Dr. Eileen C. Burke-Sullivan

Dr. Eileen C. Burke-Sullivan, S.T.D., 75, of Omaha, Nebraska, passed away after a lengthy illness on November 30, 2024. A Professor Emerita and former Vice Provost/ Vice President of University Mission and Ministry at Creighton University, Dr. Burke-Sullivan was a gifted theologian, liturgist, teacher, writer, spiritual director, pastoral minister, and musician. Even more importantly, she was a beloved wife, daughter, sister, sister-in-law, aunt, cousin, colleague, and friend.

Eileen was born on April 5, 1949, the fifth of ten children born to M. Joseph (Joe) Burke and Mary Josephine (Sirridge) Burke of Casper, WY. She graduated from St. Anthony Grade School, Casper, WY (1963), Saint Martin’s Academy, Rapid City, SD (1967), and Saint Mary’s College, Leavenworth, KS (1971), majoring in Theology and Music. She entered the novitiate for the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth, KS (1971-1973), and later completed a Master degree in Voice at the University of Colorado (1976), a Master degree in Christian Spirituality at Creighton University (1984), and a Licentiate and Doctorate at Weston Jesuit School of Theology (2000, 2003). After completing her degree in Christian Spirituality in 1984, Eileen began teaching graduate-level theology courses in the Master of Christian Spirituality Program; she taught in that summer program for the following forty years and later became its first lay director. After completing her doctorate, she joined the fulltime faculty of the Creighton University Theology Department in 2003.

Although she left formal religious life without taking vows, Eileen’s journey entailed a profound religious vocation with roots reaching back into her childhood. She fell in love with liturgy and liturgical music in her Benedictine boarding school, where she also studied the documents of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) as they became available in English. But the turning point in her vocational story occurred when she made the full thirty-day retreat known as the “Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius Loyola” under the direction of Rev. Edward Kinerk, S.J. at Sacred Heart Retreat House in Sedalia, CO – the first lay woman to do so at that retreat center and one of the first in the United States. Utilizing the guidelines for discernment laid out in the Exercises, she moved beyond conventional careers for women and became the first diocesan director of the Office of Liturgy and Worship for her home diocese of Cheyenne, WY. That position was followed by stints implementing the liturgical directives of Vatican II at St. Margaret Mary parish in Omaha and in the Archdiocese of Omaha. She later served as director of the National Christian Life Community movement – the renovated lay Ignatian sodality – in St. Louis, MO.

After her marriage to Michael J. Sullivan in 1982, the couple eventually settled in Dallas, TX, where Eileen taught theology for several years at the Ursuline Academy and then directed the office of liturgy and worship at All Saints Parish in Dallas. In 1997 Eileen and Michael relocated to the Boston area as Eileen began advanced theological studies at Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, MA, completing her dissertation, Congar’s Catholicity in Communion: Actualizing Faith in the Mission of God’s Spirit to the Church (2003) under the direction of Fr. Roger Haight, S.J. After joining the theology faculty at Creighton University, in addition to her undergraduate teaching, Dr. Burke-Sullivan led the Master of Arts in Ministry Program, served as director of the Christian Spirituality Programs, and was named the inaugural Barbara Reardon

Heaney Chair in Pastoral Liturgical Theology in 2011. She became the Vice Provost (later Vice President) of Mission and Ministry in 2014.

Recognized as a leading authority in Ignatian Spirituality and especially in the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius, Dr. Burke-Sullivan authored numerous articles and book chapters, co-authored The Ignatian Tradition (2009) with her brother, Kevin Burke, SJ, and The Church in the Modern World: Gaudium et Spes Then and Now (2014), with her Creighton colleagues Michael Lawler, PhD, and Todd Salzman, PhD. At the time of her death, she had just completed her work as General Editor of Volume II of The Jesuit Spirituality Reader (forthcoming). In addition to her scholarly work, teaching, and mentoring, we knew Eileen as a talented and caring spiritual and retreat director, an energetic champion of Christian Ecumenical dialogue and Jewish Christian dialogue, a brilliant liturgical theologian and liturgist, and a wise leader of multiple Ignatian pilgrimages. Likewise, as a singer with a beautiful soprano voice, she brought joy to many people and connected them with God through her music.

Eileen is survived by two sisters, Maureen Emrich, Castle Rock, CO and Anne Burke Bell (Christopher Bell) Denver, CO; three brothers, Rev. Kevin Burke, S.J., Denver, CO, Thomas Burke, M.D. (Mary Frances Burke, M.D.) Casper, WY; and Brian Burke (Jean Burke) Denver, CO; her sisters-in-law, Carolyn Gregor Burke (Casper, WY) and Patricia Burke (Spirit Lake, IA); along with a multitude of nieces and nephews, great-nieces/nephews, and cousins both in her Burke family and among her husband’s Sullivan family in Des Moines, IA, and beyond. She is preceded in death by her husband, Michael, her parents and four brothers, Lawrence Burke (Casper, WY), Daniel Burke (Casper, WY), James Burke (Spirit Lake, IA), and Michael Burke (Casper, WY). 

Visitation will be 5 to 6:15 PM in the lower Chapel at St. John Church at Creighton University.  Music Prelude from 6:30 to 7 PM and Vigil Service at 7 PM will be in the sanctuary.

Interment Holy Sepulchre Cemetery.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to: Creighton University ; Regis University Mission Office Companions in Mission Fund; Christian Life Communities.