St. Isidore’s Day

Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Concordia, to host this year’s event

The Rural Life Office will celebrate St. Isidore’s Day this year at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish in Concordia on Monday, May 15. The celebration will begin with a Mass at 11 AM. Bishop Vince and Priests from across the Diocese will be officiating the Mass. In the past, this has been a very moving service for those in attendance. There will be a lunch, provided by the Altar Society of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, in Parish Hall following Mass.

During the week leading up to St. Isidore’s Day, May 6-14, there will be a virtual Novena offered to St. Isidore via Zoom. Please visit the Rural Life office of the Salina Diocese website for more information and required registration. Click here to Register.

Each year the celebration includes a blessing of animals and fields in the host parish area. Also, Candy Thomas, Salina, Kansas, a regional soil health specialist in the Kansas state office of USDA-NRCS, will have a demonstration on how different farming practices affect the soil using a rain simulator. Thomas has served in an advisory role on the board of directors since 2013. Thomas believes that NRCS goals align closely with those of No-till on the Plains in helping people improve and sustain the land. NRCS has developed many tools and standards to help farmers improve soil health and soil conservation.

There will also be a trip to the Motherhouse of The Sisters of St. Joseph, Concordia, for a tour of their organic garden. Lyle Pound, the Motherhouse gardener, will speak to the three aspects of organic gardening: ground cover, composting, and mulching. 

The event will conclude at about 3:00 PM with a prayer service at the Sisters of St. Joseph Motherhouse grotto. In the event of rain it will be held in the adjacent chapel.

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St. Isidore’s Day 2022

Catholic Rural Life celebrated St. Isidore’s Day on Monday, May 16, 2022, in Hanover, KS. St John the Baptist Church served as the host for this year’s event. Prior to the Monday event, participants from Lincoln, NE and  Salina, KS Dioceses Catholic Rural Life Offices and the Kansas City Diocese participated in a very successful nine day Novina for St. Isidore via video conference. A day by day breakdown of the Novina can be found on the Salina Diocese’s Catholic Rural Life web page.

Approximately 70 people attended the Mass which was officiated by members of the Kansas City, Salina, and Lincoln, NE Dioceses. Officiating the Mass were Fr. Quentin Schmitz (St. Gregory’s of Marysville, KS), from the Kansas City Diocese; Fr. Loras Grell, Wymore, NE, Fr. Brian Wirth from the Lincoln Diocese; Fr. Joe Kieffer, Hanover, KS, Fr. Rich Daise, Hays, KS,  Fr. Jerome Morgan (Retired), Fr. Soosai Rathinam, Smith Center, and Deacon Ed Souza (Seven Dolors Church, Manhattan, KS) KS all from the Salina Diocese.

Fr. Brian Wirth provided the Homily which was centered on the blessings of rural life and the rich tradition of spirituality in the farming communities in the Great Plains. Fr. Wirth made this point clear when he stated “Farming takes an amazing amount of faith (to help produce) the most perfect and bounteous gift of all; the growing of wheat and grapes to produce the products that will be transformed into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.” He also emphasized that the depending upon faith for a successful crop the farmer, and those who support farming, must work together, not only in faith, but in a spirit of community cooperation and love to survive the ups and downs that are innate in farming.

Activities after the celebratory mass included blessing of animals. A group of Hanover area farmers and ranchers brought their animals to St. John the Baptist Church for blessings. Fr. Rich Daise provided blessings for goats, cattle, and horses. 

Emma Brungardt brought her horse, Guy, to be blessed. Guy is a mustang rescued from the 2019 Nevada wildfires and brought to Kansas. Emma, as part of the Kansas Wild Horse Youth Program, trained him in 100 days. Guy participates in high school rodeo and attends as many parades and celebrations as possible to teach people about mustangs. Emma added “He’s truly a great horse.”

Fr. Rich also blessed the Lazy J Longhorns, Greenleaf, KS, brought to the event by Joe Sedlacek. Lazy J has been raising Longhorns for 26 years. Sedlacek stated, with a broad smile, “They are fun to raise.” Lazy J, at one time held the world record for horn length at 10 feet. Now, they have the number two record of 11 feet. Sedlacek, his wife and five children run the ranch of about 160 Longhorns. This is an example of how family comes together to run a farm.

Following Mass and the blessing of the animals, the Alter Society of Hanover provided lunch for the attendees.

The blessing of fields occurred while visiting  Rick and Jane Samland, Hanover, KS farmers, butchers, and metal fabricators. They are known as Hired Hands. This family farm demonstrates  how our farming families must be prepared and adapt to do whatever is necessary to maintain the family farm. 

The Samlands led those participating in the event of a tour of their butcher shop and metal fabrication shops. Samland gave a very interesting presentation on the changes in not only butchering meat but metal fabrication over the years of family farming. Some of the techniques used during the butchering and metal fabrication (blacksmithing) processes of the 1800’s can still be found in use today. During the tour of his fabrication operation, Samland mentioned that his current shop was completed in 2011 “with the help of plenty of neighbors…good people…without their help, none of us could survive.” Once again showing the theme of the day; families, farms, and businesses joined in faith and hard work to keep the family farm thriving.

The group also visited Landoll Corporation, Don Landoll, founder.  Over 55 years ago Landoll and a partner purchased a small welding company. Since then, the Landoll family has turned a small Marysville, KS welding shop into a manufacturer of farm and industrial equipment with world-wide distribution. With a vision that includes family, both blood and work families, Landoll has been an innovator in design, manufacturing and marketing of quality products. 

Landoll stated: “We have shared our success with the community by being good stewards to the area community, renovating and putting into operation several vacated properties. We have led the revamp of the now completed Catholic school and playground, airport, Library Park, and a reading garden at the elementary school. We have the largest donor while leading fundraising efforts for the area’s new hospital and is now completing work on the Catholic church.”

The group was able to tour a one million square foot state of the art facility. This included areas for shipping & receiving, equipment manufacture, and equipment assembly. Landoll utilizes local labor in conjunction with automated fabrication and welding machinery to produce a quality product. Many of the robotic systems Landoll and his engineers designed and manufactured in order to meet the changing needs of the farming industry. 

His business is family oriented; employees participate in a profit-sharing plan. This helps to foster an environment of ownership and pride in workmanship. This also keeps with the theme of the day…family, faith, hard work and pride in a job well done.

The Catholic Rural Life office of the Salina Diocese would like to thank all who came to Hanover and Marysville to celebrate this event. Without the cooperation and involvement of our parishioners and clergy, an event like this would not be possible. 

St. Isidore, pray for us!

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