From: Robert & Mary Tyree, 71151,2020
To: Family
Date: Wed, Jan 29, 1997, 22:22

RE: Sister Camilla!

Dear Burns Family,

In anticipation of Sister Camilla's 60th birthday on March 27th, here is a 1994 article which appeared in Cross Currents, the periodical published by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur - Ohio Province. Since I had lost my copy of this article, I had to write Sister Diemunsch, the editor. Sister Diemunsch promptly supplied the article and remarked that ... "Camilla and I entered the convent together 'way back when.' She is a great person!" I'm sure we all agree! Moreover, Camilla is the type of self-effacing person who would not want me to circulate this tribute. That's why I didn't ask her permission!

;)

Robert

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"Who I Most Am is in a Classroom"
Cross Currents
Summer 1994, Vol. 6, No. 2, Page 2

"She is able to make us realize that Scripture belongs to our lives, that it is not something 'out there.'"
"She takes a one-dimensional book and makes it three dimensional."
"She conveys such a joy and love of her work."
"She makes me feel important and knowledgeable."
"She allows us to be ourselves."
"All of us are infected and affected by her enthusiasm."

Sister Camilla Burns (formerly Mary Leo) wasn't present in the room when her students from the Institute of Pastoral Studies at Loyola University, Chicago, were talking about her. Even if she had been it wouldn't have changed a thing. They were speaking from the heart.

The truth is, Sister Camilla Burns is a born teacher. Whether she is talking about Scripture to graduate students at Loyola or teaching high school physics or chemistry, as she did in years past, she is at home.

"Who I most am is in a classroom," she says. Her eyes twinkle and her expressive hands are convincing. "I have never taught anything twice. It's never the same. I am always refining, re-learning. My philosophy is 'If I stop learning, I have to stop teaching.'"

Ironically, Sister Camilla's new appointment as Director of the Institute of Pastoral Studies at Loyola University, Chicago, means much more time in administration and less in the classroom. But she accepted the position this past spring on the condition that she could teach at least one course per semester. She recently finished teaching Introduction to Biblical Literature, a graduate level course, to 20 adults who came from as far away as Australia and Ireland. This summer there will be workshops to teach and, next fall, another course in biblical studies.

While she misses the excitement of full-time teaching, Sister Camilla sees her administrative role as a form of education. "I am here to help create an atmosphere in which the faculty members can be at their best. I want to keep this place so well oiled their energies can go where they belong."

A good philosophy for any administrator, but all the more at Loyola University's Institute for Pastoral Studies (IPS), which trains adults from all over the globe for service to the Church. Masters' degrees are offered in pastoral studies, religious education, pastoral counseling and divinity studies. Typically, about 250 religious and lay are enrolled in IPS programs at any one time.

Sister Camilla is not boasting when she notes that the Institute she heads "is influencing theology around the world" as it educates adults for ministry from Papua, New Guinea, to Peoria, Illinois and countless places in between.

Some, after finishing their course work, will get into parish work, others will create interparish ministries. Some will serve in administrative positions in diocesan offices and others will hang out shingles as pastoral ministers. And some, Sister Camilla acknowledges, "will hit brick walls" erected by an institutional Church not ready to use their gifts.

"These are the ministers of the Church" of today and tomorrow, she says. "We really are shaping them. We are on the cutting edge."

On the surface, the Sister Camilla Burns of today has nothing in common with the Sister Mary Leo who taught science at Notre Dame High School (Chicago), Julienne (Dayton) and St. Joseph Academy (Columbus). She holds a doctorate in a new field, Scripture, and can spend only part of her busy week in the classroom.

But as a member of a congregation of women religious who have historically been devoted to education, she says, "I am about as unchanged as they get. I am doing what I've done all my life, just in new ways. The heart of it is the same."

[END]