Father Tigges earns Iowa volunteer award

By Lori Berglund
Special to Lumen Media
 
To Father James Tigges, it’s simply the way he has always lived his life, serving others. To LeadingAge Iowa, it’s a remarkable record of volunteerism, prompting the organization to bestow on him its 2024 statewide Volunteer of the Year award.

An advocacy group for elder Iowans, LeadingAge is a coalition of not-for-profit agencies serving the needs of seniors. The award was presented at the group’s annual Leadership Symposium in Ames this month.

Father Tigges was both surprised and humbled by the award. Now retired from active ministry, Father Tigges makes his home in the retirement community of Friendship Haven in Fort Dodge. He volunteers in a number of capacities throughout the Friendship Haven campus.

“I really enjoy what I do,” said Father Tigges. “I’m finally able to do what I was ordained to do — and that is to serve the people in ministry, in liturgy and the sacraments.”

Father Tigges offers Mass five times each week at Friendship Haven, and also offers a regular ecumenical service for people of all faiths on the campus. In addition, he has long been in the rotation of retired priests who offer daily Mass at the Marian Home, the Catholic senior living community across from Holy Trinity Parish in Fort Dodge.

With a number of his fellow retired priests now facing health issues of their own, Father Tigges has stepped up to offer five Masses each week at the Marian Home. That means that, even as a “retired” priest, he’s offering two Masses, five days, every week. He’s a busy man and seems very happy in his work.

In particular, being able to offer the sacraments to the faithful is the most important thing to him. That’s how he envisioned his life as a priest long ago. Now free of the administrative responsibilities of parish life that can take so much of a priest’s time, he’s living his priesthood in full.

“That’s really what keeps me going,” Father Tigges said of offering the sacraments. “If I didn’t have that, it would be a big loss for me.”

Father Tigges credits an active lifestyle for giving him the ability to keep serving, well past his formal retirement in 2016.

“I do swim exercises three days a week, and some walking,” Father Tigges said. “I think it’s the swimming that keeps everything going.” He used to golf, but gave that up to save his knees.

Reading is another favorite pastime, enjoying several different types of reading for both leisure and learning.

In addition to his religious work, Father Tigges has delved into community life at Friendship Haven, getting to know his neighbors and helping out in a number of ways. He volunteers regularly at the front desk, in the gift shop, and he can even be found serving at the monthly happy hour on campus. He’s been known to take some of the wheelchair-bound residents out for walks so they can soak up a little sun when weather permits.
 
“Whatever comes up, I’m pretty much there helping if I can” Father Tigges said.

Growing up on a farm near Willey in Carroll County, Father Tigges learned early on the value of hard work.

“My family taught me the dignity of hard work,” he recalled. “We did all the manual labor that was necessary on the farm.”

It was a pastor at St. Mary’s Church in Willey that recognized something in the young farm boy. The late Father Herman Dries served for decades at St. Mary’s, where 17 young men would become priests and about 40 women would dedicate themselves to the religious life.

“I give a lot of credit to my former pastor,” Father Tigges said. “Father Dries was a big influence in my life growing up. He kind of encouraged me, and when it came to leave Kuemper High School in 1963, I decided to go to seminary.”

Father Tigges said he had made that decision even before high school graduation. He enrolled as a seminarian for undergraduate studies at Loras College in Dubuque. He would attend two years of major seminary at Mount St. Bernard in Dubuque before transferring to the Pontifical College in Columbus, Ohio, for his final two years.

Father Tigges was ordained in 1971 and would begin a long career of parish and school work throughout the Sioux City Diocese. His first assignment was at the Cathedral of the Epiphany in Sioux City. In addition to his work as a priest, he would also teach religious education classes, and even served as a high school guidance counselor at one of his assignments. He retired from St. Mary’s Church and School in Humboldt in 2016 before moving to Friendship Haven.

He empathizes with today’s active priests, who are being called upon to take on more duties than ever before. He encourages Catholics in the pew to support priests with both prayer and action.

“First of all, pray for them,” Father Tigges said. “Be open to them and to their ministries. There is so much that they do and most people aren’t aware of how much they do behind the scenes.”

 After prayer, it’s time to get up and move, according to Father Tigges.

“Help out in any way you can,” he said. “If you are able to volunteer in different areas, especially with religious education, that’s a big one.”

Father Tigges is clearly setting that example with his own volunteer work. For him, retirement has, in many ways, been a time of renewal. Like a long-married couple still in love with one another, Father Tigges still loves his vocation as a priest.

“The joy of the priesthood after 53 years is still there,” Father Tigges said. “The joy is there in celebrating Mass, marriages, confessions and anointing of the sick.”

To serve the people of God was his vocation from the start, and Father Tigges is still doing just that.