Blessing the Land -

Papal contradiction

Blessing the Land

Environmental whirlpool

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            The routine has become much the same.

            Our cow herd begins to demonstrate a definite desire to move to fresh pasture in a close correlation to a calculated Animal Unit Months (AUM) algorithm that has been tweaked from six years of practicing a whole herd movement scheme on our Butterfield Trail Ranch. As the target day for a rotation move approaches, we will watch the actions of the cows and a call will finally be made to open the gates and allow the herd to start moving itself.

The idea is not rocket science, but the results have long been very interesting for our operation. We started the process by studying the original grazier maps from the BLM. The story goes that the federal official charged with documenting carrying capacities would go to the various ranchers, sit down at their kitchen tables, and start working through each section of land on the respective ranches. On the maps we consulted, the old rancher’s estimate ranged from 5.5 to 10.5 cows per section of land. From those summaries, pasture targets were computed and a general grazing guideline was set in place for the grazing year.

We found that those old maps, extended into actual practice, were very close to desired forage conditions left in the wake of the rotating cow herd. In the case of this ranch, fully 70% of the ranch is now cattle free during the monsoons and we believe that has a substantive and positive impact on our desert grasslands.

            There are two significant points to be made. First, is the close relationship those ranchers had on these lands to make such accurate calls on carrying capacities. They learned what their lands yielded by living with them and laboring and engaging in their natural surroundings.

Second, the cows themselves are the most effective judges of the conditions. Trying to leave 60% standing forage, the pastures look like they have more and abundant remaining feed, but the cows, once they are acclimated to this practice, will demonstrate that standing feed isn’t the only factor. They reach a point they want to leave. That may simply equate to palatability as much as anything, but we know the cows will now signal when they want to leave. We watch for their cue and we respond.

Could this be exactly what scripture suggested in Job 12:7 (ESV) when it was written, But ask the beasts, and they will teach you; the birds of heaven, and they will tell you?

My answer isn’t the focus of that question. I am not a worthy biblical scholar. What I can say is that unless and until the steward lives with those animals, he won’t recognize the extent of their responses, and, still … that comes neither easily nor automatically.

Blessing the Land

            The Catholic Church would do itself and its faithful a great service if a greater proportion of its hierarchy actually got their hands dirty.

            This suggestion springs, in part, from the recent report that Americans calling themselves Catholic has declined another 3%. It also comes from experiencing and observing the church’s actions in progressive and environmental activism. The church’s position on global warming is one glaring example.

            In her May 4, article The Pope embraces the religion of global warming, executive director of Energy Makes America Great, Marita Noon, makes the point vividly. She writes about how the Pope’s Pontifical Academy of Science is engaging the UN and NGOs on the matter of global warming. From a summit, the Vatican is expected to release a papal encyclical, a church policy paper, on the matter of human ecology. The document is intended to set the guidelines for Catholic hierarchy management of the topic worldwide.

            The UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, who met privately with Pope Francis before the conference has suggested the intent of the directive. “It will convey to the world that protecting our environment is an urgent moral imperative and a sacred duty for all people of faith and people of conscience.”

            If that is his position, the Pope is placing himself squarely into a political debate. That will place the pontiff in the center of controversy and a fair and simple question must be posed.

            What scripture authorizes him to assume such duties?

 If such supremacy comes from biblical blessings, he will have to consult with Ki-moon for an extended progressive interpretation of Bible. There simply is no reference in the Bible that elevates environmentalism into a place of dominion over man. Scripture is contrary to that premise.

Likewise, if he is reinterpreting any blessing to equate to a moral imperative, he will be fabricating scripture and or sainthood. There are no blessings … that exclude man.

Blessing the Fields

There is a trendy blessing that is highlighting the church’s intertwined, complicit alliance with the radical environmental movement. It is the annual Blessing of the Fields and it is being embraced by the liberal left through the active participation of the secular press and the church hierarchy. It is being manipulated and modified to convene a ceremony that was intended to assure the fertility of the land. It is now superimposing a blessing of the environment.

            The church is fully involved, and it is leading the colorful procession hand in hand with progressive alliances.

            The blessing of the fields comes from the rogation or the traditional time of praying for agriculture. Historically, it has been a time to pray for planting and those working the fields. It was aimed at the gifts derived from the soil, the seeds, and the beasts alike. It is normally celebrated Monday through Wednesday of the sixth Sunday of Easter.

            The celebration came from Spain during the lifetime of San Ysidro, the farm laborer. Ysidro lived from about 1070 until 1130. He was married to Maria Torribia, a canonized saint.

            In the story, Ysidro’s master found him repeatedly in extended prayer. The master’s surprise and growing dismay assumed his duties in the field were being neglected, but Ysidro had an excuse. He had angelic support for his actions. While at prayer, angels took his place at the plow. They not only performed his work, but they duplicated and multiplied his efforts. Symbolically, and, in fact, the gifts from the fields, the fertility of the land, enriched the master’s entire household and contributed to the benefit of the community.

            The blessing, as adopted by the church, was twofold. It sought divine intervention by making the fields fruitful. It also asked for the blessings of the church which depended indirectly on the abundance of those crops. Little by little, the church hierarchy recognized the ceremony of the blessing as being good for the souls of the faithful as well as the financial wellbeing of the church.

            The soil and water were and are gifts from God. They were not the objects of worship. God alone was and is the object of celebration.

            There is also the matter of Ysidro and his master. From the perspective of rogation, the laborer has a central role, but the benefactor of those labors cannot be construed as the laborer himself. In body and soul, the laborer has to be there to fulfill the actual and original role in the blessing. Angels are hard to find especially modern versions.

There is an added problem.

Laborers of the land have largely disappeared from the process. In fact, few to no farmers and ranchers actually participate in the modern spectacle of blessing the fields. Watching from the outside looking in, the farmers and ranchers of our rural communities don’t gather at the New Mexico Farm and Ranch Museum or similar exposés and follow the fully robed bishop around as he symbolically blesses and sprinkles water on the subsidized gaggles of geese, herds of cattle, flocks of sheep, or backyard garden proxies for progressive urbanites.

            We aren’t there, hence, the event is grossly symbolic. Moreover, in all matters of environmentalism, the church is turning a blind eye to the disappearance of the laborer and his master, and … worse.

            To the beginning

            There is no better way to seek the blessing of the fields than to pray an original prayer:

            HEAVENLY FATHER, Lord of all creation and Giver of all life, we praise you for your goodness to us.

            Give us the weather we need to grow our crops.

            Bless these fields and make them yield bountiful harvests.

            Bless those who work here, and grant that all our work may bring YOU greater honor and glory and lead us closer to YOU.

            We ask thy grace in the name of JESUS, our Lord.

            Amen.

                Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “When we went to the Bishop of Las Cruces to seek his support to defend us from the radical environmental call for wilderness and national monuments designation of our lands, his allegiance … remained with the progressive voter alliance and its environmental agenda.”