Ty Tomson: "To Restore All Things in Christ"

They say that fashion trends are circular. What was popular today may not be popular tomorrow, but if you wait for the next day, it will be back in style. This is true with more than fashion. It can been seen in some kinds of music from the 20th century, various schools of architecture from throughout history, cooking techniques from around the world, and, yes, even certain styles of dress (especially from the 70s!). Such constant change is either a testament to the fickle indecisiveness of human nature or evidence for our collective insanity.

There is a recent movement to return old things to their original state. This can be seen in the renovation of the old homes of famous people to what it would have been like when they lived there, the use of authentic antique instruments in the playing of medieval music, and the fixing and reusing of old family heirlooms like jewelry, furniture, or wedding dresses. This drive to restore has been present in the Church since Her beginning, since the Apostolic Age in which Christ sent forth His apostles to evangelize the nations has been an inspiration and example for Christians of every age. The call to restoration was highlighted by Pope St. Pius X in his motto, “Instaurare omnia in Christo” (“To restore all things in Christ”).

The college seminarians at the Josephinum have recently taken up this adage. St. Pius X happens to be the patron of our college chapel, in which we saw the great potential to restore to its original beauty seen in pictures from the 1950s. We especially wanted to return pews to the chapel as there originally were, get more appropriate floor covering than the maroon carpet that covered the nave of the chapel, and expose the original brick that is hidden by drywall on the sides of the sanctuary. In our vigor, of course, we promised to donate as much time and energy as was needed for the restoration project, however long it took us. We paid big for that one.

A church in the area was building a bigger church building and offered their pews to us, which we simply had to find a way to transport to the seminary. Although that required a couple of trips with some extremely heavy lifting, it was nothing compared to what would come. Together we spent hundreds of hours over six months stripping, cleaning, sanding, staining, repadding, reupholstering, polyurethaning, and installing the pews for our chapel, and that doesn’t even count the week we stayed after graduation to tear out the carpet, rip up the tile under it, and lay down two layers of a subflooring so the hardwood floor could rest evenly. We will soon be looking into a way to take out the drywall to expose the beautiful original brick that bordered the sanctuary.

Now, the chapel is just about finished. It will take some more work, but it is finally coming together. As we worked for countless hours on these projects, we had a great deal of time to reflect on what connection this project might have for a priestly vocation. Restoration to the original state is a timeless Christian theme, as I said before. But it has to do with more than just the externals. A priest brings the grace of the Sacraments to the faithful and restores them to life in Christ. In Baptism, he restores their fallen human nature to life in the Church and cleanses it from original sin. In Confession, he brings them the Sanctifying Grace for which their souls were designed. In marriage, he brings man and woman together in marriage, as God intended from the beginning. In the Eucharist, he makes present the historical events of the Last Supper and the Crucifixion through the halls of time to the altar at Mass and makes the graces of the Cross flow into our hearts in the Body and Blood of the Lord. In everything the priest does, he is a pontifex, a “bridge-maker,” who joins the gap between man and God and restores their original relationship.

Certain styles or fashions are temporary, coming and going unpredictably. Living in God’s grace, on the other hand, is not transient. It is not only an original state that is meant to be preserved for our time on earth, but also a divine vocation that calls us to beatitude with God forever in the life to come.

Ty Tomson: The Sacred Heart

The Sacred Heart of Jesus is a rather unfamiliar devotion among the younger generations of Catholics, but I think it is a beautifully expressive tradition in our Catholic heritage. How many images do we have in our language that refer to the heart? “It breaks my heart,” “the heart of the matter,” “put your heart into it,” “with your whole heart,” “heart to heart,” and so many others. Scripture also is filled with memorable examples of imagery that refer to the heart: “I am meek and humble of heart,” “do not let your hearts be troubled,” “did not our hearts burn within us,” “sin speaks to the sinner in the depths of his heart,” “thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart.” One meditation about the heart that I have been pondering is from St. Matthew’s Gospel: “Unless you acquire the heart of a child, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

I always considered that metaphor an inspiring testament to the innocence, purity, and simplicity of children and a summons to acquire these childlike virtues even in our adulthood. Then I read some of St. Augustine’s writings. He had a different view of children’s behavior. He wrote that children are basically selfish and whatever they do is out of self-interest and greed. At first I thought that was a little harsh, but when you think about it, isn’t there some truth in his suggestion? Think of the time when a baby learns how to say “no.” The parents’ lives are miserable! When does that baby become mature? We could say when he learns to set down the desires of his own will and think of others before himself, that is the point at which he gets beyond this childlike phase. But I would like to reconcile the scriptural notion of the heart of a child and the Augustinian idea. I think the answer lies in the problem that plagues our world so thoroughly and so constantly that we are sometimes so accustomed to it that we hardly realize its presence: the harmful effect of original sin. As a result of original sin, as the Catechism teaches us, “human nature is weakened in its powers; subject to ignorance, suffering, and the domination of death; and inclined to sin (This inclination is called ‘concupiscence.’)” (CCC 418). Scripture encourages us to take on the heart a child should have, as God originally intended, unstained by original sin; St. Augustine calls us to notice the effects of that original sin in our world and in our personal spiritual lives.

The Sacred Heart of Jesus, however, was left untouched by original sin. That is why such strong emphasis upon devotion to the Sacred Heart is fitting. The Heart of Jesus is a model for us all since, as the Catechism goes on to say, there is a struggle between the spiritual ideal of perfected human nature to which we are called and for which we were created and the reality of our inheritance of fallen human nature. This struggle leads us into spiritual warfare, and the goal that we must have is that sinless childlike disposition that is exemplified in the Sacred Heart of Jesus. As we notice more and more the iniquity of man in his fallen and miserable state, we should be driven more and more to venerate the Sacred Heart of our Savior. For, unless we make our hearts like His, we shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

Ty Tomson: Writings of Benedict XVI

Since the new Holy Father Benedict XVI was elected, I have been looking back through some of his writings: I figure if my boss is one of the most respected theologians of the modern era, I should at least see what he has to say. What he has already said probably will indicate what he is going to keep on saying in the future. Most importantly, I went looking for things he has said about himself, because I think you can learn much of what you need to know about a person from what he says about himself. Since His Holiness is a rather humble guy, it’s not easy to find much. He did write memoirs entitled Milestones, which covers a great portion of his life. But I stumbled across a most interesting part of a more recent work, God is Near Us. In it, he speaks of himself without even realizing it! It was a sermon delivered in 1977 entitled “A Church of All Times and Places.” Concerning the Mass, he says, “it can be carried on only in unity with the whole Church and with her authority. That is why the pope belongs in the Eucharistic Prayer.” He stresses the Church as a universal communion “of all times and of all places,” united under the Holy Father. It is true throughout history that whenever a person or group separates from the Supreme Pontiff, they stray from the truth. In fact, in the early Church the bishops themselves (with St. Peter being primary among them) would travel around and celebrate Mass, and as it became more difficult due to the growing number Christians they ordained priests to carry this out in his name; the same idea is at work today in our dioceses. There is a hierarchy in the Church; every parish priest celebrates Mass on behalf of his bishop in union with the Holy Father. This connection to the Bishop of Rome keeps us individually and collectively assured of God’s grace, for He will never abandon His Universal Church. Now that the man who wrote about this has succeeded to the See of Peter and is himself the Vicar of Christ, the visible symbol to everyone of all things “Catholic” (which means “universal”), his words ring all the more true. The connection to our Holy Father must run deeper than simply a ceremonial necessity or an obligatory ancient custom. It has to be more profound than even an intellectual adherence to the Church and Her teachings through him. Our bond with him must be an intense spiritual one, as he is the one who unites all of our prayers – more than symbolically – as a whole Church. These reflections which have come to be about himself have great importance already in these early days of the pontificate of Benedict XVI, as he has stressed the unity of the worldwide Church and reached out to bring others to the fullness of the Faith. As a priest, I hope one day to bring the ultimate prayer of the Church, the Mass, under his name during the Eucharistic Prayer: “We come to you, Father, with praise and thanksgiving, through Jesus Christ your Son. Through Him we ask you to accept and bless these gifts we offer you in sacrifice. We offer them for your holy Catholic Church, watch over it, Lord, and guide it; grant it peace and unity throughout the world. We offer them for Benedict our Pope, for Frederick our bishop, and for all who hold and teach the Catholic Faith that comes to us from the Apostles...”