The Father’s Steambox

THE FATHER’S STEAM BOX

My classmate, Father Tom Tassone, is an exceptionally talented man; he can build just about anything. One of the last things he built (while he was still living at Saint Joseph’s) was a wooden boat. When I saw it and asked him, “How did you bend the wood like that?” he told me about the steam box.

It’s an enclosure made by the woodworker that he fills with steam before inserting pieces of wood to make them pliable and able to bend without breaking.

I recalled this at Daily Mass last week while reading from the Book of Jonah, because the story of Jonah and the people of Nineveh tells of how they were once rigid but would finally bend to God’s will.

The idea of being reshaped by God helps me not to think of myself as entirely bad, but in need of grace and formation. When God told Jeremiah to “go down to the potter’s house” to “watch him work at the wheel” Jeremiah questioned why. God replied, “See how the potter can reshape the clay according to his liking. Can I not do this for you?”

Isn’t this what the Christian life is all about? Isn’t the Church a kind of spiritual steam box that God uses to reshape us into the likeness of His Son? Entering into this communion means being surrounded by the grace and warmth of the Holy Spirit - all of which helps to overcome our resistance to conversion.

BETTER NOW THAN LATER, LITTLE GIRL

But will we allow God to soften our hearts in order to change them? Pieces of wood need not assent to their maker, but we must. God will not force Himself on us.

A funny thing happened last weekend in the church: A woman was holding her little granddaughter in her arms and asked her, “Would you like Father Rob to give you a blessing?” But the girl, who couldn’t have been more than two years old, turned away as if to say, “no.”

A parishioner who saw the rejection said, “Sorry about that, Father Rob.” Ego bruised. But we shared a laugh when imagining my saying to that little girl, “Look; you either let me give you a small blessing now, or it’s going to be an exorcism later!”

I’m joking, but also serious. If God is as intent on our salvation as He seems - not to mention Our Lady - it seems He will have His way with us in the end. We can either let Him give us a thousand little blessings now, or a dreadful one later. Wood has it easy; it has no stubborn will to resist the steam box.

PETER’S BOAT

The man of this world is indeed not so agreeable. In every age, he insists on building new boats using the very same blueprints drawn up for the ones that sank last year and the year before.

But the Barque of Peter, the Catholic Church, sails the seas of time unshaken, holding Her course through the gale with a hull held tight by the close communion of Her men and women who, like wood formed in the steam box of the Master Builder, retain the shape of their relationship to the keel and to one another.

This is why the word nave refers to the part of the church building where the Faithful are seated. It comes from the Latin, navis, meaning “ship.” Its an ancient way of identifying the Church as a seaworthy vessel sailing toward the harbor of heaven. +