By Phil Jose
Even before I knew of his life, I knew that Father Pierre-Jean DeSmet, SJ, was a great man. Growing up in the northern part of St. Louis County, Missouri, I saw enough streets and schools named after him attesting to the fact that he was someone special. When I learned of his life and adventures, I stood in awe of him.
However, it's not the purpose of this essay to recount his exploits; others who have done far more research than I have already done that. What this essay deals with are matters of reward and justice.
At a time when a life of service meant constant, grueling travels and everyday hardship, Father DeSmet freely lived such a life. His devotion to God took earthly form in the thousands of wilderness miles that he traversed. God's love manifested itself through him in the way that he touched people's lives.
When that long life of service closed, this world's reward was a simple one. He lies in a grave at his beloved St. Stanislaus, his spiritual home. It was at St. Stanislaus where he found rest upon returning from his journeys. He sleeps with nine of his Jesuit brothers who came to the American frontier along with him in 1823.
I've been to his grave. Its setting is no longer the rural one that Father DeSmet was used to. The little cemetery is now surrounded by the bleak and frenzied world of a twenty-first century metroplex. Yet somehow as I look at his gravestone and reflect on his life, the bleakness and frenzy fades. I remember the impact that a life devoted to goodness and the Ultimate Giver of Good can have. I leave once more inspired, my belief in the Divine Spark within each of us reaffirmed.
But now I have to wonder how much longer I'll be able to do this. That small patch of serenity may soon be gone.
There's a plan being seriously considered to make this little cemetery disappear. For reasons not entirely clear, those resting there would be exhumed and reinterred far from the spiritual home that they had in this world.
Furthermore, the adjoining museum, dedicated to the contributions that the Jesuit Society made in opening the West, would be closed. Its priceless catalog would be dismantled and shipped elsewhere. There is no guarantee that the exquisite gold and silver chalices-- including the one that Father DeSmet took west with him-- would ever be displayed again.
To me, the final outrage of this scheme is the identity of its planners. They are the present day Jesuits themselves, the inheritors of the legacy that these pioneering men of God began. I don't understand how anyone entrusted with such a stewardship can actively make such plans.
I have a deep and active interest in history. It would be easy for me to finish by reminding you that in compromising their own heritage, the Jesuits are looting something from us all. However, there's something even more important at stake here-- justice. To keep a collection of hard-earned treasures housed and on display where they're appreciated and to allow those priests to rest forever at a place they loved are just acts.
They're also simple decency.
Copyright 2002, Philip Jose
It may not be too late to save the cemetery and the Museum of the Western Jesuit Missions. Please let your protests be heard by contacting the Provincial of the Jesuits here in St. Louis, Father Frank Reale. He can be reached via email or snail mail:
Fr. Frank Reale, SJ
Provincial,
4511 W. Pine Blvd.
St. Louis, Mo. 63108-2191
His email address is provincial@jesuits-mis.org
(from : Journal of the Milice de Ste. Famille
1015 Genevieve Pl.
Cahokia IL 62206-1403
Coassement de la Grenouille
Journal of the Milice de Ste. Famille
Volume 14, No. 5, November 2002)
