1870 - Alice O'Sullivan

June 21, 1870

Tianjin

Alice O’Sullivan was a much-loved jovial Catholic nun from Tipperary in Ireland. Born in 1836, her mother tragically died while Alice was just a baby. Her father was a devout Catholic, but could not raise Alice alone and so entrusted her upbringing to a servant woman. She grew up with several brothers, and consequently became something of a tom-boy. When she was old enough her father sent her to a convent for her education. The nuns in the convent loved Alice and did all they could to share God’s word with her. Alice firmly believed in Jesus Christ and dedicated her life to him. After a season of prayer, she felt led to join the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul.

At the age of twenty Alice said goodbye to her beloved Ireland and travelled to France. In 1863 she felt like God was moving her further afield. A priest asked if she would consider going to China. For weeks she struggled with the sacrifice required for such a commitment. Finally, in prayer, she believed the Lord gave her peace and she accepted the challenge. A hospital in Shanghai was severely understaffed, and it was to China’s most populated city that Alice O’Sullivan and another new recruit first went. At the beginning they struggled greatly, reporting,

“We were lodged in a miserable hired room where we had hardly the necessaries of life. This position brought us into great difficulties with the administration, which was entirely composed of Protestants who seemed to understand nothing about our vocation.”[1]

Alice made the best of the difficult situation and served the sick tirelessly. She was frequently homesick for the emerald hills of Ireland, and in 1867 she was given permission to return to Europe. Just before the ship departed she spent a time in fervent prayer, and to the surprise of all she emerged saying, “I am not going home. Oh, I will not go.” The other Sisters asked her what had happened to change her mind. She replied, “If I were to tell you would not believe me.” It emerged later that Alice had experienced some kind of a vision while deep in prayer, and she had realized that God wanted her to remain in China. A close friend and fellow nun, Sister Azaïs, was to travel on the ship with Alice. At the moment of departure she said to Alice, “Good-bye till we meet again.” Alice O’Sullivan answered, “We shall never meet again in this world. You shall return, but we shall be all gone.”[2] This and many other things that she said led many to believe Alice had been shown a vision of her martyrdom in the church that day.

Now that her mind was made up, Alice set to work with a new vigour. She had truly abandoned all desire to see her homeland again, and was only interested in obeying God’s will for her life. The smiling Irishwoman’s ministry was concluded on June 21, 1870.[3] One account says,

“Sister O’Sullivan was leaving the chapel by the north-west door and was seized close to the kitchen. The barbarians, seeing a saucepan of boiling water, threw it over her, and she rushed to the south-west façade of the chapel, where she was finally knocked down and killed.”[4]

As news of the massacre reached Europe an old friend of O’Sullivan's, Sister MacCarthy, surprised many by testifying, “When we were together in the convent Sister O’Sullivan, who was then only sixteen years of age, said to me one day, ‘Later on, you will see, I shall go to China and there die a martyr.’ So I was not surprised when I heard that she had really had that happiness.”[5]

1. Herbert, The First Martyrs of the Holy Childhood, 37.
2. Herbert, The First Martyrs of the Holy Childhood, 39.
3. Two publications that published articles on O’Sullivan after her death are the Irish Monthly (Vol.4, No.39, September 1876); and the Irish Ecclesiastical Record (December 1870).
4. Herbert, The First Martyrs of the Holy Childhood, 330.
5. Herbert, The First Martyrs of the Holy Childhood, 42.