Sheila Durkin Dierks

She had put her creative energy and commitment to justice into service for others, building community in the six cities to which life took her and her husband Peter and their four children. Welcome, empathy and collaboration were her hallmarks. And she was funny!

Sheila was “a firecracker lit by a divine spark,” according to Kate McElwee and Katie Lacz, leaders of the Women’s Ordination Conference. Her one and only tattoo suggests that spark: a flame over her heart, inspired by the Gospel words, “Were not our hearts burning within us?” as Jesus’ disciples remembered his conversation with them on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:32).

Born to Lawrence and Lucile Murray Durkin as the second of three sisters, Sheila was always the priest when they “played Mass.” They grew up in Cincinnati and attended St. Ursula Academy.

Sheila absorbed her mother’s advice to “stand up straight and smile.” Her confidence in the public eye supported her inborn leadership, manifested in her election by peers as “Girl Mayor of Cincinnati” in a citywide program for high school seniors.

Advocacy for justice was another legacy from her parents, which grew into participation in civil rights demonstrations beginning at Rosary College in River Forest, Illinois. Newly-weds in Milwaukee, she and Peter participated in civil rights actions and in an enrichment program for disadvantaged children at St. Benedict the Moor Parish.

With motherhood, her focus in South Bend and in Kansas City turned to women’s rights in Lamaze and La Leche groups, empowering mothers to claim their rights for non-medicalized birthing. In Holmdel, New Jersey, she collaborated with Kathy Mainzer in creating Manna House, a shelter-plus-empowerment program for abused women and their families. Sheila and Peter developed a long connection with the Catholic Worker Movement as volunteers.

They modeled service and empathy, an enduring legacy to their children. Their son John pinpoints Sheila’s ability to apply “the lens of how others were affected” to local and global realities. “Dad taught me what to do,” says their son Brian, and “Mom taught me why – to serve.” Tim calls her a “loving, forgiving, empathetic” mother, whose example “I continue to draw on,” and a peacemaker that “I aspire to be.”

Her activism was passionate but not grim, brightened by witticisms, good stories, and her hearty laugh.

Zest for experiences and fascination with people led her and Peter to travel widely, including a two-year sojourn in Dublin, Ireland.

Sheila’s work on the staff of the Notre Dame University Alumnus magazine developed skills that she later used as an author (Catholic Worker Houses: Ordinary Miracles with Pat Ladley, Women Eucharist, and Jubilee Journal: A Workbook of Forgiving for the Millennium with her sister Ellen [Mary-Cabrini] Durkin). She created her own publishing company, WovenWord Press, to elevate women’s voices and stories.

Her spiritual leadership emerged in Kansas City through religious education at Notre Dame de Sion School, where she introduced girl altar servers, and on the diocesan Liturgical Commission. She began expressing her spirituality through painting and weaving (leading to graduate studies in fiber arts at Colorado State University).

Beginning in New Jersey in 1984 and continuing in Boulder, she gathered prayer circles called Women Eucharist, helping other women assume spiritual leadership. Her alternative Eucharistic prayers and religious services were marked by a positive feminist spirituality, part of her legacy to her daughter Lael. She invited women – including fellow Mapleton Hill Bookies (book club) – into the Dierks kitchen for workshops celebrating their uteruses. Participants constructed uteruses with balloons and papier-mâché to address their joys and fears.

Sheila’s guidance shaped her daughter and extended to her goddaughter Ann, for whom she was “always there,” and to the friends of these younger women, with “open arms and heart,” says her daughter. Their friends remember her as fiery and as a story-teller.

Her gifts for drawing others into collaboration and helping them grow contributed to community building and civic activism in Boulder: neighborhood ice-cream socials, gardening, and interreligious advocacy to address gun violence. “She worked on the hard things, both personal and societal,” recalls her sister Frances, “going where others feared, and turning to hold out her hand to them.”

Having experienced a recurring call to priestly ministry since childhood, Sheila discovered a path to following this vocation in the Ecumenical Catholic Communion. Encouraged by ECC Bishop Peter Hickman, she was accompanied by a discernment committee who endorsed her calling, as did her family. In preparation, she earned a Master of Arts in Pastoral Care at Iliff School of Theology (Denver). Bishop Hickman ordained her to the diaconate in 2008 and to the priesthood in 2009.

Priestly ordination was perhaps the deepest expression of her ability to “imagine a future that grew out of her faith and her response to faith and to the needs of others; she had the courage, stamina, and creativity to reach it and bring it to fruition,” says Frances.

As a priest, she presided at liturgies in Light of Christ and led the Community in Discernment in Boulder. Peter took up the role of “pastor’s spouse.”

Innate gifts and a lifetime of acquired skills served her faith community well. Genuine interest in others meshed with personal warmth to make her a good listener. She celebrated the sacraments with pastoral creativity, bringing the Gospels alive and preaching a down-to-earth connection between Scripture and daily life.

In her 70s, she embraced being a “crone,” a wisdom figure. When age and illness diminished her abilities, her spirit remained intact. She still sought to serve, ever humorous and grateful, celebrating “the sacrament of the present moment” and the people she loved, especially her husband and children, their spouses and her grandchildren.

Amen and Alleluia!

Sheila is survived by her beloved and devoted husband Peter H. Dierks; children Tim (Laura) Dierks, Brian Dierks (Maria Haraldsson), Lael (Ted, Sr.) Dowd, John Dierks (Emily Schoettle); grandchildren Lemon, Henry, and Adam Dierks; Nora, Ted III, and Cecilia Dowd; Lewis and Nell Schoettle-Dierks; sisters Ellen (known as Mary-Cabrini) Durkin and Frances (Vincent) Colletti.

A Celebration of Life will be held at 10 a.m. on Friday, May 5, at Light of Christ Ecumenical Catholic Community, 1000 W. 15th Avenue, Longmont, Colorado.

If desired, contributions may be made to the Lucile Murray Durkin Scholarship (https://www.womensordination.org/programs/scholarship/). Fond memories and expressions of sympathy are welcome at www.ahlbergfuneralchapel.com.