April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
YEAR FOR CONSECRATED LIFE
Longest-tenured priest turns 100
After all, there's a significant age difference between the siblings: Ms. Printsky will be 92 in March, but Father Baniak turns 100 on Feb. 26.
"There were 10 children" in the family, and five are still living, Ms. Printsky reported - including 82-year-old twins Victor and Vincent.
Father Baniak is currently the oldest priest in the Albany Diocese, and also the longest-tenured, with nearly 74 years in ministry. He once told The Evangelist that "my calling to the priesthood has given purpose to my life. Every moment, every day of my life is dedicated to performing my priestly ministry and serving the parishioners."
The new centenarian lives at St. Peter's Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Albany. Although his memory is now fading and he's hard of hearing, friends like social worker Kim Swire still call him "one of the most devout people I've ever known."
Inspired
Ms. Swire met Father Baniak a dozen years ago, when he was still living in his family's home in Troy, where he'd moved in with his brother, Victor, after retiring. She works for the Choices program, a geriatric care management program based at St. Peter's Hospital in Albany.
He's "the consummate priest," she said. "He's always been a person who wanted to teach about religion and beliefs. I'm a Lutheran by background, and we would get into these debates! He's always thinking about our origins, where we come from as people - belonging to God, really."
People have always been the focus of Father Baniak's ministry and his entire life, said Rev. John Provost, a friend who is pastor of St. Mary's and Sacred Heart parishes in Albany. While living in Troy, Father Provost said, the centenarian "tried to help everybody that came to him.
"He never turned anybody away," Father Provost recalled. "I would say, 'Father, they're taking advantage of you,' and he used to say to me, 'But they might not be - and what would God think if I turned somebody away who really needed help?'"
"He felt it was his role in life to [make sure] people weren't left without," Ms. Swire explained.
For many years, Father Baniak kept a busy schedule even in retirement. In his mid-80s, he spoke to The Evangelist about still celebrating daily Mass at Holy Trinity parish in Troy, where he'd previously been pastor; at the time, he was also presiding over a monthly novena to St. Ann and St. Anthony and a First Friday vigil to Our Lady of Fatima, and celebrating two Polish Masses every month - one at Holy Trinity and another at St. Casimir's parish in Albany.
Grateful
He talked then about his deep gratitude for health enough to continue his priestly ministry.
In an interview in 2001, his 60th priesthood jubilee, Father Baniak summed up his life as a priest by quoting Jesus' words to His Apostles in John 15:16: "'You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you and have appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit shall remain, [so] that whatever you ask the Father in my name, He may give you.'"
Father Baniak set up an altar in the family home so he could continue to celebrate Mass daily in retirement, but he continued to serve as a confessor at St. Peter's parish in Troy well into his 90s. He would also have someone bring him to St. Joseph's parish in Troy so he could go to Mass and hear confessions there, said Father Provost.
Even today, "he is a man totally dedicated to prayer and to the people that he has served," Father Provost told The Evangelist.
I am Thine
Father Baniak actually wrote a simple prayer many years ago that he recited several times a day, recruiting friends to pray, as well: "Lord, I am me, but I am not mine. I belong to the One who made me. Lord, help me to know I am Thine."
"I used to say it with him," remarked Father Provost, who jotted down the prayer and keeps it with some of Father Baniak's effects he has stored.
As the priest's 100th birthday approached, Ms. Swire was hoping St. Peter's Center would throw a party for him, but his sister wasn't thrilled with the idea.
At their ages, Ms. Printsky said, "We don't go in for such things." [[In-content Ad]]
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