Sister Vera Burns
Sr. Vera Burns came from a devout catholic family who gave three daughters to our Congregation, two of whom, Elizabeth and Margaret, predeceased Vera. She was christened Alice Veronica but was known to the family as Vera. At profession she received the name Sr. Mary St. Alphonsus of Jesus, the name by which she was known in the Congregation, until she reversed to her family name of Vera.
Her parents Thomas and Isabella, were the proud parents of eleven children, six boys and five girls, Vera being the fifth born. They were a close -knit family who supported each other all through life. Vera wrote about the faith of her parents, “Daily Mass was important in our family and we usually had lists of petitions for which we had to pray. Every evening, at the time we were all likely to be at home, the family rosary was prayed, at the end of which was a prayer for the missions.” Two of the boys became Salesian priests, the eldest of whom, Fr. Pat, served all his priestly life in North East India and is buried there. They were a talented family, blessed with gifts of music, dancing, poetry recitation and story- telling, gifts Vera used for the benefit of those to whom she ministered.
Vera received her early education at the local Catholic School run by the Daughters of St. Vincent de Paul in St. Paul’s Parish, Belfast. At age 14, her sister Elizabeth, now an RNDM, encouraged her to go to Limavady for her secondary education. There she studied for the Senior Cambridge Examination, studied the piano, Speech and Elocution and became proficient in Shorthand, Typewriting and Book-keeping, skills she was to use later in her teaching life and in community.
By the time she finished school in Limavady, Vera knew she wanted to be a missionary, influenced, she said, by her sister, Mary of the Presentation, and her brother, Fr. Pat, then a missionary in Shillong. Another big influence was Sr. Mary Rita Murray, her cousin, who had also entered our Congregation. She spoke of Mary Rita’s letters home as “being full of the Spirit” and said her vocation “was caught not taught.” Although convinced of her call to the missionary life, she found leaving home, “an awful experience” but she said “God intervened to encourage and sustain” her.
After First Profession in 1946, Vera helped in Sacred Heart Junior School, Hastings, for a few months, until she was missioned to India, in the company of five other recently professed Sisters. They were accompanied on that first missionary journey by the then Superior general, Very Rev. Mother M. St. Denis McSweeney. They travelled on a cargo ship, The Tamaroa. This would not have been an easy journey; according to their accounts, the ship rocked and rolled and took three weeks to reach Bombay. There they boarded a mid-night train for Calcutta. After two nights and a day they were very relieved to arrive at our convent in Park Circus. They had a couple of days of rest and then they set out for Chittagong, the then provincial house of the Indian province.
Sr. Vera was to spend the next nineteen years teaching in Chittagong, Shillong and Haflong respectively. During school holidays she looked after children in the boarding schools and sat for examinations. for which she had studied privately. In 1954, Gauhati University awarded her a B.A. and, many years later, an M.A. in English. While she did not officially study other languages, she picked up Khasi and Bengali and a little Hindi.
She had the joy of returning home for the first time in 1965. Reunited with her two sisters in England, she later travelled to her beloved Belfast where there was a reunion of family and friends. After this welcome break, Vera was given the privilege of attending Regina Mundi College in Rome for the year 1965/66. She was to speak of this year as one of the happiest in her religious life. It was the last year of Vatican Two when the air was full of life and hope and where she said, “It was great to be alive.”
Missionary life still beckoned and she returned to India in the Spring of 1967 where she was appointed to the ministry of Formation, with responsibility for the Junior Professed Sisters, first in Bangalore and later in Cherrapunjee, where she was also local superior.
While she was happy working with the young Sisters, this seemed to have been a time of searching for Vera; she eventually said farewell to India and returned to the home province in 1970.
A born teacher, and always one for updating herself, Vera quickly set about equipping herself with a Teacher’s Certificate from St. Mary’s College, London, after which she taught for one year in Deal. This was followed by seven happy years in St. Edmund’s Comprehensive School in Dover. Later, she taught in Chew Magna Senior and Junior schools. She found time to study for a M.A in Counselling and Guidance in Swansea University, Wales. In 1987 she went to the Holy Land for three months, where she had the privilege of studying Sacred Scripture.
Vera used her gifts, talents and knowledge for the communities in which she resided. Probably, her final active apostolate was her time as Co-ordinator of our RNDM Associates in this province. She was tireless in setting up the first official group. Her enthusiasm knew no bounds. She visited every house in the province and met the many women who were already “associated” with us. She developed a very good programme based on our Charism. Associates were conscious of their calling to be missionaries; they worked for the missions, and a few of those first members spent time with our Sisters, some in Kenya and some in The Philippines. When, through illness, she had to relinquish this apostolate, she left a well-established organisation.
In spite of poor health, Vera spent nine happy, active years in the Community in Wealdstone. She was involved in Literacy tuition for immigrants and helped with small groups that met in the parish. But her health dictated another move, this time to St. Anne’s in Sturry in 2006, where she was happy to help in whatever way she could, including service to the sick Sisters. She was to remain in St. Anne’s until the building had to be vacated, to make way for the new convent. Deal was then her home from 2010 to 2015, when she returned to Sturry.
Vera spent four contented years in St. Anne’s, lovingly cared for by the Sisters and staff and she had happy times visiting, in imagination, her beloved India!!
Her health deteriorated in 2019 and it was necessary for her to spend time in hospital. However, when it was realised that her end was near, the Sisters brought her back home to St. Anne’s. On Sunday, 30th June, Fr. Malachy arrived to celebrate Mass for the community. He visited Vera, prayed with her and gave her a blessing and then went to prepare for Mass. He had just gone to the chapel when word came that Vera had gone home to God, so Sunday Eucharist was then celebrated for her eternal rest., just as she would have wanted.
Her funeral Mass in St. Anne’s on 11th July, was concelebrated by Fr. Malachy and Fr. Bradley from Deal. Sisters from the Sturry and Deal Communities, and representatives from London, including the Provincial leadership Team, gathered to celebrate the long life of a great missionary. Her brother Jim and his wife, Colette, together with niece Veronica her husband and three children, niece Catherine from Sheffield, Maureen and another niece from Belfast, all represented the Burns’ family. After the Eucharistic celebration, the cortege made its way to Deal, where Vera’s mortal remains were laid to rest with her sisters, Elizabeth and Margaret and a host of RNDM’s. May they all rest in peace and intercede for our Congregation.
After the burial, all returned to St. Anne’s in Sturry where a delicious lunch was enjoyed by all.
“How beautiful on the mountains, are the feet of one who brings good news” Isaiah 52: 7