Aflood of thoughts and images past, present, and future wash over me as I stand in the new chapel at the Sioux Spiritual Center. The crucifix near the altar, a star quilt on the wall, a window etching, even a smaller, older chapel on a hillside outside – they not only stand before my eyes, they are set in my mind along a winding path that reaches well beyond my own life and bridges three centuries.

Dedicated in June 2002, the chapel is among this path’s most recent milestones, the earliest of which dates back to the mid-1800s when the first Jesuit probably set foot in South Dakota. A significant turn along the way for me, and a personal landmark for many people in the

Diocese of Rapid City, occurred July 31, 1992, the feast day of St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus. The lives of eight Lakota people from the Rosebud and Pine Ridge reservations were changed that day when Bishop Charles Chaput, OFM commissioned our lay ministry class, the first class in a renewed attempt to interest Lakota people in leadership roles within their parishes.

In a figurative sense, the first log for the new chapel may have been set in place that day too, a day each of us had a special reason for selecting. Mine was because in almost every phase of my life, a Jesuit was present to guide, counsel, befriend, and protect me. For me it was a day of appreciation and thanksgiving for a lifelong association with the Society of Jesus. It was also the day Bishop Chaput made reference to the directorship of the diocese’s Office of Native Concerns.