Family and Community
The most beautiful and peaceful way of family life ever expressed on earth was lived by the Holy Family. Present in that holy household were Saint Joseph—the most just, prudent, and charitable man who ever lived; our Blessed Mother Mary—who is full of grace; and Jesus—who is God. If we desire to experience an authentic family life, we must build our way of life upon the foundation set by the Holy Family.
As individual members of our own families, we must identify with one of the members of the Holy Family. Then we can pattern our familial relationships after those exemplified in the Holy Family. We can model the life of the Holy Family through our daily interactions with one another. We live in the way of the Holy Family when our daily behaviors emulate theirs. We therefore strive to relate to one another in love, trust, and respect. We thus need the virtues of humility, patience, and forgiveness. And as we each grow in virtue to become better individuals, we all grow in virtue to become better families—always advancing toward the ideal family life as displayed by the Holy Family.
Michael gives his sister Nina a helping hand.
Like Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, we aspire to move in obedience to our relationships with each other. When someone asks us to help them, we help. When someone asks us to pray for them, we pray. And when someone asks us for mercy, we forgive. We move in this obedience not out of servile fear, as from a master-slave relationship. Rather, we move out of love, as Jesus taught us, “If anyone asks you to go with him one mile, go with him for two.” (Mathew 5:41)
And to truly live as the Holy Family did, we should not even wait to be asked. We can offer ourselves to the people around us even before anything is requested, in the same way that a good mother anticipates the needs of her children. The best model of this extraordinary charity comes from Our Lady, who lived in the fullness of charity. She lived perfect selflessness, which means that she never put herself first. She was always aware of her surroundings, and she remained completely free to consider everyone else’s needs before her own. She moved in obedience to relationships and thereby enjoyed the abundance of grace present in every moment. (For further reading, explore our Spirituality here on Our Lady’s Ranch website.)
When someone asks us to help them, we help. When someone asks us to pray for them, we pray. And when someone asks us for mercy, we forgive.
Because we are social creatures we enjoy spending quality time together, which is necessary for our unity and our sanctification. Praying, working, eating, playing, and resting are vital activities in each individual’s life, and when done together they create the life-long bond that we call family. However, our modern-day society does not promote family bonding, but the opposite, which is the separated individualism that our modern culture promotes through a lifestyle that sends the entire family away from the house for the majority of the day. The father, and now usually the mother as well, go out to work each day for nine hours or more while the children go out to school, sports, and lessons. The children (and usually the parents as well) are so consumed by their own activities that no one has considered what’s best for another, let alone making the time to serve each other.
A homesteading lifestyle brings the family together.
But a homesteading family has many opportunities to enjoy prayer, work, and recreation together every day. Daily interactions on a homestead allow many bonding opportunities between the parents and their children. These activities include sharing healthy meals together, home-schooling, gardening, on-site recreation, and prayer times that instill in the children a strong work ethic while promoting the main purpose of life, “To know, love, and serve God in this life, so as to be happy with him forever in the next” (Baltimore Catechism). The homesteading lifestyle promotes virtue in each of the family members and unity among them, thus making permanent family bonds (Neighborhood Type #1: the Homesteading Family).
The Holy Family working together.
Homesteading restores the home as the central place of family life. Joseph and Mary made their livelihood on the private property where they lived. Attached to their house would have been the workshop where Joseph carried out his traditional trade of carpentry, and where Jesus grew up as an apprentice to his foster father. This style of life, centered around the home and its means of livelihood, was common throughout history and prevalent in the Middle Ages. The guilds were made of tradesmen doing honest work for honest pay, for “The laborer is worth his wage.” (1 Timothy 5:18) Their work was most often performed as a small family enterprise in or around their home, with their children helping at young ages. And this family occupation yielded the advantages of healthy family activities through the proximity of the parents and children throughout the day and evening, as opposed to the average modern family that spends less than one waking hour a day together (according to Reader’s Digest, circa 2003).
Joseph and Mary made their livelihood on the private property where they lived.
Nowadays, our normal family life is so estranged from simple, natural, and/or agrarian activities that we have to reinvent an authentic Catholic family lifestyle in whatever way we can. Many good virtue-seeking parents are trying to get themselves and their children away from this current culture of death to a new way of life that they imagine for themselves on a rural homestead. For a single family, however, establishing and maintaining a small family enterprise, homeschooling the children, and providing for the basic needs of each family member is a daunting task. It demands a lot of work. That’s why our ancestors didn’t usually do it alone—they had their extended family.
It is good for children to spend time with their grandparents.
God did not create us all in one age group because, as in all things, He provides a wondrous variety. He gives us the gift of relationships in a vast array of colors, shapes, sizes, personalities, vocations—and ages. He gives us each other in several generations so that we may learn from, counsel to, share with, entertain, and enjoy one another in a vibrant social setting. God gives us the gift of family in several generations because He knows that we need them in order to live the fullness of life (Neighborhood Type #2: the Extended Family).
When well-adjusted, young adults come of age, they marry and have children of their own. And the first thing they discover is . . . “Wow, this is hard.” As they struggle with sleepless nights, manage the affairs of the household, and work long hours for food, clothes, and shelter, just to barely “make it”—the first and most important thing that suffers is their personal prayer life, and with it their own personal relationship. Now, God knows that certain tensions will arise between people who spend so much time together. But He also knows that as we work through these “issues” together, we become more unified with one another. (For further reading, explore our Lifestyle here on Our Lady’s Ranch website.)
For a single family, establishing and maintaining a small family enterprise, homeschooling the children, and providing for the basic needs of each family member is a daunting task.
An extended family homestead is somewhat ideal, but also very rare. We cannot spend much time with our extended family members if their values do not align with ours. It may be that our relatives aren’t even Catholic. Or our children are at risk of adopting poor habits from their cousins—sometimes because of liberal exposure to the modern culture through cable television, online access, and/or public schools. Even more grave attitudes are sometimes present in our uncles, aunts, and cousins from the modern sexual identity crisis, family alcoholism, and/or juvenile use of nicotine and drugs. And many times, another kind of separation occurs simply because of our desire for a different lifestyle. Actually, it happens most of the time that an aspiring homesteading family is harshly judged by the extended family for pursuing a homesteading lifestyle, and usually to the degree of persecution, verbally and otherwise. “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:10)
However, developing and maintaining a small family farm together in an extended family or “clan” setting does not necessarily mean a blood-related family. So, we thank God for our brothers and sisters in Christ, “For we were all baptized with one spirit into one body [the body of Christ].” (1 Corinthians 12:12) Here at Our Lady’s Ranch, we are a community of individuals and families who are not all blood-related (Neighborhood Type #3: the Neighborhood Family).
One cow provides enough milk for multiple households.
Every household at Our Lady’s Ranch enjoys praying, working, eating, playing, and resting together as a community many times each week, depending on the season. For instance, we all pray together at least once a day, and usually more than that throughout the summer. And we all share meals together several times a week, but usually more frequently than that during planting and harvesting seasons. We all work together at least a little every day, and it’s always a lot more efficient to complete our work as a team than by ourselves. For example, when two people are finished milking the cow, one person leads the cow back to its pasture while the other gets started on straining the milk into jars. And the one cow provides enough milk to be shared among the multiple households, so that all of us don’t need our own cow—we simply need each other. And for recreation, because we save so much time by helping one another in community, there is no shortage of playing and resting under Our Lady’s Mantle.
Living and working alone as a single homesteading family accomplishes a necessary and noble purpose, and is therefore commendable and honorable. But the single family homestead (Type #1) entails many hardships that are not easily overcome. We therefore recommend developing a community homestead that can include extended family members and/or brothers and sisters in Christ. Pointing to His disciples, He said, “Here are my mother and my brothers, for whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” (Matthew 12:49–50)
The members of a neighborhood community depend on each other.
All communities have their own challenges, and they require sacrificial leadership (just as parents sacrifice for their children). But the opportunity for spiritual growth and the fruits of this homesteading lifestyle really prosper through a community arrangement. Before moving to the ranch, when an acquaintance would ask me (Mario) to do them a favor, I would be instinctually reluctant, sometimes even wondering whether I was going to benefit from helping them. But now my relationships are no longer transactional, and I help the other members of the community with a cheerful readiness, because I see them as my brothers and sisters in Christ. When Stevenson needs me to separate the milking cows, or Claire needs me to help her prepare dinner, or Keller needs me to water the fruit trees in the garden, I truly enjoy helping them. And I know that I can always count on my fellow homesteaders when I need them too.
We recommend developing a community homestead that can include extended family members and/or brothers and sisters in Christ.
Moreover, we are bound to each other by the land. When I lived in the city, everyone had their own job which paid them a salary and eliminated their dependence on others. The modern city lifestyle is designed for personal independence, but a homesteading lifestyle is designed by God for a healthy inter-dependence. Here at Our Lady’s Ranch, since we depend on each other for our livelihood, we live more as a family than as strangers to each other. If one of us asks another to put away the chickens that evening, we are inclined to obedience because doing so improves our own livelihood. Here, our virtuous cooperation with each other helps us each thrive spiritually, intellectually, emotionally, and physically. (For further reading on personal Health and Wellness, see our Journal Post—“The Art of Sustainable Living”).
We at Our Lady’s Ranch hope to continue growing as a community. We currently have a variety of ages, cultures, and occupations among our members, and we look forward to including multiple vocations too (Neighborhood Type #4: The Ecclesial Family).
The priest is an integral member of the community he serves.
Each of us within our respective vocations need one another. The priests need to live out their calling to serve others. Without the other vocations, the priests would not be able to fulfill their God-given desire to serve, thus leaving a void in their soul. Likewise, the other religious and laity would not be able to survive without the leadership, instruction, and Sacraments issued to them by the priests. Everyone needs the children within family life because everyone needs a sense of family. And everyone needs to be brought out of themselves, which most fully occurs through the innocent demands of children. Also, religious sisters are needed by the priests and the laity for their prayers, fellowship, and service. Service is made necessary by our inter-dependence of one another within our God-given vocations. And through this service we receive the peace and joy of Christ which constitutes the “fullness of life,” just as God intended, for Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10)
At Our Lady’s Ranch, we desire to live in an Ecclesial Family Homestead and find in it our surest means to sanctity and our greatest joy, for it will be for us, “The Fullness of Life.” Then, while living in the fullness of life we may receive the fullness of joy. “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” (John 15:11)
Come visit our little place of heaven on earth!
We’ll keep you informed of our continuing progress in faith, family, farming, and community, all pointing towards that incredible heavenly community that we desire to someday enjoy all together. And we will continue to fashion our hearts into the Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary as we develop this wild frontier into an environment of love, peace, and joy. We will strive to create a little place of heaven on earth here at Our Lady’s Ranch for, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 3:2)
Until next time…
Wishing you all Blessings and Peace in the love of Jesus through Mary,
Mario, Phil, and all of us at Our Lady’s Ranch
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