In This Edition
The Editor’s Desk
Anyone Up For Subtober? (Just Kidding) - I published a detailed review of my SUBtember subscription drive, including lessons I learned and stats I looked for. If you are interested in the inner machinations of newsletter writing, you may be interested in this!
The Peasant Times-Dispatch
Saints & Heroes - In the Podcast I discuss the importance of having Saints and Heroes and share a couple examples, among other ramblings.
Open Thread: Patron Saints - In the Open Thread I invited you to discuss your patron saints, or otherwise heroes who motivate and inspire you, and we had a lively discussion and even learned about some new saints!
Peasant Library
Episode 8 of the Adventures of Tylus Worran is now an Early Access feature for paid subscribers! Right now the wait is only one week for Free subscribers, I may modify this in the future.
Birds and Angels - An Essay - I am going to start posting some other posts—possibly crossposting from Wordpress—to mix up the variety, but I will not be pushing notifications. If you are interested, check in often or wait for each months Edition where I will link to anything you missed since the last Publication!
Before the Fall - A Poem - Here is a poem crossposted from Wordpress. It is one of my favorites, if I may say so, and occasionally I get a poetical itch so here is a taste and I am sure I will post more!
The Urgency of Forgiveness - An Essay - A reflection on Forgiveness, based on the Lord’s Prayer.
The Discourses
I am still developing content for the Discourses, I hope to launch in the new year!
The Pantheon of Patron Saints
I opened this month with a Podcast and a rambling discussion of Saints and Heroes. I then opened the question to you, to solicit your input on who are your Saints and Heroes whose deeds inspire and whose virtues you hope to imitate.
October 18th is the feast day of my confirmation—or rather, conversion—saint, St. Luke. One of St Luke’s symbols is a winged Ox, the Ox represented the sacrificial nature of Christ’s life and an important aspect of Christ’s life we are called to imitate. St Luke is the patron of physicians, because he uses language that is the equivalent of medical jargon for the time. I believe instead of the Greek for “knife” he uses “Scalpel” in at least one place in scripture. He is also a historian, so described for the historical details we get about Christ’s early life and the style which matches contemporaneous historical works. The Gospel according to St Luke also gives us the opening words of the Hail Mary from the Annunciation— “Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee!” and the Visitation— “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.” I also learned recently that St Luke may be one of the two who were discussing the events of the Passion on the road to Emmaus, when a veiled Christ appeared in their midst.
All of these are facts about St Luke but don’t tell you much about my relationship with him. I feel like I have been chosen by St Luke, and have been under his watchful care since before I was even Catholic. I was raised Anglican, and the Anglican parish I went to was—you guessed it—St. Luke’s Anglican Church. He appealed to me also in the capacity of Historian—I love History, and part of what is so edifying about the Catholic Church is the depth and detail of the historical records we can access. Learning about Church history has scratched an itch I didn’t know I had.
Praying for St Luke’s intercession has brought me peace. It’s not much, usually a quick invocation; it’s not frequent, usually when I am really worried about something. But when I need a friend in Heaven, I know I can call on him.
There are other Saints who pepper my spiritual life. A few years ago I began the practice of choosing a patron saint for my online writing, and looking back I can see the influence of each saint on how that year progressed. This year, in January, I put my work under the patronage of St. Paul, that great evangelist. Now here I am—with a burgeoning Substack, figuring out how to bring the Peasant Life to the people. St. Joseph is a frequent counsel to me, and I would err not to mention the Queen of all intercessors, Our Lady and Blessed Mother, Mary. Sometimes I will also look up intercessors for a specific topic—St. Monica, the patron of disappointing children, whose constant prayers helped convert her son, St. Augustine; St. Benedict, whose prayers have helped me banish evil when it creeps into my mind; St. John the Baptist, whose whole life was devoted to pointing people to God. I call on each of these at different times, and look up still more when I need help on a specific topic, task, or problem.
As a peasant, keeping a pantheon of patron saints is immensely helpful. They help us to pray for the things we need— “Knock and it shall be opened to you, seek and ye shall find”—God wants us to ask specifically for the things we need, he has abundant grace just waiting for us and we don’t get what we don’t ask for. As a peasant, it is important to be mindful of our needs, to not carry the burden of providing for all of them all the time, and to ask for help from above when the road feels tough.
And when you don’t know what it is that you need, you can always go straight to the source, Jesus, the font of mercy himself.
Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us!
Thank You
Thank you, as always, for reading with me. You may have noticed that I have been making a lot of changes but I hope you will agree that they are to improve the meager offering here. As we close out the year, I have grand plans for next year and I hope to further articulate what the Peasant Life is, what it means, and why you need it too.
Thank you, and God bless you all!
Ad Jesum Per Mariam