Louisiana’s timber industry is undergoing a difficult trial.  Louisiana Radio Network reports,

The House Emergency Beetle Subcommittee is meeting in Baton Rouge today. The drought last summer made pine trees extremely susceptible to beetle infestations. Pineville Representative Mike Johnson said they are holding the hearing to discuss ways to combat the issue because pesticides won’t work.

“The only way you can stop them is to cut about 150 feet around an infested tree, so it’s a massive undertaking,” said Johnson.

Johnson said the Ips (I.P.S) beetles move from treetop to treetop and within a short amount of time can and have killed many pine trees.

During the session, Johnson sponsored legislation to create the subcommittee because the timber industry is one of the largest in the state.

Modern, science-obsessed, religiously skeptical man is left befuddled by such events, thrown back on his limited store of facts, equations, etc.

In places and eras where and when Christian Faith was stronger, the people had recourse to greater powers for help in times of peril: to God, and to His saints, and to holy, sanctified objects.  There are examples from the past that are very similar to what we are undergoing here in Louisiana with our tree beetles:

Man’s bitter enemy, the most-wicked Satan, in order to harm the supreme creation of God, as much as possible, turns with destructive rage against the material and soulless things that have been given in the service of his needs. Thus he infects fruit trees, vineyards, gardens, fields, various crops, homes and facilities in order to bring pain and misery into people’s daily lives. In the life of Saint Anthony we see the attacks that the Saint received in his humble hut, from the demons, in the form of reptiles and wild beasts, which made terrifying noises to bend the fighting spirit of the great ascetic. The cunning enemy is capable of causing diseases, accidents, and bodily harm to humans and animals.

In these cases the act of sanctification is a valuable and effective deterrent weapon. The sanctified water, according to the relevant prayer, becomes for the “healing of souls and bodies and a deterrent of any opposition”. After the immersion of the honorable cross in the water, “all opposing forces are crushed. The aerial and invisible idols always retreat”, and in the water “electrified” by divine grace “a dark demon and a wicked spirit can no longer be hidden, which lead to the darkening of thoughts and agitation of the intellect”.

Various natural evils come to us. The elements of nature often strike man and his works. . . .

In these difficult circumstances man feels alone, weak and defenseless. Coordinated human societies and the most organized state mechanisms are unable to intervene and effectively alleviate those who are severely tested. It is the old and blessed custom of ordinary people of the countryside in such difficult situations to resort to the act of sanctification, as a gift of God for overcoming difficulties and preventing calamities. The faithful farmers, when clouds of destructive locusts appeared in vineyards or other vegetable crops, went to the place as a family, together with the priest, performed a sanctification of the waters service, and sprinkled the affected areas. After the sprinkling, locust clouds rose and fell into the sea, the lake or the river that existed in the area.

From many such incidents that have been preserved in the collective memory of various regions, very characteristic is the catastrophic locust invasion that devastated the vineyards of Attica in 1600. Then the inhabitants of the region, unable to face the situation and in their despair, called for the abbot of the Holy Monastery of Domvu in Thebes, Saint Seraphim. Crowds of people flooded the Church of Saint Spyridon in Piraeus, where in an atmosphere of prayer the Service of the Sanctification of the Waters was performed. Immediately after the act of sanctification, locust clouds rose from all over Attica and drowned in the sea in the port of Piraeus. A close relative told me a similar incident that happened in the 1960s on the small island of Symi in the Dodecanese. Here, too, the few vineyards were devastated by locusts. They called the abbot of the Monastery of Archangel Michael, sanctified water, sprinkled the few crops and immediately thousands of drowned locusts blackened the sea in the port.

Another incident that is recorded during the years of Ottoman rule in Maroussi, Attica, is also memorable. The Turkish aga of the area saw the Christians who, in such difficult situations, called the priest and with the act of sanctification the locusts disappeared. On a similar occasion, he called on the hodja of the Muslims to do his own thing, in order to get rid of the calamity. Naturally, the hodja, despite his efforts, did not bring about what he wanted, as a result of which he was severely beaten.

Not only can pests be driven away, but the damaged creatures can also be healed.  Louisiana’s blessed Patron Saint, Martin of Tours (reposed in 397), once did this for a fallen tree he came across.  St Gregory of Tours (+594), one of the fathers of French history, records:

In Neuillé-le-Lierre, a village in the territory of Tours, there was a tree that fell over during a strong wind and blocked the public road.  When the blessed Martin was travelling on this road and noted that the way was blocked by this fallen tree, he was moved by pity.  He made the sign of the cross over the tree and raised it up.  Still today this tree is seen to stand up straight next to the road (Glory of the Confessors, Raymond Van Dam, trans., Liverpool UP, Liverpool, England, 1988, p. 25).

There are also examples in the Lives of the Saints of wooden staffs becoming living trees when stuck in the ground.  Among others, St Joseph of Arimathea’s staff at Glastonbury in England did this (+1^st century), and St Audrey of Ely’s staff, also in England, did the same (+7^th century).

Broadening our view, in the wake of covid, and with the Establishment trying to gin up fear over bird flu, these same kinds of remedies are available to help cure human illnesses, too.  Continuing from the previous web article:

October 1918. Agrinio then had no more than 15,000 inhabitants. An incurable disease-epidemic, the so-called Spanish Flu, had swept through the city and literally devastated the inhabitants of the wider area. There was no family that did not mourn a victim of the disease. Science seemed unable to stop the deadly evolution of the epidemic. The death rate, only in Agrinio, reached the number of 40-50 per day. No one accompanies the dead anymore, who are transported in two-wheeled carts by porters to the cemetery, where after a short prayer of the priest, and often without it, they are buried. Residents not only do not take care of their dead but also avoid them for fear of transmitting the disease.

In the face of this panic of the people, the memory goes back 64 years when in 1854 another incurable disease, cholera, had decimated the area. As then so now, God effectively redeemed them through the icon of her who is Full of Grace, the Panagia Prousiotissa. The epidemic goes beyond the borders of Agrinio. It also touches Messolonghi. The nobles of the city with concerted efforts manage to bring the icon of the Panagia of Prusa to the area again. On October 27, 1918, the miraculous icon arrives at the crowded Church of the Holy Trinity in Agrinio. This is where a prayer battle begins. Prayers, vigils, sanctifications of waters are all mobilized and offered with pain and tears at the feet of the merciful Mother. The people process the miraculous icon through the streets of the city to the old Church of Saint Christopher, which was located on its outskirts. This is followed by a 24-hour pilgrimage and transfer to the other churches of the Life-Giving Spring and Saint Demetrios. The people are in a religious upsurge. The answer to faith comes immediately. Many of the sick are treated. The spread of the epidemic stops. The people are redeemed and grateful to their merciful Mother.

Catastrophes are a part of life in a fallen world.  But the Lord in His customary kindness and love has given us powerful and effective means of dealing with them.  Christianity is, despite the skeptical secular scientists’ protestations, an empirical religion:  If a Christian does what his forefathers have taught and done, he will see similar results.  Thus, thankfully, we are not at the mercy of Big Pharma’s or Big Ag’s deadly drugs, mRNA shots, genetically modified crops, and pesticides/herbicides to deliver us from our dilemmas.  Folks in Louisiana, Dixie, and any of the other States can instead use life-giving means – holy water, holy icons, prayers, relics, processions, etc. – to bring an end to our afflictions of pests, diseases, and all the rest.

But it is distressing how much stronger has been the faith of unbelievers in the powers of demonic gods and rituals lately than of Christians in the Holy Trinity, the saints, and their own rituals.  Rod Dreher recounts some of that dark faith in the middle of this essay (the section on dark enchantment).  How shameful for Christians!  We deserve the reproaches of our enemies for our weak, shallow faith.  The Church will never be able to attract the greater number of people in society to her – and thus to inspire, help, and heal them – with faith and love that are this cold and lacking.

There is no time like the present for repentance, though.  May the Lord Jesus Christ strengthen the faith of His Bride, His Body, His Church, that she may be victorious in all the battles between Good and evil, however and wherever they may take place, whether in a forest of Louisiana pine trees, or in a corporate boardroom, or within our bruised and battered hearts.