St. Justin Russolillo (Blessed Justin Russolillo until 2022)

Who was St. Justin Russolillo?

Blessed Justin Russolillo, canonized in 2022 as St. Justin Maria Russolillo, was a parish priest of Pianura, on the western edge of Naples, who gave his life to finding and forming vocations. He founded the Society of Divine Vocations, known as the Vocationist Fathers, in 1920, and the Vocationist Sisters in 1921. When people asked him what he did in Pianura, his answer became famous: "I make priests." Pope Benedict XVI approved his beatification in 2011, and Pope Francis canonized him on May 15, 2022. We keep his feast on August 2.

He was born on January 18, 1891, in Pianura, then in the Diocese of Pozzuoli, the third of ten children of Luigi Russolillo, a small builder, and Giuseppina Simpatia, a seamstress. Two aunts who were schoolteachers shaped his early education. He made his First Communion at five, and when he was asked what he would be when he grew up, he said, "I will be a priest."

A vow on ordination day

He entered the seminary of Pozzuoli at about ten and finished his theology at the regional seminary of Posillipo, run by the Jesuits, where he won a gold medal. He was ordained a priest in the cathedral of Pozzuoli on September 20, 1913. On that day he made a vow to found a religious congregation for vocations to the faith, to the priesthood and to holiness.

He did not wait long. On April 30, 1914, he began a common life with a few former seminary boys in his own family's house. His bishop, Michele Zezza, ordered him to stop, and he obeyed. During World War I he was drafted into the army medical service and worked in a military hospital, where the idea of a women's congregation to support the work came to him.

Pastor of Pianura and founder

In 1920, after a competitive examination, he became pastor of San Giorgio Martire in Pianura. On October 18, 1920, he gathered twelve young men in the rectory: the beginning of the Society of Divine Vocations. On October 1, 1921, he founded the Sisters of Divine Vocations with young women from his parish; his own sister Giovanna later led them as mother general. A secular institute for women, the Vocationist Apostles of Universal Sanctification, grew from the same root and received diocesan approval in 1977.

His central work was the Vocazionario, a house where boys and young men, many of them poor, could live and discern a call to the priesthood or religious life. The congregations knew restrictions and hard years in his lifetime. He told his religious not to complain, comparing God's pruning to a gardener's shears.

His spirituality centered on the Holy Trinity and on prayer. "Become saints," he told his people again and again, and he wrote that "the priest is not here to entertain, but to convert." He called on the Virgin Mary as Our Lady of Divine Vocations. After a long illness, he died in Pianura on August 2, 1955, strengthened by the Anointing of the Sick.

The miracles of St. Justin Russolillo

Both miracles in his cause are approved, formally examined by doctors, theologians and cardinals:

• For beatification: the healing in 1998 of a 59-year-old woman with carcinoma, investigated by the Diocese of Paterson, New Jersey, in 2004–2005. Benedict XVI approved it, and Justin was beatified in Pianura on May 7, 2011.
• For canonization: a young Vocationist religious in a coma with severe neurological and respiratory complications recovered on April 21, 2016, at the hospital in Pozzuoli. The medical board called the recovery "rapid, complete and lasting" and beyond scientific explanation. Pope Francis authorized the decree on October 27, 2020, and canonized him in Rome on May 15, 2022, with St. Titus Brandsma and St. Charles de Foucauld.

Symbols of St. Justin Russolillo in art

He lived in the age of photography, and his images show him as his people knew him: a parish priest in a black cassock. Look for:

• A group of boys or seminarians around him: the vocations he gathered.
• A monstrance: his love of the Eucharist and of adoration.
• A rosary: his devotion to Our Lady of Divine Vocations.

Feast day, tomb and prayer

We keep his feast on August 2. His remains rest in the Crypt Sanctuary of St. Justin Russolillo at the Vocationist motherhouse in Pianura, Naples. The Vocationist Fathers and Sisters now serve in parishes and vocation houses in several countries, including the United States. See also the feast day calendar.

The Vocationists' official novena includes a prayer asking God, who inspired Saint Justin Maria Russolillo to lead his children to union with God through universal sanctification, to help us discover our vocation and stay faithful to it by following Christ.

Let us ask St. Justin to pray for young people discerning their calling, and for more priests and religious. St. Justin Maria Russolillo, pray for us.