Summer dog days. Hot. The buoyancy brought on during spring and working outside long gone.

I have spent enough time carrying a hose and buckets of rainwater from our barrel around the house these past two months to appreciate rain at a level I didn’t understand when I was a renter. A dry stretch begins with thirsty plants and a struggling garden, but, in clay country, it can eventually become something much more dangerous—a conversation about soil pulling away from the house slab too. At that point, watering the grounds starts feeling less like lawn care (and fun) and more like a race to make sure your foundation doesn’t falter.

Homeownership has a way of reminding a man that he is not nearly as self-sufficient as maybe he fancies himself. He can turn the faucet on and off, drag the hose around sixteen corners of things, and watch the weather forecast like he’s reading a novel—all necessary and good things—but what he cannot do is command the clouds.

That is why, for the life of me, I don’t know how people do it—do anything in life—without faith.

All of this makes this week’s September Ember Days especially appropriate. Today, Friday, and Saturday—observances from a past long gone but trying to make a return—are traditionally set aside for an intensified level of prayer, fasting, and thanksgiving as one season gives way to another. Their historical agricultural character (check out the Farmers’ Almanac) may seem meaningless to those who don’t own farms, or who are not Catholic, or who are Catholic and have no clue about this great gift God has always given to the faithful, but the distance from that past is not as great as we think. Obviously, we still depend upon the land, the weather, and the quiet generosity of God to provide our basic needs.

Of course some of us are simply praying for rain over a vegetable garden, a row of plants, or enough moist soil to keep the house from beginning to lean like it didn’t have its V8 juice in a while.

Keep up with the series!

HOME RULE #3: The Safest Milk in the South

Saint Leo the Great, pope of the fifth century, explained the deeper purpose of the fast in his Sermon XCI, “On the Fast of the Seventh Month”: “By abstaining from the lawful, resistance becomes easier to the unlawful.”

It is a most powerful teaching that all husbands should be quick to implement in the home. The second plate of food (maybe not the third), the beer (not the case of it), the slice of pie, the ball game, or the comfort in your recliner may be perfectly innocent when handled in moderation and not to the level of sinful sloth and gluttony.

No, enjoyments that are lawful are not necessarily wrong or evil, but that is the trap. It makes us believe that fasting isn’t necessary anymore, in these “non-biblical” times. Both Scripture and the evidence of human nature have made it clear, though: A man who can’t periodically restrain himself will always have to war by his own power against the sins of anger, lust, pride, resentment, and cowardice. Fasting is not hatred of the body or the life God gave us for hatred’s sake. It is practice in governing it. It is the humble man’s sovereignty over it so that the true power of God can lift him through it.

That control begins with himself. He shouldn’t begin the Ember Days by measuring everybody else’s plate. He goes first. He eats less—or better, observes the traditional fast as fully as his health and duties permit—restrains himself from the food he so enjoys, leads the family in prayer, and, if he happens to disturb the peace of the home because his blood sugar level isn’t used to such sacrifices yet, he asks forgiveness and says, “We’ll get ’em next time on Friday.”

And then again on Saturday.

And then he starts studying the traditional calendar for when the next fast will be, Ember Day or otherwise. If he studies the modern calendar, he will see why men and women both are so out of control in today’s society.

Modernity has removed the gift of fasting from our consciences too.

Moving forward, the husband plans these days ahead of time, offering them for peace inside the home and among his family, for love ordered toward truth rather than pleasure and fun, for the honor of God, and for steady rain to come from the clouds—not just one dramatic downpour that has everybody saying, “Man, we needed it,” without realizing that such intermittence is not nearly enough.

Such intermittence runs parallel to our scattered faith lives as well.

A strong man is one who accepts God’s order over himself, then leads through the sacrifice he was willing to make first. He can’t command those clouds, no. But he can place his own appetites under command and ask God, from a more peaceful posture, to send the rains more often.

Thank you for reading The Hayride!