The Ciceronian Society Conference
Last week Stephen and I were in attendance at the Ciceronian Society Conference, which is an academic conference dedicated to Tradition, Place, and “Things Divine.” As you may know, Stephen is also a professor at Mount St. Mary’s, where he teaches Symposium and philosophy courses. Our dear friend, Chris Anadale (another Mount philosophy professor and a CSA member), originally told us about the Ciceronian Society and was also in attendance!
On Friday, Stephen presented a paper that we wrote together titled, “Festivity, Education, and Farming.” To be honest, it is a work in progress, but basically we explained the philosophy behind why the seminarians at Mount St. Mary’s University are working on our farm as a vital part of their education.
The Farm
This made me think this would be a good opportunity to share with our community both the fact that Good Soil Farm is working with the seminarians and what it is we have been doing!
Have you heard of the Propaedeutic Year?
In 2023, Pope Francis introduced the propaedeutic year for Catholic seminarians. Pro meaning before and paedeutic meaning teaching. This is a year that Catholic seminarians now attend before they start their more formal philosophy and theology classes. It gives them a time to focus on prayer, Bible study, and technology detox, among other things.
One of the unique parts of the propaedeutic year at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary is that these seminarians get to work at Good Soil Farm! There are 28 men this year and so they split up into 4 groups. One group comes on Monday afternoons and they work with me. A week later, that group works at the National Shrine Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes, and the other Monday group works with me on the farm. The Tuesday groups also rotate with work at the Grotto, but they work with Stephen here on the farm.
The Work
The work the seminarians do changes week by week, but we have had them do things like:
- harvest veggies
- plant transplants
- scythe weeds
- remove tomato stakes
- chop wood
- build chicken shelters
- repair shelters
- collect eggs
- move sheep
- pick-up trash
- prepare garden beds
- wash eggs
- mow fields
- plant trees
The list could go on and on and is always changing!
Why Farmwork?
There are several ways to do this, one being in an academic paper! But I’ll give you the summary, and if you want to read the paper we presented, just ask us to email it to you!
It is critically important for every person’s formation to have an education in nature and Creation and hard, brow-sweating, satisfying work in order to be educated to love God, neighbor, and Creation. Unfortunately, that is something that is becoming more and more rare in the times we live in. But it is especially important for our future priests to be given the chance to develop themselves in this way as they will one day be the shepherds of the flock.
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