Sister Mary Michael retiring from teaching Nun sense
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In her 57 years of teaching in Catholic elementary schools, Sister Mary Michael Burns has probably told the scripture story of Jesus turning a young boy's meal of fish and bread into enough food to feed thousands, dozens upon dozens of times.
But it's hard to imagine her telling it with more sincerity and enthusiasm than she did last week to second-grade pupils at Brookline Regional Catholic School, who sat quietly and attentively around her in a half circle on the floor.
She described to the children how Jesus' apostles started to panic as the crowd of thousands, who had gathered to hear him preach, started to grow restless and hungry. The only food, she told them, was some fish and bread brought by a young boy.
Sister Mary Michael told the students how surprised the apostles were when Jesus instructed them to feed the crowd from the boy's food, and were even more surprised when the food became enough for everyone.
"Now who could do something like that?" the nun asked.
"Jesus," the children chanted in unison, bringing a satisfied smile to her face.
Perhaps she was relishing the experience because she realized it might be the last time she shared the story with children. She is retiring from teaching tomorrow after 60 years as a Sister of Charity. She's returning to her family homestead in Chicora, to care for an older sister.
She has spent the past 25 years in the Brookline, where she is well-known in the community. She taught first at Resurrection Elementary and then moved to Brookline Regional, which was created in 1996 by the merger of Resurrection, St. Pius and Our Lady of Loretto.
At 4 feet, 10 inches tall -- although she insists she once stood 5 full feet -- Sister stands only slightly taller than the second-graders she teaches. But if her height were measured in the affection, children and adults of the Catholic community in Brookline feel for the nun, it appears she'd be considered a giant.
"Everyone in the community loves Sister Mary Michael," said the Rev. Robert J. Miller, pastor of St. Pius and Our Lady of Loretto parishes.
"She is wonderful. She is the kindest person I've ever met," said Christine Mansour, who works as a teacher's aide at Brookline Regional and whose son, Zachary, was taught by Sister Mary Michael two years ago, when he was in second grade. "The kids all love and respect her."
Her reputation as a teacher is that she is quiet, but firm, demanding, but fun.
Sister said her philosophy of teaching is the same as that of Mary Poppins: "A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down." She also appears to genuinely enjoy the young children.
During classes Friday, as she went over a religion workbook lesson, she found that some hadn't completed it. Instead of getting angry, she continued with the lessons and told the students to make sure they got it finished and that they understood the concepts.
"She didn't always care if you got your homework done on time as long as you did get it done," said Brandon O'Toole, an eighth-grader at Brookline Regional, who said he recalled the nun doling out candy to students who did a good job.
"She really puts a lot of thought into what she teaches. Even her simple sentences are very detailed," Brandon said.
A native of Chicora, Butler County, Sister Mary Michael was the 12th of 14 children. She entered the convent at the Sisters of Charity at Seton Hill, in Greensburg in 1948, when she was 18 years old. She spent three years in training before taking her first teaching assignment.
During her long career in education, she has taught in Arizona, California, Louisiana, Maryland and South Korea and in other schools in the dioceses of Pittsburgh and Greensburg.
In Arizona, she spent summers teaching catechism to American Indian children at the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation. She also served a rural black parish in Abbeyville, La., in the early 1970s, where an effort was being made to attract more white students to the school that had 150 black children and seven white.
Sister Mary Michael said the church burned down in January 1971 and the black parishioners were sent to a nearby white church, where they were often shunned by the white members.
"I couldn't believe these were Catholics acting against other Catholics," she said.
She spent three years in Louisiana before being transferred to Baltimore for four years, then returned to Western Pennsylvania, where she has stayed, except in the 1988-89 school year when she taught at a girls high school her order operates in South Korea.
Sister Mary Michael said she found many similarities in children around the country. But she said that teaching in recent years has been more challenging than it was during the years when she had 50 students in a class because electronics and video games appear to have shortened students' attention spans.
"Now you need to switch gears more often, move to something new, keep them interested," she said.
Sister made the decision to retire at the end of this month when she was visiting her family over Christmas break and one of her sisters died suddenly. Sister Mary Michael said the death made her realize that she was needed at home because the sister who died was the caretaker for another sister, who is 91 and in frail health. She said her order agreed with her request to retire from teaching, although she hopes to volunteer as a religious education teacher in her home parish.
She said the sister she plans to care for never married and cared for their parents and other aging relatives until their deaths. "Now it's time for someone to take care of her," Sister said.
She said she feels terrible about leaving the students halfway through the year and not seeing the second-graders through to their First Communion in May. She didn't tell her students until late last week that she would be leaving.
One small girl burst into tears in the lunchroom last Friday as she hugged Sister Burns.
As the nun walked away after promising to become a pen pal to the little girl, her eyes were welled with tears. "Now this is what I won't be able to take," she said.
Last night the parish held a service for Sister Mary Michael at St. Pius Church, which was followed by an adult reception. Tomorrow the students and school community will have a farewell party for her.
First Published January 29, 2009 6:35 am
