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Happening ... in the Local Church
 “Working
with young people gives them the chance to see priests as real people,”
said Father Tim McFarland, CPPS, left, who has served at Saint Joseph’s
College, Rensselaer, since 1985. (Photo courtesy Brother Tim Hemm, CPPS) |
 Father
McFarland became interested in photography while working on his master’s
degree. Samples of his photography can be viewed online at
www.saintjoe.edu/~timm/ |
By Caroline B. Mooney
The
Catholic Moment
RENSSELAER — Father Tim McFarland, CPPS, has been a priest for 25 years, and most of it has been spent serving his alma mater, Saint Joseph’s College. He enjoys his special ministry, but he admits that “working in education was never even on the radar screen for me.”
Ordained a priest for the Missionaries of the Precious Blood, Cincinnati Province, on June 18, 1983, he was in the last group to be ordained in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati by then Archbishop Joseph Bernardin, later Cardinal Bernardin, archbishop of Chicago. Father McFarland now serves as associate vice president for academic affairs, coordinator of the Core curriculum and associate professor of religion at Saint Joseph’s College.
“Being ordained by Archbishop Bernardin was special,” Father McFarland said. “I have pictures of my ordination and now when I have my students read a book by him, I bring in my photos to really personalize it with my experience.”
“What a great person he is,” said Rick O’Dette, head basketball coach at Saint Joseph’s College. Father McFarland witnessed O’Dette’s marriage and baptized his child.
“I went to college here and had him as a teacher and developed a relationship with him then,” O’Dette said. “He is friends with my whole family; he is just like another member of the family. He is the guy in every situation who seems to have the right answer. Whether it’s a difficult situation or something relaxed, it seems right when it comes out of his mouth. ... Around here, whether people have had him in class or not, everyone seems to know who he is and everyone is comfortable around him. He treats everyone so well. I don’t know any better people than him.”
Father McFarland said he became a Precious Blood priest because “I didn’t know there were any other kinds of priests than CPPS. I grew up with Precious Blood priests in my home parish, and I went to Brunnerdale High School Seminary in Canton, Ohio, that was run by CPPS priests.
“One younger priest at my home parish was really influential on me while I was growing up,” Father McFarland said. “He seemed so happy in what he was doing. I thought the idea of helping others as he did was attractive.”
Leaving home as a high school freshman for the minor seminary was a big adjustment, he said. “The total enrollment at Brunnerdale then was about 100 and five classmates were boys from my hometown. It was a good education and a good experience there. I liked seeing priests and brothers as real people, not just someone you saw at Mass on the weekends.”
Born in Ottawa, Ohio, Father McFarland is the oldest of five children.
“When I went away to seminary, my youngest brother and sister were really too young to realize what I was doing, but my family has always been supportive,” he said. “I have witnessed the marriages of three of my four siblings — my middle brother’s wedding was the first one I did. My mother remarried after my father died and I witnessed her marriage. I always imagined a headline in my hometown newspaper reading, ‘Son marries mother.’
“I came to Saint Joseph’s College because that’s where we did our formation,” Father McFarland said. “My junior year in college we had a retreat that really cemented the idea of priesthood for me; I knew this is what I want to do.”
After receiving a bachelor’s degree in psychology at Saint Joseph’s, he spent a year of special formation serving at St. Mark Church in Cincinnati, an inner-city parish.
“I really enjoyed being able to reach out to those on the margins of society,” Father McFarland said. “It was a very good experience. I also worked at a hospital there; the year really confirmed that this is the work I want to do.
“I received a lot of affirmation from people in the parish and at the hospital,” he said. “Once all the chaplains had a conference to attend and I was asked to be around the hospital. It was the first time that I was with someone when they died. It was really nerve-wracking, but the Lord took over. The family really seemed to appreciate me being there. I went back to my office, closed the door and just tried to process everything.
“Whenever I pictured myself trying other options, nothing else seemed to fit,” he said. “I had a sense that God was calling me to do this work.”
He attended Catholic Theological Union in Chicago where he received a master’s degree in ministry and he had two years of ministry practicum during which he worked in oncology and pediatric areas in a hospital.
“My other practicum was in an inner-city parish,” Father McFarland said. “I worked with the RCIA there and I really liked the spirited worship on Sundays.”
As a deacon, he worked at St. John Church in Whiting, Ind., living at the parish while finishing his degree in Chicago.
“I taught junior high religion and worked with the youth group,” he said. “The associate pastor and I started an RCIA process at the parish. It was a moving experience for the candidates as well as the parish; it was really a grace-filled moment and one of pride.”
After being ordained, his first assignment was at the same parish.
“It was nice that the parishioners were part of the process of my being a deacon and then a priest,” he said.
“I first met Father Tim when he was assigned to my home parish in Whiting,” said Bill Massoels, athletic director at Saint Joseph’s College. “I also had him as a teacher in college. We are very close.”
Father McFarland officiated at Massoels’ wedding and baptized two of his children.
“(He) has really been there for us all of these 25 years,” Massoels said. “We do a lot of things together — he is more than just a priest to us; he is a family friend, and is very dear to all of us.”
While working on his master’s degree, Father McFarland became interested in photography. His interest grew over the years, and he was among the first at Saint Joseph’s to have his own Web site, http://www.saintjoe.edu/~timm/. Much of his photography can be viewed online, from photos of his travels to Saint Joseph’s sporting events as well as ongoing campus construction.
“Father McFarland is an important part of our campus,” said Ernest Mills, president of the college. “He upholds the Catholic traditions of Saint Joseph’s as director of the Core program as well as through all of his work in campus ministry. He is certainly a familiar face to students at Mass every Sunday.”
“My provincial asked me to be the director of formation for college students at Saint Joseph’s, and I also became director of vocations,” Father McFarland said. “The dean, an old professor of mine, called and asked me to teach at the college. It was the farthest thing from my mind, but I said yes and taught one class in the Core program. It was another outlet to meet students. I moved more into college campus ministry, then became a full-time faculty member in 1987.
“Working with young people gives them the chance to see priests as real people,” Father McFarland said. “We may talk about something in the classroom that becomes fodder for conversion outside of class. The students are appropriating a faith that is their own — not their parents’ faith.
“It doesn’t seem possible for 25 years to have passed,” he said. “When I was ordained, a friend videotaped the ordination for me and I watch that tape every year on my anniversary. I watched it this year, and it really struck me how many people who were in attendance that day have passed away.”
Father McFarland also teaches classes for the diocesan Ecclesial Lay Ministry program. He hopes to celebrate his ordination anniversary with a trip to photogenic southern Utah.
Looking back over 25 years, and his long career in education, he said, “It seems that is what God had in mind for me.”