Bishop J. Peter Sartain to ordain Arkansas’ newest priest

T.J. Hart, seen here in Morris Chapel at St. John Center in Little Rock in May, will be ordained June 30 and is awaiting his first assignment as an associate pastor.
T.J. Hart, seen here in Morris Chapel at St. John Center in Little Rock in May, will be ordained June 30 and is awaiting his first assignment as an associate pastor.

T.J. Hart has thought about being a priest since he was an altar server at St. Joseph Church in Center Ridge and looked up to his pastor, Msgr. Francis McKee.
But like many young men, it took repeated prodding from the Lord before he followed his calling.
“You can be like me and run from God’s call for several years, but until you accept God’s will for your life — whatever it may be — you are not going to have God’s peace at the core of your being,” he said. “God does not give up on us and we cannot outrun God.”
At 11 a.m., Saturday, June 30 Hart will be ordained a diocesan priest at the Cathedral of St. Andrew in Little Rock. Bishop J. Peter Sartain of Joliet, Ill., will return to the state to celebrate the ordination.
Hart finally took the step to call then-vocation director Father Les Farley after attending the Youth 2000 event at Sacred Heart Church in Morrilton in 2000. Six months later he was in the seminary.
“I was very happy with my job, very successful,” he said. “I went on a search for the missing link and I started praying about that … It became really clear to me that God wanted me to be a priest.”
For the past six years Hart has been preparing for the sacrament of holy orders through studies at St. Joseph Seminary in St. Benedict, La., and St. Meinrad School of Theology in Indiana. Hart said he was encouraged to consider the priesthood all of his life. He was an altar server for the late Msgr. McKee from age 8 to 18.
“He was always very friendly,” Hart said of his childhood pastor. “He was almost like a saint in a lot of ways.”

Events surrounding ordination of Thomas Joseph Hart
A holy hour to pray for Hart and for an increase in vocations to the priesthood and religious life will be held at 6 p.m., Friday, June 29 at the Cathedral of St. Andrew. Msgr. J. Gaston Hebert, diocesan administrator, will preside.
Hart will celebrate his first Mass of Thanksgiving at 1 p.m., Sunday, July 1 at Sacred Heart Church in Morrilton.

Patricia DeSalvo Hart was also supportive of a vocation for her youngest child as well as her nine other children.
But it was his brother Paul’s death in a car wreck in 1996 that got T.J. Hart thinking again about a religious vocation. He said he “started taking his faith more seriously.”
Being a priest or sister was more common in Hart’s family than most. His uncle, Father Raphael DeSalvo, OSB, lives at Subiaco Abbey. A cousin, Father Raymond Rossi, is retired in Hot Springs.
Hart’s ordination next week makes him the 12th person on his mother’s side of the family to be ordained or profess vows.
After graduating from Nemo Vista High School, Hart decided to pursue a degree in agricultural business at the University of Arkansas. Because he was raised on a dairy farm near Center Ridge in Conway County, an agriculture degree was a natural choice. After graduation in 1992, he worked for eight years in a variety of agricultural sales and insurance positions.
“I enjoyed working in the business world, but I was never at peace,” he said.
The religious call finally was too loud for Hart to ignore any longer.
“It definitely wasn’t my will,” he said. “It was God’s will for me. It wasn’t easy to surrender to, obviously, since I was 30 years old when I entered the seminary.”
During his summer breaks from the seminary, Hart worked and studied in Arkansas and abroad. His first summer as a seminarian included an eight-week mission trip to Monterrey, Mexico.
“It was a very humbling experience for me,” he said.
He completed his pastoral internship from fall 2004 to spring 2005 at St. Joseph Church in Pine Bluff and served at St. Michael Church in Van Buren during summer 2005. As required by diocesan guidelines, he studied Spanish for 10 weeks last summer in Guadalajara, Mexico.
In addition to his seminary studies and parish work, Hart believes that his life experiences will benefit him as a priest. In May 2003 Hart’s father, Russell, died of leukemia. Hart took time away from the seminary to be with his father and extended family.
“I’ve had a lot of dealings with grief,” he said. “I’ve had a lot of trials, helping others in their times of grief and helping them persevere with God’s graces. I love being around older people. … I have a deep compassion for caring for the sick.”
As a child on a dairy farm, Hart is used to having daily responsibilities from sunrise to sunset. In addition to raising calves, he worked in the hay field and garden.
“It taught me a lot of responsibility. I had chores to do before I went to school and I had chores after I got off the bus,” Hart said.
He also considers his eight years of business experience as valuable when working in a parish.
“I’m going from selling agriculture products to selling Christ,” he said. “In my last job with Farm Bureau I was selling life insurance. I’m still selling insurance — the insurance of the salvation of souls, eternal insurance.”
Hart, who will celebrate his 37th birthday July 2, said he is looking forward to getting his first parish assignment.
“My family will get much larger when I am ordained,” he said of his new parishioners.

Malea Hargett

Malea Hargett has guided the diocesan newspaper as editor since 1994. She finds strength in her faith through attending Walking with Purpose Bible studies at Christ the King Church in Little Rock.

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