SEAN BURKE, MARYKNOLL MISSIONARY PRIEST

In the fall of 1990, Father Harry Bury, a professor of organizational management at Baldwin Wallace College in Berea, Ohio, was on a sabbatical and decided to do a research project at Hong Kong Baptist College. One night Harry called us from Hong Kong and invited Anita and me to spend part of our Christmas vacation with him. Never having been in the Far East we immediately accepted and lived with Harry for ten days. He was a very gracious host and guided us to places the average tourist would never see.

Shortly before we left for Hong Kong Anita mentioned to Peg Walsh, a former co-worker of hers in public relations at a suburban hospital in Cleveland, that we were going to Hong Kong. Peg suggested that we visit her cousin Sean Burke, a Maryknoll priest stationed in Hong Kong in the village of Stanley. She assured us he would be delighted to have visitors from Cleveland.

Stanley Village sits high on a promontory overlooking Hong Kong Bay. We took the ferry to Stanley and then walked up a long road to the Maryknoll House where Sean, exuding charm and personality welcomed us. We spent a delightful afternoon discussing his experiences as regional superior of Maryknoll in Hong Kong, reminiscing about our home town of Cleveland, and enjoying his humor and wit.

Sean recalled his days at Saint Mary Seminary in Cleveland. He told us that when he was a few years away from ordination the rector called him in one summer day and notified him that he was being dismissed because he had an “attitude” problem.

So Sean left the seminary, much to the surprise of his classmates who liked and admired him. Fortunately, he was able to get a teaching position at Saint Augustine Academy. There was only one drawback to this assignment. The school was on the far west side of Cleveland and Sean lived on the city’s east side.

One day a great blizzard hit the city. After teaching his classes Sean hopped in his car and headed east, hoping and praying he could make it home. He drove about four miles and got stuck in a mound of snow on Edgewater Drive, making it impossible to drive farther.

He decided to ask a resident if he could use a phone to call AAA. As he rang the doorbell, he noted a sign above the bell which read “Maryknoll House.” The priests at the house were most hospitable. They served him dinner and helped him get his car out of the snow bank. They also insisted that he use the guest room and stay at the house all night. When they found out in conversations that Sean had been a seminarian and still wanted to become a priest, they suggested that he consider joining Maryknoll. That is what Sean did.

He went to Hong Kong as a theology student in 1974 and was ordained in the United States in 1978. Upon his return to Hong Kong that same year, he helped set up "Helping Hand," a charity for homeless elderly people. You see, he still had “an attitude problem.”

We kept in touch with Sean over the years through his cousin Peg Walsh. We were shocked when our good friend Bob Kloos sent us an e-mail recently telling us that Sean Burke had died after developing pneumonia. Following is part of an obituary for Sean that we found on the Internet:

Father Sean Burke has died suddenly at age 63.

According to the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, Father Burke passed away on May 5 of complications from pneumonia.

Father Burke served as Maryknoll's Hong Kong regional superior for most of the last 20 years -- from 1988 to 1994 and again from 2000 to 2007. From 1994, he also served as official prison chaplain for the diocese. In this position he coordinated the work of the volunteer chaplains and religious groups that make prison visits around the 24 penal institutions in Hong Kong.

The priest also contributed articles regularly to The Guardian, the newsletter of Hong Kong's Correctional Services Department. In the April issue, he shared his thoughts on death. . . .

I liked this sentence in the obituary quoted from his Good Friday homily:

"To be fully alive, to live well, is to find the good in everything, even the good we cannot see yet."

On May 12th, we attended a memorial liturgy for Sean at St. John Vianney Church in Mentor. Sean’s funeral was held in Hong Kong, where he was buried among the people he loved and served for over 30 years.

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