Blessed John Sullivan SJ

By Fergal McGrath

John Sullivan SJ was born in Dublin in 1861. Once dubbed 'the best dressed man about Dublin', he seemed destined, like his father, for a career in law. Then, following a conversion to Catholicism, at the age of 35 he entered the Jesuit novitiate in Tullamore, Co Offaly. Immediately after his ordination, he was sent to Clongowes Wood College, Co Kildare, where he spent most of his remaining years. At Clongowes, he became renowned for the hours he spent in prayer, his asceticism, and for his kindness and wisdom. His reputation spread outside the college walls, with many people calling on him in their hour of need. His love of the poor and sick led to miraculous cures being attributed to him. After his death in 1933, devotion to him continued to grow, and in 1947 the first stage of the process of Canonisation was introduced. The large numbers who visit his tomb in St Francis Xavier Church, Gardiner Street, Dublin, bear testimony to the continuing belief in the power of his intercession with God. John Sullivan SJ was beatified in Dublin in May 2017.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Messenger Publications
• Release date: May 9, 2020
• ISBN: 9781788121514

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INTRODUCTION

Donal Neary SJ

Blessed John Sullivan SJ, honoured during life and after death for the holiness of his life, his love of the poor and his care for the sick, was beatified in St Francis Xavier’s Church, Gardiner St, Dublin on 13 May 2017. He served that church and parish devoutly for many years, and was also closely associated with Clongowes Wood College in Naas, County Kildare, and with other parts of Ireland, particularly Newry, in County Down. The annual Mass on the anniversary of his death in St Francis Xavier’s Church, Gardiner Street draws a crowd, as does the annual Mass in Clongowes in May of each year, around the date of his birth. Many cures, big and small, have been attributed to his intercession. More happen every week!

Speaking at the annual mass in 2017, Bishop Denis Nulty noted that the Cross of Blessed John is requested by many people at times of illness. ‘I think of the couple who wrote to me from a neighbouring parish to here late last year and the issues around their pregnancy. Their son was later baptised here in Clongowes. They fully attribute the success of that pregnancy, against all medical odds, and the health of their little son today, to Blessed John Sullivan’s intercession. He continues to heal, just as the Shepherd continues to call. May we heed both this day.’

Blessed John’s life highlights our concern for those on the periphery, so dear to Pope Francis – particularly the forgotten boy in the school, where Blessed John taught for most of his priestly life, and the sick and poor. His life highlights also that the path to spirituality and to sanctity takes time. He may be a patron for the spiritual searchers of our age. The death of his brother by drowning and the pain caused by his brother’s body never being found maybe makes him also a patron of the missing.

God, who called him to sanctity by a strange path, was for his priestly life the centre of life and motivation. His life was simple: even simpler than those he ministered to.

Fr Brian Grogan SJ writes, ‘He challenges us to explicitly choose the path of loving as against the path of greed. It is remarkable to know of someone who actually lived out a life of radical simplicity: bread, porridge, water, poor clothes, an old bike … Gandhi and John perhaps have much in common.’ Both were men of God sent to those with the deepest need, to bring the love and care of God among them.

He left few notes behind, but his attitude to every day is often quoted, ‘Take life in instalments, this one day now. At least let this be a good day. Be always beginning’.

In autumn 1960 the body of Blessed John was exhumed at Clongowes Wood College in the presence of representatives of the religious and civil authorities, and transferred to a shrine in St Francis Xavier’s Church, Dublin. Countless people come to pray at his tomb and to the People’s Church at Clongowes where he ministered, hoping for help and cures in their lives, and praying for his canonisation.

Favours received through the intercession of Blessed John Sullivan SJ should be communicated to Fr Conor Harper SJ, Vice-Postulator, Cause for the Canonisation of Blessed John Sullivan, Jesuit Community, Milltown Park, Dublin 6.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR’S YOUNGEST SON

Before commencing the life-story of Blessed John Sullivan, a brief sketch of his immediate ancestry will not be out of place. It will help to put into proper perspective his conversion to the Catholic Church, and will also answer a question that will inevitably suggest itself, namely, from where had come the Protestantism of a family of