Sharing their faith

STEARNS COUNTY — Growing up on a dairy farm, the Molitor sisters were raised with a strong dose of faith, family and farming.

“Our grandpa, uncle and dad had such a strong devotion to daily mass and the rosary, and they instilled that in us growing up when we were working together on the farm,” Abby Thomas said.

Thomas is one of eight sisters who grew up on their family’s 300-cow organic dairy farm near Rockville. The third oldest sister, Leah Brix, came up with the idea in 2021 to start a blog where the sisters could share their story.

“You just have to have faith when you live on a farm,” Brix said. “You rely so much on God; you put the seeds in the ground and pray that they come up, but it’s all in God’s hands. It is so beautiful if you carry that concept throughout every area of your life.”

The blog, Catholic Country Chronicles, shares the sisters’ real-life stories and how they include their faith in their everyday lives.

“Each one of our blogs starts with a story, and then, there is a message afterwards, kind of how Jesus did it, by telling parables,” Brix said. “It has been really fun sharing our faith.”

The sisters share about life growing up on the farm and now raising their own families. A blog is posted every Sunday, and Brix and Thomas take turns writing.

“There are just funny, random things that happen to us, and I love to share those,” Brix said. “We keep it light and upbeat. We simply want to share our stories and how they relate to our faith.”

Thomas said one key factor for doing their style of a blog is being an open book.

“We are honest and vulnerable with each other, which then, in turn, we are honest and vulnerable with our readers,” Thomas said.

All the sisters are involved at some level within their church.

“We have all these unique perspectives in the Catholic faith,” Brix said. “We are all involved in ministries in different capacities.”

In the end, Brix and Thomas are the main contributors to the blog, and the other sisters and their dad write on occasion.

“Some of our top posts are ones where we really open up about life’s struggles and how we overcame them,” Brix said. “I have gotten feedback from people across the country thanking me for specific posts and how they helped them.”

Thomas agreed.

“Those messages give us the affirmation to keep going and that this blog is making a difference,” she said.

The sisters said their audience has doubled since they started in 2021, and they are gaining more readers from outside central Minnesota.

“The exciting part is that our top posts each week are not the most recent ones, like they were at the beginning. Now, specific older posts will get hundreds of hits a week from people across the country who are finding us on Google,” Brix said.

Brix and Thomas have since started a website, social media pages and, most recently, a podcast to share their stories of faith.

“Abby has been talking about doing a podcast for years, but we had no experience with it,” Brix said. “But just like when we started the blog and then the website, we had no idea what we were doing; we just jumped in with both feet and figured it out.”

The sisters researched microphones, sound equipment and software, and they invited another sister, Hannah Molitor, to join them.

“Their stories are so relatable with growing up in rural Minnesota and now raising their own families in the faith,” Molitor said. “So far, our first podcast is about being grateful, our Thanksgiving traditions and being practicing Catholics. Our next one comes out in the middle of December and will highlight funny Christmas stories from our childhood as well as some insights into the unique and special names of God.”

The plan is to have weekly podcasts featuring their blog posts and, once a month, a longer podcast hosted by Molitor, Thomas and Brix, with guest testimonies and additional stories.

“We mainly write about the things we are going through right now and talk about lessons learned from growing up on the farm and how that shaped us into who we are today,” Thomas said.

Having the platform has also allowed the sisters to speak at events hosted by the St. Cloud Diocesan Council of Catholic Women. They have also spoken to youth groups and at parish retreats and have even hosted events of their own.

“At the time, when we started doing (the blog), I was engaged and Leah was already married with kids, so we had different perspectives and could attract different audiences,” Thomas said. “Over the years, the blog gained followers from the local area and across the country.”

The three Molitor sisters have lots of ideas for the platforms and said they are not treating this project as a job but as a calling.

“It is a passion project because we are able to give out of abundance instead of just checking something off a to-do list,” Brix said. “It is such a beautiful thing how it always works out and is so life-giving to us, and we hope it is life-giving to our readers.”