The Blessing of the Fields

By Michael Patrick O’Brien–

After watching spring emerge in Northern Utah’s lovely Ogden Valley for almost five decades, I finally witnessed something I had never seen there before—the blessing of the fields at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville.

Over a period of 70 years, from 1947 to 2017, Utah’s only Cistercian monks transformed a rugged mountain ranch filled with scrub brush and sage into fertile fields for grazing and cultivation. They used many conventional agricultural techniques during this effort and earned local and national recognition. They were innovative too, also earning reputations as forward-thinking farmers and ranchers.

Yet, they also employed some rather unconventional methods. They named each field and pasture after a notable Catholic, such as St. John the Baptist, St. James, St. Stephen, St. Lucy, St. Benedict, St. Pius, and many others. Moreover, every spring, as the alpine snowmelt filled their streams with cold fresh runoff, and just before planting crops like alfalfa and barley, the monks blessed their fields with prayers and Holy Water.

It’s actually an ancient rite, referred to as “Rogation Days” from the Latin rogare, which means “to ask.” The Vatican’s Sacred Congregation of Divine Worship has defined the practice as a time to offer prayers “for the needs of all people, especially for the productivity of the earth and for human labor.”

The Utah Trappist Abbey of Our Lady of the Holy Trinity closed in 2017. Still, late in the winter of 2020-21, one of the retired monks—my friend Father Patrick Boyle—contacted the new landowners Bill and Alane White and offered to bless the fields once again. The Whites are close to the surviving monks too, and are working hard to preserve the Trappist land and legacy in the Ogden Valley. They readily accepted the monk’s offer of a blessing, and Bill invited me to tag along.

It was my honor to drive Father Patrick to Huntsville from his Salt Lake City retirement home at the appointed time—one day after St. Patrick’s Day. The two of us had a wonderful chat during our two hour round trip. I even asked him to verify the accuracy of the recipe for Holy Water once given to me by another priest: fill a pan with water and boil the hell out of it. Father Patrick smiled and said he used a slightly different technique.

Bill and Alane met us at the old monastery’s cemetery, a special and central vantage point from which one can see (and bless) most of the monastery fields. Huntsville mayor Jim Truett and his wife Angel—who like me, has known Father Patrick almost all her life—joined us too.

Wearing his black and white Trappist monk robes and a white and green stole, the 93-year-old monk shuffled back and forth in all four directions. Spraying Holy Water over the now-consecrated acreage to the north, south, east, and west, he prayed, “O God, by whose help we cultivate the earth and all that will grow by the effect of your power, grant that what we know to be lacking in our labors may be supplied abundantly by you.”

The sacred moment also included some levity. Jim Truett—the first Catholic mayor of Huntsville—asked the visiting Trappist monk to bless his treasured medal of St. Hubert, the patron saint of hunters. The gentle Father Patrick obliged, winked, and then told the mayor he’d also be praying that all his hunting shots missed.

While we all watched the kind old monk once again lovingly bless the land he had lived on for over 60 years, the Trappist also described how a blessing infuses its object with holiness and spiritual redemption. However, Father Patrick emphasized, “This is not something done only by priests with Holy Water.” He explained, “Every time a monk lifted a bale of hay out there, it was a prayer.”

Father Patrick then looked at the five of us with him, smiled, and said that we non-monks all consecrate the work of our daily lives by doing it with diligence and devotion. He had echoed the words of Saint John Paul II, the pope who once said that through the dignity of work we not only share in the act of creation but also become more human.

I need to remember that wise insight the next time a difficult array of tasks hits me early on a Monday morning. It’s not just a job, it’s a vocation, with blessings to be both received and shared.

*Mike O’Brien is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. His book Monastery Mornings (found here), about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, will be published by Paraclete Press (more information here) in August 2021.