John Hardon

John Anthony Hardon, SJ (June 18, 1914 – December 30, 2000) was an American Jesuit priest, writer, teacher and theologian.

John Anthony Hardon was born in 1914 to a devout Catholic family in Midland, Pennsylvania.

When he was a year old, his 27-year-old father died in an industrial accident.

After the accident Hardon was raised by his 26-year-old mother Anna (née Jevin) Hardon, who never remarried "out of concern for the influence a possible stepfather might have on her son's vocation."

They moved to Cleveland, Ohio.

John Janaro, a biographer of Hardon, described Anna as "a woman of deep faith, a Franciscan tertiary who embraced her poverty and her difficult circumstances with courage and grace."

Anna "attended daily Mass and received Holy Communion" and her home "had sacred pictures, a family holy water font, and a good deal of spiritual conversation."

Hardon later recalled that they only spoke Slav at home and contrasted it favorably to English which he held was "the worst language in the world to try to talk Catholicism in."

Hardon was Anna's only child, and she supported him by cleaning offices in Cleveland, often working nights.

Janaro reports that as a child Hardon was "willful and self-possessed; he was determined that no one was going to tell him what to do"; but he was soon affected by his mother's example.

Hardon would often recall that his mother told him that the very purpose of knees "are for kneeling to pray before God".

For added income Anna took in two young Lutheran girls as boarders named Judith and Susan, who lived with them for at least eight years.

The three-year-old Hardon protested at having to abstain from meat on Friday while his boarder "sisters" could indulge.

His mother asked the girls "My boy is growing up: he's asking embarrassing questions. Would you mind either abstaining from eating meat on Friday or find yourselves somewhere else to board?"

The girls choose to join the fast with permission from their minister.

These early companions who were "staunch Lutherans" helped to form his religious thinking: "Years before the Ecumenical Movement I had come to respect and cherish Protestants."

At the age of six he was instructed by a Sister Benedicta who told her students "Whatever you ask Our Lord on your First Communion day, you will receive."

That same year as he received First Holy Communion Hardon made a request to Jesus, "Make me a priest."

After this he attended daily Mass with his mother.

At the age of eight he received the sacrament of Confirmation calling on the Holy Spirit to give him "the grace of martyrdom."

Hardon attended St. Wendelin School.

In his third year of studies, under the guidance of his Jesuit adviser LeMay, he followed his call to the priesthood, and changed his course of studies to include Latin, philosophy, and college theology, earning his Bachelor of Arts degree from John Carrol University in 1936.

Although he wished to join the Jesuits, Hardon felt a duty to look after his increasingly ill mother, and he considered marrying a girl named Jo who had been his friend since grade school.

Unsure of his priestly vocation, he applied to and was accepted at Ohio State Medical School.

LeMay insisted that he "did indeed have a priestly vocation".

Anna told him "the very same God who was calling him would guard every hair on his mother's head," and "if the reason he was going to marry was so that she would not be alone without anyone to care for her, he was not to be concerned."

Hardon entered the Society of Jesus as a novice on September 1, 1936.

When Hardon confessed to LeMay that he felt he had abandoned his mother, LeMay told him "John, you belong in the Society of Jesus. What you are experiencing is a temptation. Put it out of your mind."

Hardon continued regularly to correspond with his mother but to avoid temptation, he avoided visiting her for seven years until ordered to do so by his superior.

As a Jesuit novice, Hardon studied at West Baden College in West Baden Springs, Indiana.

He published his first article in 1941 on the study of Latin.

He obtained a master's degree in philosophy at Loyola University Chicago in 1941.

On June 18, 1947 (his 33rd birthday) he was ordained to the priesthood with his mother in attendance, as well as the two Lutheran boarders of his childhood.

A candidate for sainthood since 2005, he is recognized by the Catholic Church as a Servant of God.

During a Church History class in eighth grade, Hardon became impressed with the Jesuit order while learning about St. Peter Canisius, a Jesuit priest in the 16th century who preached against the Protestant Reformation in Germany.

He then attended the diocesan high school, known as Cathedral Latin, where he was taught by the Brothers of Mary.

Unwilling to leave Anna on her own, Hardon did not seriously consider the priesthood immediately after high school.

Instead, "with the help of savings his mother had put aside specifically for his future" he attended John Carroll University, a Jesuit university in Cleveland.

He intended to become a medical doctor; however, the Jesuit charism had a "profound impact" on him:

"There was a certain strength about the Jesuits, a 'manliness' that John had never experienced at home because he never knew his father. Also their mental discipline impressed him; it motivated him to major in philosophy and it began to shape his approach to spirituality through the direction of LeMay, a brilliant and discerning man who saw in John great potential."