{"id":3751,"date":"2021-01-14T00:00:03","date_gmt":"2021-01-14T05:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/?p=3751"},"modified":"2021-01-14T11:57:28","modified_gmt":"2021-01-14T16:57:28","slug":"honoring-joe-sheehan-sj-d-nov-4-1997","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/2021\/01\/14\/honoring-joe-sheehan-sj-d-nov-4-1997\/","title":{"rendered":"Honoring Joe Sheehan sj (d. Nov 4, 1997)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Late during the Lenten season of 1965, the small group of \u201cProvince Consultors\u201d met with Pedro Arrupe, (newly named the Superior General of the world wide Jesuit Order) in an O\u2019Hare hotel meeting space to address a crisis. \u00a0 The current mid-west Provincial\u2019s ham-handed manner threatened to drive much of the younger half of the Province out, enough that a startling number of influential Jesuits wrote to Rome warning that decisive action was needed immediately. \u00a0 It happened that Arrupe was making his first visit to the U.S. as Superior General. \u00a0The small group met all day. \u00a0 Arrupe asked the consultors whether the situation was as dire as the 50 + letters said. \u00a0The consulters said \u201cyes.\u201d \u00a0 Then, Arrupe asked who in the province might the younger men trust. \u00a0A consensus told him \u201cJoe Sheehan, the current Novice Director.\u201d \u00a0That same day Arrupe fired the provincial and named Joe, to be announced two weeks later, on Easter.<\/p>\n

On Pine Ridge we young Jesuits were 5; \u00a0when we read the letter Easter morning, we began dancing around the dining room, laughing with wonder and joy (e.g., one of us wandered around the room in a daze saying \u201cThere is a God; \u00a0I believe it now, there is a GOD!\u201d)<\/p>\n

Hindsight says that Joe paid a high price to meet the crisis; \u00a0he began to call Jesuits young and old to face the province\u2019s pervasive but little-recognized racism that had created a cultural assumption that the Rez was a penal colony for outcast Jesuits who had gotten themselves in trouble or who were perceived to be third string minds. \u00a0 After his tumultuous 6 year term and many battles, Joe took a sabbatical and then asked to return to the Rez, for the rest of his life it turned out. \u00a0 His hospitality to Lakota men and women and children became legendary. \u00a0When he died (cancer, I think), he was buried in the cemetery of Manderson village. \u00a0 During my sabbatical month last September, my soul friend Mary Tobacco and I drove the c. 40 miles to visit not only Joe\u2019s grave, but also Mary\u2019s legendary ancestor Standing Bear and Black Elk, life-long close friends. \u00a0 Black Elk became world famous as a wicasa wakan\u00a0who John Neihardt interviewed over a long time and published the still-contemporary book\u00a0Black Elk Speaks<\/u>. \u00a0 In recent decades, anthropologist Michael Steltenkamp, sj published a second account, this time by Lucy Black Elk, about her grandfather, Black Elk, who also served as Catholic pastor in Manderson District for c. 40 years. \u00a0While Mary and I stood still there for a while, a meadowlark began to sing, somewhere close to Joe\u2019s grave: \u00a0\u201cMaybe that\u2019s Fr. Sheehan welcoming us,\u201d said Mary.<\/p>\n

I love the accident of this early January calendar reminding me of how much I and very many other people owe to Joe\u2019s understated courage and his revolutionary recognition that the racist wounds on Pine Ridge called for a conversion into deep cross-cultural mutual hospitality \u2013 standing in that cemetery, near a caucasian priest, a Lakota holy man, and a war leader\u00a0listening to the meadowlark as a sacred voice telling us that we were all welcome there that morning.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

John G. Neihardt (from left), Nicholas Black Elk and Standing Bear of the Oglala Sioux
\nmeet during an interview session for \u201cBlack Elk Speaks\u201d in Manderson, S.D., in May 1933.
\n(Photo by Enid Neihardt; Courtesy of The Neihardt Trust)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Joe Sheehan, sj
\nDied November 4, 1997<\/p>\n

Best to read Mary Oliver out loud, with pauses. \u00a0She makes good company for troubled times like the present and would not be surprised by this remembrance of Joe Sheehan, sj, Black Elk, and Standing Bear and the prairie Manderson cemetery where their bodies have come to rest near one another.<\/p>\n

Thursday afternoon, alive with crisp autumn air. \u00a0Have a blest day.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

john sj<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Today\u2019s Post\u00a0\u201cThe Journey\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

One day you finally knew
\nwhat you had to do, and began,
\nthough the voices around you
\nkept shouting
\ntheir bad advice \u2014
\nthough the whole house
\nbegan to tremble
\nand you felt the old tug
\nat your ankles.
\n\u201cMend my life!\u201d
\neach voice cried.
\nBut you didn\u2019t stop.
\nYou knew what you had to do,
\nthough the wind pried
\nwith its stiff fingers
\nat the very foundations,
\nthough their melancholy
\nwas terrible.
\nIt was already late
\nenough, and a wild night,
\nand the road full of fallen
\nbranches and stones.
\nBut little by little,
\nas you left their voice behind,
\nthe stars began to burn
\nthrough the sheets of clouds,
\nand there was a new voice
\nwhich you slowly
\nrecognized as your own,
\nthat kept you company
\nas you strode deeper and deeper
\ninto the world,
\ndetermined to do
\nthe only thing you could do \u2014
\ndetermined to save
\nthe only life that you could save.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nMary Oliver
\nSeptember 10, 1935<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Late during the Lenten season of 1965, the small group of \u201cProvince Consultors\u201d met with Pedro Arrupe, (newly named the Superior General of the world wide Jesuit Order) in an O\u2019Hare hotel meeting space to address a crisis. \u00a0 The … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11641],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3751"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3751"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3752,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3751\/revisions\/3752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}