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Annapolis By Starlight

 

Dear Friends:

Your priest and Parish Administrator.

I am the youngest of 4 children [an older sister and two older brothers] born to James and Dorothy Burnham; my Dad is deceased and my Mom currently resides at Oak Crest retirement community in Baltimore .  I grew up in Shrine of the Sacred Heart Parish in Mt. Washington , and attended the parish grade school for eight years.  From the Shrine I went on the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute [Poly] and graduated from the engineering option of the A-course.  Since I was immersed in engineering studies in high school, I naturally gravitated toward this major early in my college career.  I wanted to be an aeronautical engineer, ultimately entering the astronaut program.  However, God had other plans for me.  I worked for a summer in an engineering firm in Towson and completely disliked the work.  I knew that to continue on in the engineering profession would not be a wise move for me.  Since I had always liked working with other people, I decided to change my major to psychology; it was at this time that I also decided to attend school at Thomas More College , a small, diocesan, Catholic college in Crestview Hills, Kentucky .  For those of you who fly, this college is located just outside the airport for Cincinnati, Ohio .  I spent three wonderful years at Thomas More College where I earned a B.A. in Psychology and an A.A. in both Theology and Philosophy.  The minor degrees were to fulfill seminary requirements.  At this time, I was a college seminarian for the Archdiocese of Baltimore under the direction of former vocation director Fr. Jay O’Connor.  As I was not ready to enter into study for priesthood at this time, I returned to Baltimore to pursue my graduate degree in psychology.  In 1992, I graduated from Loyola College with an M.A. in counseling psychology and entered my career field as a child and family therapist. 

…After graduating from Loyola College with my MA in Counseling Psychology, it was time for me to enter into the world of work.  During my graduate school training I held a position at St. Vincent ’s Children’s Home, part of the Catholic Charities network of services.  This facility was a group home for children who had been removed from their families and placed in residential care.  It was here in this work experience that I developed my love for working with children and their families who were experiencing emotional distress.  After graduate school I began my work with children and families in the Community Psychiatry Program of the Francis Scott Key Medical Center [formerly the old City Hospital and currently Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center on Eastern Avenue in Baltimore City ].  I began my career as a therapist working a split position job [part-time in the Outpatient department and part-time in our Partial Hospitalization program for more severely emotionally disturbed children.  I did individual and group therapy with children ranging in age from 3-17 years.  I also did family therapy work during this time.  I loved my work with the kids and their families; often the work was extremely difficult, the stories heartbreaking, but ultimately the satisfaction of helping a child and their family navigate some incredibly challenging experiences in their lives extremely satisfying.  I worked at Hopkins Bayview from 1991 – 1997, moving my way from a Child and Family therapist, to a Senior Mental Health therapist based in a Baltimore City public school, to Clinical Supervisor of the partial hospitalization program coordinating a staff of twelve and treating 16 children and their families at any given time. 

Through all of this, I can say confidently that I was able to work with some of the best psychiatrists, the best educational consultants, and the best therapists in the state and the region.  But, for me, in the treatment of these children and their families, something was missing.  I was never able to address their relationship with God, their spiritual lives, unless the children or families in my care brought the topic up first.  This was the limitation of working within the medical model of an internationally acclaimed medical system. 

So, at this point on might rightly ask: “Where does priesthood come into play in all of this?”  A great question to ask, and one that is addressed below.

…The limitations of treatment for the children and families entrusted to my care became obvious to me.  I know it was the promptings of the Holy Spirit that allowed me to recognize these limitations with which I was working.  I knew that God was working in my life; I knew that God was present in the therapeutic relationship I shared with the children and families; but this presence of God was not something that I was free to address.  To me, this became more and more frustrating.  During this time, God was still sending messages of priestly vocation, but they weren’t quite loud enough for this Irishman.  Living on South Clinton Street in up and coming Canton with a dear friend from my youth, working at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, being able to travel and enjoy the city life was all I thought that I needed.  Then came Lent 1993 and my commitment to begin attending daily mass as a Lenten practice. What began as a Lenten practice in 1993 has never ended.  During these daily mass experiences, I found the presence of God and the call of priesthood intense.  The ponderings about priesthood became more front and center, but this call to priesthood was competing with a call that I thought I perceived – the call of marriage and family, especially since my sister had the first grandchild and my Goddaughter. 

During this time someone at work came into my office with a job advertisement for a position in Ireland .  I had been trying unsuccessfully to arrange a research agreement between my hospital and a hospital in Dublin – my ultimate goal was simply to live in Ireland – and my friends at the hospital knew this desire.  I sent in my resume for this position working for the Baltimore International Culinary College at their European Educational Center in Virginia, County Cavan .  A shot in the dark turned into a bag-packing event as I was hired and went to live in Ireland for a year.  It was during this time, living on my own in a gate house of an estate turned hotel, that I was able to really take time out to listen to God’s promptings in my life.  I continued my daily mass regimen while in Ireland , and was able to discern a call to priesthood.  It was soon after this experience of living abroad that I returned home to my frozen job and benefits at the hospital to begin planning my entry into the seminary. 

I entered St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Baltimore in August 1997 and was ordained a priest on May 25th, 2002.  I have served as an Associate Pastor at St. Louis Parish in Clarksville and St. Margaret Parish in Bel Air.