THE FOUR MEN FEAST

MEN OF THE PARISH BEGIN A NEW (AND OLD) TRADITION OF FEASTING

For about the last five years, each Fall, I have been attending a delightful event called the Four Men Feast. The feast features beer, bacon, eggs, bread, poetry, songs, toasts, and (of course) fraternity. And while the whole evening is lighthearted and fun, at the heart of our feast is a current of joyful and thankful praise of the Most Blessed Trinity and veneration of our Blessed Mother, Mary.

The Four Men Feast was inspired by a book of the same name written by the great English writer Hilaire Belloc. Belloc was a bellicose defender of all things Catholic. His was not a gloomy Catholicism. Rather, Belloc saw the good in creation as a reflection of the loving goodness of the Creator. A famous poem of his accents this point: “Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine, there’s always laughter and good red wine. At least I’ve always found it so. Benedicamus Domino!” Amen. His friend G.K. Chesterton had a similarly Catholic view: “Drink because you are happy, but never because you are miserable.”

In the Four Men Feast, Belloc gives a fictional account of four friends walking across County Sussex in England. Throughout their walk, the men tell stories, sing songs, and recite poetry. It is a mixture of the silly and profound. At the end of their walk, on All Souls Day, the men hold a feast featuring the aforementioned fare. One of Belloc’s characters, Grizzlebeard, notes the marvel of bacon: that a pig can only be cured after it is dead. Indeed, bacon is truly a marvel and a proof of God’s goodness and love.

In recent years, inspired by this book and its concluding feast, Catholic men have begun to host their own Four Men Feasts. A friend of mine brought the tradition from Minnesota to Ann Arbor. Last year some men from our parish and I brought the feast to Lansing where it was graciously hosted by parishioner Matt Clark. We intend to host another feast this Fall.

It may seem like an insignificant thing, but I’ve come to see feasts of this sort as essential to the restoration of Christian culture. Catholic culture has always beautifully balanced fasting with feasting at appropriate times throughout the year as both the liturgical and natural seasons change. Contra Chesterton, too often people eat and drink when they are miserable; and they never fast, which ironically robs the feast of its meaning and even of its pleasure.

As with Belloc’s book, our poems, songs, and toasts are a mixture of the silly and profound. Ideally, each of the men memorizes something to share, which is usually done outside, around a fire. Sadly, modern man has mostly lost this capacity for reciting poems or singing songs. Few us know anything by heart anymore, instead simply consuming massproduced “pop” entertainment. In a small way, the Four Men Feast seeks to remedy this.

I hope to see many men at this year’s Four Men Feast!

SR. TERESA MARIE