1907 – 1966 (May 2)
Burchard V. Murray was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on January 30, 1907, the son of Augustine Murray and Helen Finnigan. He attended Augustinian Preparatory Seminary on Staten Island and entered the novitiate in New Hamburg, NY, on August 15, 1926. After his profession of simple vows on August 16, 1927, he spent four years at Villanova College and graduated in 1931. He made solemn profession of vows on August 16, 1930. He pursued theological studies at Augustinian College in Washington, D.C., and was ordained to the priesthood there in the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception by Bishop John McNamara on June 12, 1934.
Father Murray’s first assignment, in 1935, was as a teacher at Saint Augustine High School in San Diego. He then served in the U.S. Navy as a Chaplain from 1939 to 1942. In 1942, he was assigned to Malvern Preparatory School, and taught there until 1945 when he was named assistant pastor at Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish, Staten Island, where he remained until October, 1946, when he was transferred to Saint Rita’s Church in Philadelphia. Thereafter, his assignments were to various parishes of the Province where he was appointed associate pastor: Saint Patrick’s Parish in Cambridge, N.Y., Saint Nicholas of Tolentine in the Bronx, where at the Chapter of 1953 he was also elected sub-prior, Saint Nicholas of Tolentine Parish in Jamaica, Long Island, Saint John in Schaghticoke, N.Y., Saint Denis in Havertown, Saint Mary’s Church in Waterford, N.Y.
Father Murray’s last assignment was as assistant pastor at Saint James Church in Carthage, NY. It was here that he died very suddenly of a heart attack while attending a meeting in a nearby parish on May 2, 1966 at the age of 59. His brother, Joseph Murray, an Oblate of Saint Francis de Sales, celebrated his Requiem at Villanova, after which burial took place in the community cemetery at Villanova.
