Please pray for the eternal happiness of Fr Matthew Burns, OSB, Monk of Ampleforth Abbey who died peacefully in the Monastery Infirmary on 24 April, aged 81.
Fr Matthew was in his 60th year of his Profession and 50th year of Priesthood.
Funeral Arrangements
Sunday 8 May
18.20 Vespers and Benediction
20.00 Reception of Fr Matthew’s body into the Abbey Church followed by The Dirge (Vigil for the Dead)
Monday 9 May
07.30 Lauds for the Dead
09.00 Terce
11.30 Solemn Sung Funeral Mass followed by burial in Monks’ Wood
14.15 None
18.00 Vespers of the Dead
Suscipe me Domine, secundum eloquium tuum et vivam, Et non confundas me ab expectatione mea
Uphold me, Lord, according to your promise and I shall live, and let my hopes not be in vain
(The Suscipe is sung when a monk makes his Solemn Profession and at his funeral)
If you will be attending the funeral please contact Julia Brooke, by email at jbr@ampleforth.org.uk, so we may register numbers for catering.
May Fr Matthew rest in peace.
Fr Matthew Burns OSB
Fr Matthew was born in Birmingham in November 1940 and attended Hallfield Prep School before going to Ampleforth College. For a year in the late 1950s he read French and Spanish at Oxford University, before becoming a Dominican novice in Woodchester. However, in September 1962 he joined the Benedictine community at Ampleforth, and returned to Oxford in 1965 where he studied at St Benet’s Hall. Three years later he was back in North Yorkshire and began a teaching career at Ampleforth College where, over the next seven years, he taught Modern Languages, Religious Education, Carpentry, and Games, as well as being Assistant School Guestmaster. He was ordained priest in July 1972.
In September 1975, Fr Matthew was appointed to teach in the prep school at Gilling Castle but returned to the College in 1981 where he became Housemaster of St Wilfrid’s House, a post he held for eleven years.
In the early 1990s, Fr Matthew began a new chapter in his monastic life as he began work on parish missions, first of all in Gilling Parish (1993-1996), then in Brownedge (1996-1999) and Lostock Hall (1999-2003). In 2003 Fr Matthew returned to the monastery at Ampleforth, where he again he carried out a number of duties: Monastery Infirmarian, Postulant Master, and a member of the Hospitality Team. In August 2006 he became Priest-in-charge at Our Lady and the Holy Angels, Gilling, and from September 2014 – August 2017 was also chaplain in St Dunstan’s House. He also assisted the Hospitality Team in providing guided tours of the Abbey church and spent many hours in the orchard helping harvest the bumper apple crops.
Fr Matthew’s health deteriorated in recent years, as he suffered increasingly from dementia. He died peacefully in the Monastery Infirmary at Ampleforth Abbey on 24 April.
Fr Matthew's body will be received into the Abbey Church at Ampleforth on Sunday 8th May at 6.20pm... His funeral Mass will be celebrated on Monday 9th May in the Abbey Church at 11.30am, followed by burial in the Monks’ Wood.
The Mass will be livestreamed and the link to the You Tube channel may be found on our Ways to Worship webpage.
Donations in Memoriam
If you would like to make a donation in memory of Fr Matthew, all gifts received will go towards supporting the care of elderly and sick members of the monastic community. Please see the link below: