The Rev. Jack Zuercher, S.J., shrugged a plaid blue and white jacket over his priestly blacks.
“I heard someone told you about my cheap jackets . . . Now, does this look like a cheap jacket to you?”
Three seconds of silence passed before a grin split his face. “It is. I bought this for $3 back in the ’70s,” he said.
Zuercher, a Creighton Jesuit, is well-known for his quick humor.
“He is always the comic relief,” said Terry Kult, nurse for Jesuits in the Omaha area. “Whenever you need something funny and you want people to relax, ask him to give the prayer and a few jokes.”
“I’m not an especially articulate lecturer or writer,” said Zuercher. “But I can often see the light side of life.”
Seeing the light side of life has helped Zuercher in his career as a Jesuit. Born in Wisconsin and raised in Park Ridge, Ill., a suburb of Chicago, Zuercher joined the Naval Reserve during World War II. He obtained a degree in engineering before deciding God was calling him to something different.
“I had thought about becoming a Jesuit several times throughout college,” Zuercher said. “And I always decided no.”
“I was aboard the US Wisconsin, and I wrote a letter to my friend, telling him again why I shouldn’t be a Jesuit. Now he had this habit of writing in the margins, writing ‘yes but,’ and ‘yes but’, over and over. I read his letter before dinner, all these ‘yes buts . . .’ And I said, ‘damnit, he’s right’. I became a Jesuit when I was 23 years old. I have not regretted it since.”
“In the 60s, it was pretty unusual for a Jesuit to get a Ph.D. in engineering psychology,” said Kult.
A few years later, Zuercher was positioned at Creighton University.
“I’ve been here since 1976,” Zuercher said. “I’ll be 84 in December. So I guess I’ve really settled in.”
During his time at Creighton, Zuercher has taught multiple psychology courses, founded a Collaborative Ministry Office and served as a Chaplan of the Law School.
Currently, he works as a promoter of Christian Life Communities for the North Central Region.
“He has a natural interest in how people work together,” said the Rev. Andrew Alexander, S.J., “in how you build teams of people and combine their various gifts.”
Although he has retired from Creighton activities, Zuercher has an office in Lower St. John’s.
“I am very grateful Creighton’s let me stay here,” Zuercher said. “I love the size of the school. I love the city of Omaha. But most of all, I love life, really. I’m grateful for life. I think it’s one of my hallmarks.”
“I have this prayer I wrote,” he said.
“It goes like this: ‘Lord, thank you for life. Thank you for this life. Thank you for life today. Thank you for life now.’ It focuses on the life I’ve led, on the good of today, and the good of the present moment. After all, you have to be awake to see and experience the sun when it rises.”