The country is my life. Here in the Mass I see the meaning of that life. Throughout the world others kneel at Mass with me -- other members of the Mystical Body -- the factory workers who produced the machines on my farm and in my home, the harvester at Moline, the radio at Cincinnati, the car at Detroit, the tires at Akron, the furniture at Grand Rapids.
With me in this Mass, the perfect gift of love offered by our Lord to our Father in heaven, are the actor in New York, the printer in Chicago, the street cleaner in Brooklyn, the radio engineer at the Junction, the charwoman in the Empire State building, the truck driver on Route 34, and the union organizer in the smoke-filled room.
I offer . . . I adore . . . I thank. They too offer, adore, and thank, the same God!
I have done my chores early. Many of my fellow workers have worked all night. They may have gone to the five o'clock Mass or will attend the noonday Mass. I am here kneeling at the early morning Mass, in our little rural church.
My prayer is but one note in that great chorus of prayer directed to God's heavenly throne. It reaches there as a unit from the Mystical Body of Christ on earth . . . "My Sacrifice and Yours". . .
How dare I think evil or be suspicious of my brother . . . fail to know him . . . fail to understand his problems . . . fail to cooperate . . . fail to help him in need . . . fail to love him?
Farming is my vocation. Here at Mass I am one with all the farmers of the world. Near and far from me they kneel, my fellow farmers: the beet worker in Montana, the hop picker in Washington, the vegetable gardener in New Jersey, the wheat harvester in North Dakota, the corn picker in Iowa, the fruit grower in California.
How can I look upon them as my competitors in a cruel world, in a fight for the survival of the fittest?
They are my brother plowmen and our common Father is a divine husbandman. The Mexican thinning beets, the colored man picking cotton, the Italian gardener, the Japanese, the migrant, are members of the same Mystical Body. Even closer to me than other workers throughout the world.
We fellow workers in the field have much in common: the heat, the sweat, the sunrise and the bright sunset, the breezes, the storms, the dancing clouds, the waning light of evening.
With the Three Young Men in the Fiery Furnace I, too, may proclaim:
"O all you works of the Lord, bless the Lord; Praise and exalt him above all forever."
This land is my portion. Here at Mass with me in Christ are all whose portion it was before me, and all who shall come after me to have it for inheritance. My family kneels beside me. We worship together as we work together. Where we work, there do we live and worship.
My grandparents settled here many years ago. Their names are on one of the parish church windows. I hope my children's children will be here at Mass generations from now. The little white tombstones mark the resting place of my ancestors in the evergreen grove just beyond the sanctuary. There among the ashes of my fathers, I, too, will rest some day. In somno pacis! In the sleep of peace.
I must be proud of my family, of the very soil in which my children have their roots.
To my parish I owe loyalty; to my parish church, love; to my school, devotion. They have been to my family and me the heart, the core, the wellspring of all our growth.
In this little church in a country parish the lawyer, the doctor, the banker, and the storekeeper kneel beside me. They are my friends, members of my community. I am their brother.
I am a farmer. I am at Mass. My work in the field is but the prelude to the Offertory of the Mass. Each season brings the wheat and the grapes closer to the sacrificial altar. I am a simple but proud partner in God's ever-new creation. How can I, a farmer, forget how noble is my calling? Can I consider my work not dignified? It is not merely clods of inert soil I work with, but millions of God's invisible creatures. It is not just a wheat stalk or a kernel I behold, but God's rain, sunshine, blue sky, captured therein and held prisoner, that on the altar it may again become a prisoner of love, a Sacrificial Victim. Ite Missa Est!