In 1956 a Jesuit priest named Alban J. Dachauer wrote a prayer book in cooperation with the National Rural Life Conference. Included in that book are a plethora of blessings, prayers and devotions to mark specific seasons, feast days, holidays and holy days along with events of significance in the lives of simple country people. The book includes prayers for blessing everything from houses to lard and bacon.  While today there are those sophisticates who would scoff at any relevance those prayers might offer more than half a century after their creation, there is still an applicable lesson for us.  Even in a world where farmers are fewer and those still in the profession are guided more by computers than tradition we can gather for ourselves a simple guide to what Jesus knew when he commended his spirit into the hands of his Father.

All the prayers in the book, which by the way, is still in print and offered by the National Rural Life Conference, offer a lesson in true faith, gratitude and total reliance on God.

As we move through the Thanksgiving Holiday to the end of the liturgical year and prepare ourselves for Advent, perhaps we can read this farmer’s Prayer in Advent and take a lesson from it. We can see how those people who rely on the earth for their personal economy somehow understand God’s work made manifest in nature and, through that work, have abandoned themselves to His will and have agreed to be a cooperator in it rather than aspire to master it. Surely, that fact has never been more evident than in  this year of record-breaking drought across the nation coupled with horrendous fires and the latest tropical storms.  We can learn from this simple, old prayer that though there may be days of drought, hunger or even suffering, we can all find hope, gratitude and thanksgiving to offer to the God who made us all.

Dear God, all over the world now, the children of Holy Mother Church are singing: “Send down dew from above, you heavens, and let the skies pour down upon us the rain we long for, Him, the Just One, May He, the Savior, spring from the closed womb of the earth!” We know, Lord, and we have seen, what drought does to the land. We know, too, and have seen, the ravages of frost and cold. We have walked in barren fields and up dry hills, through dead, silent woods and lifeless valleys, and along thirsty beds of once flowing streams. We have seen, clearly enacted for us upon the land, what our life would be without You. We can understand, now, how we should long for Your coming. Come, dear Lord and Savior, and do not delay! Rise up in Your power and come! Let the rain of Your grace water the parched soil or our souls. Let the warmth of Your love thaw the coldness of our indifference. Let the life of Your Body and Blood vitalize our deadened energies, and sit us up to fruitful labor in Your vineyard.

O eternal Father, rouse our hearts out of the sleep of sin, so that we may clear the path of Your Son into our souls. Each year in Advent, You gladden us with the thought of our redemption. Grant us, we pray You, that, as we receive Your Son as our Redeemer now, we may, in the future gladly and confidently meet Him as our Judge.

Amen.

Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Advent.