Fr. Tim McCabe, SJ, smiles and waves to well-wishers June 13 after being ordained a Jesuit priest at Queen of All Saints Basilica in Chicago. Fr. McCabe, 52, a Ferndale native, will serve his first assignment as associate pastor of SS. Peter and Paul (Jesuit) Parish in Detroit and as director of its Warming Center for the homeless.Detroit — Ferndale native Fr. Tim McCabe, SJ, who was ordained a Jesuit priest June 13 in Chicago, brings a lifetime of experience working with Detroit’s least-advantaged citizens to his new ministry, which begins where his journey began, in Metro Detroit.
Fr. McCabe and seven other Jesuits were ordained by fellow Detroit native Indianapolis Archbishop Joseph Tobin at Queen of All Saints Basilica in the Windy City.
“Archbishop Tobin is a wonderful, prayerful man,” Fr. McCabe said, whose home parish is St. James in Ferndale. “It was an exceptional ceremony.”
At 52, Fr. McCabe brings more life experience than the average newly ordained priest.
His love for the poor has been a driving force throughout his life and will continue in his ministry.
“I have always been drawn to being near the poor and marginalized,” Fr. McCabe said. “It was the Detroit peace community and the Catholic Worker Movement that exposed me to what it meant to live out the Gospel mandates of feeding the hungry, housing the homeless and advocating for peace and justice.”
Before joining the Jesuits in 2005, Fr. McCabe worked for an inner-city construction cooperative, a soup kitchen and as director of a refugee resettlement organization now known as Freedom House in Detroit.
Fr. McCabe first encountered the Jesuits while on a humanitarian aid mission to El Salvador in the mid-1980s. Those relationships led to his attending the Jesuit-run University of Detroit Mercy, from which he graduated with a degree in political science.
“After graduation I served for 12 years as the executive director of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps,” he said. “While working with JVC I feel in love with Ignatian spirituality, and it became not only how I prayed but how I understood the world. In 2005, it became a natural step then for me to enter the Jesuits.”
During his 10-year journey toward priesthood, Fr. McCabe worked in a hospice for the homeless in San Francisco, taught religion at Our Lady of La Salette School in Berkley and was chaplain at the Oakland County Jail.
Fr. McCabe is also used to being the target of good-natured teasing by his more youthful classmates.
“Oh yes, there was no end to the verbal jabs,” he recalled. “They are a quick-witted group. We have a lot of fun together and banter is all part of the way we express our love and affection for one another. The big joke was always that the Church would have to ordain me in our infirmary and they would have to bring me in a wheelchair.”
Detroit native Archbishop Joseph Tobin ordains Fr. Tim McCabe, SJ, of Ferndale, to the Jesuit priesthood June 13.Prior to making his Jesuit vows at SS. Peter and Paul (Jesuit) Church in downtown Detroit and studying advanced philosophy at Chicago’s Loyola University, Fr. McCabe made the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, a 30-day silent retreat.
After his vows, he was Detroit Loyola High School’s development director, worked with the Ignatian Spirituality Project (which provides retreats to homeless men and women), earned a Master of Divinity from the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University in Berkeley, Calif., and served as a deacon at St. Agnes Parish in San Francisco.
Fr. McCabe celebrated his first Mass at the Madonna della Strada Chapel at Loyola University and his first assignment will be as associate pastor and director of the Warming Center at SS. Peter and Paul (Jesuit) Church in Detroit. The Warming Center provides food, showers, laundry services and medical and legal assistance to the homeless.
“I love my current work at SS. Peter and Paul and the Warming Center,” Fr. McCabe said. “I hope I am always missioned to where the need is greatest. I think my vocation, in some form or another, is about pointing to the One we follow, the living God present in our midst and saying, ‘Look, there He is!’
“The world is in desperate need of knowing that God is here, God is really here speaking to us, revealing his love for us, laboring with us, in all our joys and suffering. God is present in the Eucharist, yes, and in every moment and breath of our lives.”
Fr. McCabe was already well on his way to the priesthood when fellow a fellow Jesuit became Pope Francis. While the Argentinian cardinal’s election to the chair of St. Peter didn’t influence Fr. McCabe’s decision to be a priest or a Jesuit, it bolsters his ministry and life’s passion for helping the world’s least privileged.
“I am a huge fan of Pope Francis,” Fr. McCabe said. “I love his focus and attention on the poor and the marginalized. I think that’s what our Church ought to be: the expression of God’s love and infinite mercy to all persons, but especially those poor or afflicted in any way.”
Tim Keenan is a freelance writer based in Farmington Hills.
