See our previous post promoting the Catholic Land Movement’s upcoming summer conferences. Here’s a great excerpt from director Michael Thomas’ opening talk at last year’s NY conference. It is so inspiring and I think he is right in saying many Catholics are coming to dream of a very different world and a very different life: The Authentic Life! There is more footage of last year’s conference on the YouTube channel (I’m probably in there somewhere LOL). And maybe I will see you at the New York one day conference next month!
Catholic Land Movement Conference Summer 2024 ~ Short Video Clip
Text:
“Am I alone in dreaming of a world, where I wake up to the sound of bells calling me to Daily Office, and then leaving there for a meal with my family, and then leaving there to meet my brothers in the field, where we work by the sweat of our brow and pause to say the Angelus at 12, and then return to the field?
And then go to the home where my wife is productive with my children in a domestic setting where things are being made, where the children work on dresses and canning and pickling food.
And I went out and milked the animals at the end of the day.
And then I went to the monastery, which was right down the road and caught Vespers at night. Maybe there was a Mass.
I lived an agricultural life layered on top of a liturgical life where Ember and Rogation Days really meant something in my life because the blessing of my fields was critically important.
When fast days really actually helped keep my larder full.
When Lent was really about making it through Spring.
I dream sometimes of living that simple life. Am I alone in dreaming that? Anybody else feel like they want that?
I think there's something deep in all of us as Catholics that calls us to that that idea of a life of a cadence of seasons, of a deepness in our prayer and liturgical life, a deepness in our relationship to our labor and its dignity, and an ordering, a natural order to our family that is beautiful and touched by God's grace. I believe that many of us as Catholics hold that dream.
For 3 days at this conference squint your eyes and just pretend that that's what we live like. Let yourself live that dream that I think we all carry about what Catholic community could be like.
Then we're going to go out into the world and make it happen.”
Is that beautiful, or what?