring kids are all grown up, and it’s been years since a piping refrain of “We beseech thee, hear us” reached the ears of our longsuffering neighbors. But just a few days ago, while I was untying an old hammock from a tree in the front yard, I noticed a tiny crucifix hanging from a rusted staple in the tree bark.
I took a moment to reflect on the generosity of our God Who, out of love for us, “supplies the earth with rain and makes grass grow on the hills” (Psalm 147:8).
Long after the shortcake has been eaten, the hymns sung, and the prayers and blessings said, there remains the certainty that all of us – notwithstanding pocked yards, unkempt hedges, and onion grass – are, along with the whole of God’s creation, resting in the palm of His hand.
By Celeste Behe, a parishioner of St. Theresa of the Child Jesus, Hellertown. Find her online at www.CelesteBehe.com.
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