Spiritual Father

Spiritual Father

I've been blessed with several true spiritual fathers in 46 years with the Salesians. I lost one of them this morning, Fr. Joe Tyminski.

Fr. Tym became director of the Salesian community in Columbus in 1974, shortly before my class of a dozen young SDB clerics arrived to start our theological studies at the Josephinum. Over the next four years he guided us spiritually, theologically, liturgically, pastorally, and in assorted other ways that had nothing to do with the book learning we were getting in our classrooms up the highway at the Joss in Worthington.

You can't describe the impact that he had on most of us--not just my class but all the classes of SDB priests that he helped form for six years at the Salesian Center, and on the brothers who were there too as part of the staff of the Boys Club or as students at Ohio Dominican or Franklin U. That impact continues--in me, certainly, as I exercise the priesthood of Jesus more than 30 years later, and, I think, also in most of my confreres who shared the experience.

Here's a version of what I wrote on this beloved priest-father (I have tears in my eyes right now) in my "official" capacity as the province's communications coordinator, and sent out to various Church and secular media:

Fr. Joseph Tyminski passed away quietly on Thursday, Oct. 15, 2009, at 5:25 a.m. at Bon Secours-Maria Manor Nursing Care Center in St. Petersburg, Fla. He was three weeks short of his 90th birthday.

Throughout the province of New Rochelle, Fr. Tyminski was known simply as “Fr. Tym.” In Columbus he picked up another nickname among the seminarians, “the Silver Fox,” on account of his distinguished head of grayish-white hair—a name stolen, if you will, from the Cincinnati Reds’ manager of the time, Sparky Anderson.

Fr. Tym was born Nov. 3, 1919, in Orange, N.J. After graduating from Don Bosco Prep in Ramsey, N.J., in June 1937, Joe Tyminski went to Don Bosco College in Newton, N.J., in September as a Son of Mary (“late vocation”). He was admitted to St. Joseph’s Novitiate, also at Newton, a year later.

Bro. Tyminski made his first profession of vows on Sept. 8, 1939, and graduated from the college in June 1942 with a B.A. in philosophy. His practical training was carried out at St. Michael’s School in Goshen, N.Y. (1942-1944), and Don Bosco Prep in Ramsey (1944-1945).

Bro. Tyminski began theological studies at Don Bosco College in Newton in 1945 and completed them at the Salesian seminary in Aptos, Calif. in 1949. He was ordained a priest on June 29, 1949, in the chapel of Don Bosco College.

Fr. Tym’s first priestly assignment was at Salesian High School in New Rochelle, N.Y., from 1949 to 1954, first as a teacher, then as "catechist” (campus minister), and finally as prefect of studies. Since the school was both a day and a boarding school, it entailed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week of academic, social, and spiritual
work.

In 1954 he moved to Don Bosco Technical High School in Paterson, N.J., as the catechist. The school and community included day students, boarding students, aspirants to the Salesian brotherhood, and young Salesian brothers in their postnovitiate formation period. Five years later he was appointed director in Paterson, serving a single three-year term.

Fr. Tym became director of his alma mater, Don Bosco Prep in Ramsey, in 1962. During seven years in that office he oversaw the school’s expansion, including the building of DeSales Hall, a classroom and administrative building which includes also science labs and a large auditorium.

A change in Fr. Tym’s ministry came in 1969 with his appointment as assistant pastor at Corpus Christi Church in Port Chester, N.Y., where he labored alongside the parish’s beloved pastor, Fr. Peter Rinaldi, for five years.

The six years from 1974 to 1980 probably were the highlight of Fr. Tym’s Salesian “career.” He brought his combined pastoral experience in schools and parish to the Salesian Center in Columbus, Ohio, to serve as director. The Center included a Boys Club (no girl members at the time) and the residence of the Salesian seminarians attending theological courses at the Pontifical College Josephinum and a few coadjutor brothers studying at other local colleges—all told, a community of some 50 confreres each year, a youth apostolate reaching several hundred children and staff, and an extensive apostolic program in parishes, hospitals, and the Juvenile Detention Center of Franklin County. The director’s qualities of fatherliness, experience, wisdom, availability, straightforwardness, and love for the liturgy, the priesthood, and the Church—not to mention his skill in the community’s kitchen—earned him the affection of virtually all the confreres, affection that he returned.

The high respect in which the entire province held Fr. Tyminski was reflected in his being elected as the province’s delegate to three general chapters of the Salesian Society: the 19th in 1965, 20th in 1971-1972, and 21st in 1978.

Fr. Tym joined the retreat house staff at Haverstraw, N.Y., for the year 1980-1981, after which he served for one year as dean of students for the candidates to Salesian life (“Sons of Mary”) at Don Bosco College in Newton before being named director of the entire college community (1982-1985), which also included the novices, young professed Salesians, and staff. He came to the provincial residence in New Rochelle in 1985 as director for a three-year term, which was followed by a three-year stint as pastor of Corpus Christi Church. He returned to the provincial house in 1991 for a year.

In 1992 he returned to New Jersey as pastor of Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Mahwah. After seven years of dedicated ministry, he stayed a year with the candidates to Salesian life in South Orange, N.J. (1999-2000), then did another stint at Corpus Christi in Port Chester as an assistant pastor for two years.

Fr. Tym finally went into a quasi-retirement in 2002 at the Salesian Center in Columbus until the community closed in 2008. He moved to St. Philip the Apostle Residence, the Salesian retirement home in Tampa, briefly before poor health required him to move into Bon Secours-Maria Manor early in 2009.

Someone who Fr. Tym long before I did wrote in this afternoon: "Although he was never my director, I will always remember him from my two years as an aspirant in Paterson. He was a friendly, loving priest and a fine gentleman."

Requiescat in pace!