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John Bradburne was born on June 14, 1921 in England and baptized in the Church of England. After receiving an excellent basic education, he planned to enter a university. However, when the Second World War began, John volunteered for the Indian Army into which he was commissioned as an officer.
In the army, he served in what was then called British Malaya which was invaded by the Imperial Japanese Army. When Singapore fell to the Japanese in 1942, John escaped into a jungle where he lived with another officer for a month. The two officers tried to sail a sampan to Sumatra, but they were shipwrecked. In a second attempt, the two were rescued by a Royal Navy destroyer and returned to India.
After the war, in March of 1946, John gave up his commission because of ill health.
While John was in Asia, he had some kind of religious experience. In 1947, he became a Roman Catholic, and then began a most fascinating journey that would lead him to become a lay missionary in Africa.
First, he tried to become a Benedictine monk, but the Order would not accept him because he had not been a Catholic for the minimum two years at the time of his application.
Following this experience, John became a pilgrim. For the next sixteen years, John traveled through England, France, Italy, Greece, and the Middle East with only a Gladstone bag, a small suitcase. During this time, he stayed with the Carthusian monks for seven months. Later, in Israel, he joined the Order of Our Lady of Mount Sion and was sent to Louvain, Belgium as a novice. This did not work out for John, so he walked to Rome and lived for a year in the organ loft of a small church in a mountain village, playing the organ.
Then, he tried to become a hermit in Dartmoor, England, a choir member and sacristan in the Westminster Cathedral, and finally as a caretaker of the country house of a cardinal in Hertfordshire, England.
On Good Friday, 1956, John joined the Secular Franciscan Order but remained a layman. However, he let everyone know that when he died, he wanted to be buried in a Franciscan habit.
In 1962, John wrote to a Jesuit friend in Rhodesia, which is now the country of Zimbabwe. John asked his friend, Fr. John Dove, “Is there a cave in Africa where I can pray?” Instead of telling John about a cave, Fr. Dove invited John to come to Rhodesia to be a missionary helper. John came to Rhodesia and served in a leper colony. Unfortunately, he had a disagreement with the Leprosy Association in time, and the Association expelled him from the colony.
Nevertheless, after being expelled from the leper colony, John lived in a tin hut just outside the perimeter fence of the colony. For the last six years of his life, he continued to minister to the lepers.
On September 2, 1979, guerillas of the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army abducted John. Three days later, on September 5, they shot and killed him. He was fifty-eight years old.
When John first came to Africa, he let a Franciscan priest know of his three wishes: to be a martyr, to be buried in a Franciscan habit, and to help victims of leprosy. He got all three wishes.
In addition to his missionary work, John was a poet and has the honor of being the most prolific writer England has ever produced. Six thousand of his poems are in existence.
Every year, about 25,000 people come to celebrate a special Mass for John Bradburne. In September 2019, Church officials began the process of exploring if John Bradburne should one day become one of the newest canonized saints of the Church. So, he is now known as a Servant of God.
