Dear Readers,

In honor of my husband shooting a beauty of a buck–11 points!–I’ve reposted last year’s Hunting Soliloquy below.  Enjoy.

But first, here are the boys, holding the thing’s head in the garage before Mass.

And now onto last year’s thoughts…

Opening Deer Season 2018: A Solemnity

Now there are seasons that we celebrate in this household.  You know, like Christmas, Lent, Easter, Hunting, and Advent.  It just so happens that we’re about to embark on Hunting Season this weekend.  Today is in fact Opening Day for North Dakota.

Like any other solemn undertaking, we begin this season with many prayers.  For example, the following prayer may be found in the Divine Office in the Proper of Seasons:

O Lord, please let my husband shoot a deer within the first hour of hunting.  You know, O Lord, how I cannot survive another Saturday without his presence.   I’m afraid I might yell.  And look like this:

Help me.  I need You.  Amen.

As you know, Hunting Season commences with a Class 2 Feast Day, which is of course properly called Opening Day.*  You might also recall that at the recent Youth Synod in October many reforms were suggested by the youth to the Holy Father in the hopes of elevating this most important day.*

Suggested Reforms Coming Out of the Latest Synod

1. Holy Father, We the Youth ask that Opening Day may be made a Solemnity and a Holy Day of Obligation wherein in all Youth are required to abstain from school and made rather to walk the glorious fields of God’s creation with a gun.
2. We the Youth ask that this synod might be renamed from “Walking Together” to “Walking Together With Guns.”
3. We the Youth ask that St. Hubert, patron saint of hunters, be made a Doctor of the Church.
4. We the Youth also propose Orange Vestments to be worn during these solemn  of days.

I’m not sure if the Youth were successful in any of these endeavors.  I do know, however, that our household will also be praying the following prayer, which may found somewhere in the Bible.  I think Moses prayed it in the Wilderness with those stubborn Hebrews.

O Lord, you see that our freezer is empty.  We humbly ask that you might provide a 30 Point Buck to fall within sight of my husband’s .243 Rifle.   For You are All Powerful and Glorious forever and ever.  Amen.*

*Not really.  Nope.  These things never happened.  This is nowhere in the Bible.