+ Walter J. Burghardt, SJ

A member of the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesuit, Father Burghardt was a native of Manhattan.

A prolific author, preacher, professor, and recipient of numerous honorary degrees, Father Burghardt's writings have been shared on OCP's liturgy.com subscription service.

Last year, marking his 75 anniversary as a Jesuit, he wrote in the pages of America that:

"The more remarkable of early Christian theologians were searching not only for ideas about God; they were searching for God’s very self, struggling for union with divinity. My immersion in the fathers of the church, the early Christian theologians, has appreciably aided my immersion in the center of my Jesuit spirituality, the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. In the exercises there is indeed a theology: a sense of sin as sacrilege, a Christology, a theology of redemption and salvation through Christ’s crucifixion, of life after death. But the exercises are not primarily an intellectual enterprise; from beginning to end they are an experience. Ignatius asks me to walk with the Jesus of Nazareth, talk with the Jesus of Jerusalem, suffer with Jesus on the cross, rise with Jesus from death. In his final meditation, Ignatius wants me to see Jesus working within me 'as a laborer,' literally a collaborator. As with the early theologians, my theology and my spirituality must converge."

"Our brother Walter shared in the priesthood of Jesus Christ, leading God's people in prayer and worship. Bring him into your presence where he will take his place in the heavenly liturgy" (Order of Christian Funerals). +16 February 2008