Saint Who?
Saints Who Fostered Vocations to the Priesthood
Blessed John Sullivan
Priest and religious († 1933)May 8
John Sullivan was born in Ireland in 1861. The son of a wealthy Protestant barrister and his Catholic wife, he was raised in the religion of his father. Handsome and intelligent, he inherited a fortune in his twenties upon his father’s death. He was dubbed “the best-dressed man in Dublin.”
At thirty-five, John entered the Catholic Church. Four years later he gave up his wealth and entered the Jesuit novitiate. Following his ordination in 1907, he was assigned to a college in Kildare. He taught for most of his priestly life. He is best remembered for his kind concern for the poor and sick, to whom he often traveled around on an old bicycle to minister. Many of those he visited attributed their healing to his prayers.
His pastoral experience gave him a great appreciation of his priestly vocation. A former pupil of his, considering joining the Society of Jesus, asked him for advice. John wrote back: “If only you knew how much misery, sin, sorrow, and suffering there is in the world, and how much a priest can do to comfort, console, and raise the fallen, you would not hesitate.” The young man became a Jesuit. John died in 1933 at the age of seventy-one. He was beatified in 2017.
Almighty Father, through the prayers and example
of Blessed John Sullivan, show many young men
what tremendous good they can do as priests.
