Jared Haselbarth

There were times when the faith was embraced not simply as a thing to be learned, though it was, or a thing to be addressed, though it needed to be, or a thing that could be casually dismissed, although sometimes it was. There were times when the faith was embraced simply because men and women knew it to be a truthful thing. They knew to embrace it, or to be embraced by it, not because they were told to, but because they could recognize truth when it was spoken. There were tribes of us Western folk who did not need to be told about the truth of the ancient faith, but rather we were already bubbling at the top of a fervent Catholic culture which held truth as a foundation rather than a fantasy. We continued to live our daily lives without a second thought - tough daily lives, very often, as we were the poor and happy working folk of farms and fields who had space in our hearts for a reverence to things sacred - from pastures to priests. Life's daily toil was embraced as part and parcel of the faith - a work assigned to us by God for the participation in the world's redemption.

I could see such bubbling Catholic culture in a short novel by Louis Hemon called Maria Chapdelaine, A Tale of the Lake St. John Country. Set in French Canada - it is centered upon a family of land-makers (farmers who make land where there was none before by the brutal task of clearing forests with their own hands and then tilling the soil to make it ready for seed). These French peasants, who had long since agreed that their fathers' faith was not in the least a distraction from a fulfilled life but rather the condition of such a life - even a life of labor on the land - were the first to gain fruits from the mostly virgin soil of eastern Canada. Maria is the daughter of such land-makers, the eldest girl in a family that demonstrates what used to be understood as true "family" - not mere relations and common habitat - but, as a Pope has put it, the cell of society.

That same Pope has suggested that as the family goes, so goes society. Maria has an extremely important decision which is laid at her heart - a decision which from our point of view looks simply like a choice between possible lovers - but from the author's point of view it is a decision which will shape the future world - not just of her family, but of her society. Her decision to choose one lover over another, or rather to accept the one lover that is right for her, in the author's mind, I believe, will impact the very salvation of the French Canadian population. Her society hangs in the balance as it awaits her assent to one of her proposals. No doubt that in the symbolic overtones the author is thinking of another important Maria of Catholic salvific history.

That heaven might be interested in earthly marriages may be confirmed by that divine presence at Cana, or the texts of our ancient stories of Eden, or the Church's insistence that marriage is in fact one of those seven rivers of grace that flow from the divine wellspring and not simply a social contract or even a mere living arrangement. Maria Chapdelaine's decision to marry cannot be reduced to a modern view which indicates that it is simply a personal choice and that the man of least resistance, best looks, and most potential for worldly success are the pinnacle of masculine traits and she should decide accordingly. For Maria, a farming family's eldest blossom, connections to land and faith, to labor and prayer, to her people and her pastors, are not only things which cannot be taken lightly, they are the things which should be the deciding factor in her decision to give her fiat to God and to a man.

She has three suitors: Francois, Eutrope, and Lorenzo. Her first inclination, which is perhaps a commentary on today's young girls, drives her to the handsome and wild Francois. Francois has sold his father's farm and instead lives a life of trade and travel amongst the Indian populations. He is unpredictable, but attractive and full of adventure. Maria is immediately taken by him and has set her young, fatuous heart upon this false heaven - as his last name indicates - for Francois Paradis appears to be the Paradise for which she longs. Their long walks in the pastures of blueberries makes for bucolic serenity and symbolizes the possible fruitfulness of the land and of love - but the scene leaves out the equally important symbolism of making it through a harsh winter with a spouse or a walk through the bleak, snow-covered passages of the winterscape. This walk Francois foolishly makes on his own later in the book in advance of his promise to return to Maria in the springtime. Her heart is crushed to hear that Francois is delayed in his journey through the wilderness and the bitter cold winter earth threatens to take back one of its own. Will God save him? Will Francois return to her?

Eutrope Gagnon is the fellow farmer and the boy next door (I use the term loosely as Mr. Chapdelaine has intentionally moved to an area where neighbors are scarce but always welcome - Eutrope has the next farm up, but it is miles from their door). He is always around and a great help to their farming labors. Although he has not expressly said it, he has clear interest in Maria. Eutrope has purchased his own land outright, owes no debt to anyone, and is hard at work making his house a home and his land arable. He only needs a wife to aid in the awful labor that Mrs. Chapdelaine knows so well. He is awkward. But he is, through and through, the French Canadian Catholic peasant, which appeals considerably, of course, to the Mr. and Mrs., and in many ways without formal admittance, to Maria.

Lastly, Lorenzo Surprenant is the symbolism of all that seemed great in America after the Industrial Revolution. He makes promises of immaculate cities, paved streets, and all the advances of technology that make hard farm labor, in his eyes, a fool's quest. He speaks of a promising salary and a life of ease and peace. It is, of course, to a young farm girl, quite the attractive lure. The adventures of urban living at its best and the tastes of high society that sprung to life in America were the exact antipathy of her existence on the land. Our author allows the argument to be articulated in a scene where Lorenzo contends that the farming life is the life of slavery to land and beasts and that the life of the city and work in the factory affords a man the true freedom he desires. His argument is to a group of friends and acquaintances, but his words are for Maria whom he desires. It is to her that he argues the harshness and the menace of a life in the country. It is to her that he offers the life of ease and entertainment - theaters, newspapers, asphalt roads, shops and crowds, lights, movies, and circuses - places where money can buy happiness - or even sadness if that was the mood of the night. These lures are the bait for Lorenzo's goal - to take this daisy of French Catholic Canada and transplant her as a rose in the false soil of American city life. What he cannot see and what Maria at first overlooks, is that her roots are too deep - and too good - to be transplanted thus. Family, faith, and land may be the ties that bind Maria in Lorenzo's mind, but to the Chapdelaines, and to their race, these are roots which flower so great a soul as Maria in the first place.

Does Francois Paradis return to her? Should Maria believe the tempting and convincing promises of Lorenzo Surprenant and make a new life for herself as the wife of a factory man with a home in urban America and the freedom of which he speaks? Or should she accept what will be a more difficult life with Eutrope Gagnon on the farm near her parents and younger siblings and all that she knows?

In the context of the Catholic culture which permeates their lives, Maria's choice is inevitably tied to the will of God. I leave it to the reader to find out her decision. I suggest that such a book cannot be understood by many of us today who live lives so far from the land, often times so far from their family, and increasingly so far from the faith. Perhaps a book like this might reshape how we think of these three important dimensions of our humanity and bring us not only to recognize the glory of old Catholic culture, but to work towards a new day when our own familial decisions work to produce such a culture again - perhaps through the gift of daughters like Maria Chapdelaine.