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By John Dougherty
One of the first lessons Fr. John Sullivan learned as a Jesuit was the importance of community. “My family is quite reserved, so when I entered the Society of Jesus, my understanding of the importance of community was almost zero,” said Sullivan — who currently serves as pastor at Divine Mercy Parish in St. John’s, Newfoundland — with a laugh. “I don’t need anyone, I’m good to be alone.” That changed during his long experiment at the Wiikwemkoong First Nations reserve in Northern Ontario, an experience he described as positive but intense. During a visit to Toronto, he met up with a fellow novice with whom he’d never seen eye-to-eye at the novitiate. But in that moment, Sullivan said, they greeted each other as “long-lost brothers.”
“Ignatius often wrote about ‘friends in the Lord,’ and that’s how I understand it,” Sullivan said. “That sense of support, that sense of friendship, and that sense of common experience. It became apparent that I wasn’t such a loner after all.”
“Ignatius often wrote about ‘friends in the Lord,’ and that’s how I understand it,” Sullivan said.
A native of St. John, New Brunswick, Sullivan’s Jesuit life has taken him to the Caribbean, the Pacific, and all over Canada. He is well-acquainted with that central paradox of Jesuit life: the importance of close relationships, and the freedom to say goodbye when it’s time for a new assignment.
Sullivan’s first assignment after ordination was to St. Anne’s Church in West Kingston, Jamaica (called “St. Annie’s” by parishioners), where he had a radical experience of community. “Part of the Jesuit charism is being more accessible, or closer to the people in a way,” Sullivan said. He described parish clean-up days where he worked alongside his parishioners, using a machete to clear away overgrown shrubs.
During his first week as pastor in May 2010, the Jamaican government imposed martial law on Western Kingston, as the military attempted to find and extradite a powerful gang leader. Residents were confined to their homes and cut off from their usual sources of food, with no means of refrigeration; over the course of about a month, over seventy civilians died, and hundreds were arrested. Despite the danger, Fr. Sullivan and another Jesuit, Fr. Peter McIsaac, chose to remain at the parish. Eventually the military asked for their help in distributing food stocked up for a parish outreach program to hungry people. “That experience really cemented my relationship with the community there,” Sullivan said. Although he received a new assignment back in Canada in 2011, Sullivan’s ties to Jamaica remain strong, and he engages in nightly Skype calls with friends in Kingston.
Those who have worked with Sullivan can attest to his gift for building community. Meg Doherty, director of Camp Ekon — a summer camp outside of Toronto where Sullivan had worked since 2007 — spoke of his humour, kindness, and humility. “Fr. John leads by example,” Doherty said. “No job is beneath him, and thus he sets an example for the young campers and staff of how to lead a true life of service to others.” Fr. John is affectionately known as “Sully” to the staff, and Doherty describes their work as exactly what collaboration between Jesuits and laity should look like: “We have learned so much from one another and balance out both the work and the ideas and skills.”
“No job is beneath him, and thus he sets an example for the young campers and staff of how to lead a true life of service to others.”
Sadly, Camp Ekon will close this year after 52 years of service. It won’t be the first time Sullivan has helped a community to say goodbye. After ten years as pastor at Our Lady of Lourdes in Toronto, he was assigned to St. Pius X in St. John’s, Newfoundland, one of the churches that was sold by the archdiocese to fund reparations for victims of clerical sexual abuse. “On one hand a building is a building,” Sullivan said. “But then you hear the parishioners’ stories… all of their history, their powerful memories. [The church] was one of the principal places where they came to meet God.”
Drawing inspiration from the image of the Good Shepherd, Sullivan led the St. Pius X community through the closing (and the subsequent opening of the new Jesuit parish, Divine Mercy, in 2022) with gentleness and understanding. During the transition he preached one message consistently: “We don’t deny the painful situation, we don’t deny the anger that we have for the Church’s own culpability in the suffering of others. But on the other hand, God is the author of life, and he will always give us life — and not just life but life in abundance.”
Looking back, the man who once considered himself a loner had only words of love and gratitude for the communities in which he has lived and served. “The amount of gratitude and affection that people give to you, it’s incredible,” he said, noting the near-constant stream of home-baked cookies he receives as a pastor. But even more important is how his communities have helped him to receive and share the love of God, despite his lifelong struggle to see himself as loveable. “That helps you think to yourself, ‘Maybe I’m not so unlovable after all… Maybe I’m loved by God as well,’” he said. “That’s really important… not only our service to others but in a sense their service to us.”
