The Consecrated Family Following Behind Christ

Following Christ is hard.

First, imagine financing a tiny farm. There was three years of rehabbing of the entire house
and grounds. There was the building of a massive garden infrastructure, new barn, art studio,
classrooms, livestock pens, and much more. There is a pond. The entire place was fenced in.
Seeds can be cultivated. Animals can be incubated. Water can be collected. There is a three-
year-old orchard ready to fruit. The entire compound is almost self-sustaining. Catechism and
Bible studies start to take place. Fellowship and skill building opportunities begin with the
local parish.
Now, imagine building all of that described above and Jesus asks if you would be willing to
train another family and pass it on to this family of his choice, so that you can go build the
next tiny farm sanctuary somewhere else. Essentially, you are to start the process over
repeatedly. The families trained are to get on their feet and are to do the same. There are to
be no attachments to the physical property beyond the farm being a tool for sustainability.
So, the first question would be why do this? Well, it is simple. We are to tend and feed sheep.
Our Catholic culture in Jesus needs rebuilt. It needs strengthened at the bottom and can then
move upward through the body. We need a renewal of who we are in the Mystical Body of
Christ in the world. The formal worship sites are being demolished spiritually. The home was
destroyed first. As the Domestic Church arises from the ashes, so with the Formal Church.
The Holy Family comes into a community. Builds an anchor to Catholic Culture that helps to
teach others in the community how to feed their local Parish and local Diocese, both
materially and spiritually. This renewed, Passionately Catholic Body in the community can
then serve, sacrifice, and suffer for the people at large with renewed vigor.
We envision Catholics “being” Catholics seven days a week in all aspects of their lives within
the Kingdom of God on Earth (in Jesus). After a farm is built, the Holy Family leaves what it
has built for other Holy Families to begin their journey following Jesus in the world, creating
order where there is chaos, for the sake of Salvation.
We are not to hold to any attachments in this exile. We are to journey in the world, but not
be of it. We are to leave Jesus here when we are called home. We are not to leave ourselves
or our collections of stuff. Stuff serves a sustainability purpose. We are not to be slaves of it.
We belong solely to Jesus.
Following Christ is a gift that Jesus will offer up to the Father for His Glory.