Death of Fr Matthew Burns, monk of Ampleforth

Fr Matthew Burns OSB

Source: Ampleforth Abbey

Fr Matthew Burns OSB, Benedictine monk of Ampleforth Abbey, died peacefully in the Monastery Infirmary at Ampleforth Abbey on 24 April, at the age of 81.

He was born in Birmingham in November 1940 and educated at Hallfield Prep School and then 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 at 8.00 p.m. on Sunday 8 May. His funeral Mass will be celebrated at 11.30am in the Abbey church on Monday 9 May, followed by burial in Monks' Wood.

The Mass will be livestreamed and the link to the You Tube channel may be found on this page of the Abbey website: www.ampleforth.org.uk/abbey/service-times/ways-worship