Congratulations to John and Barbara Mullins

Born in New York City into an Irish-Italian family, John was raised Catholic and all through his school years was educated by the Dominicans, Salesians, and Jesuits.

After their marriage, John and his wife Barbara were active in their careers for many years. John’s line of work was in the international distribution of power apparatus and telecommunications equipment to overseas electricity, petrochemical, and telephone companies which involved a lot of travel. Simultaneously, John also was involved for many years in the radio broadcasting / recording studio field, an interest he still retains to this day.

John’s wife Barbara, an only child born into an Italian family in New York City, went into the medical field after school. She spent her whole career as a Medical Lab Technologist in hematology and blood banking in various New York area hospitals.
John and Barbara have one son who is an Airborne Technician in the FAA’s Flight Check department. John also has one younger brother.

When they became empty-nesters, the couple made a decision in the early 2000’s to “move south”. It took several years of investigating different areas in the southern part of the US, but they finally decided to settle in Calabash in 2013 and became part of St. Brendan Parish.

John’s vocational call had its beginnings about twenty years ago. The call accelerated in 2009 during a pilgrimage to Rome and other Catholic shrines in Italy. John’s investigation into the Permanent Diaconate in the Archdiocese of New York revealed that the program could not be started in New York but would have to wait until the move to Calabash. After relocation in 2013, the vocation finally became a reality in 2014 when John was one of 21 men accepted into Formation for the Permanent Diaconate by the Diocese of Raleigh. Six years later, John and 14 of his brothers-in-ministry were ordained by Bishop Luis Zarama on Saturday 27 June 2020 in Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral.

In the writings of the great Doctor of the Church, St. Alphonsus Liguori, we find that after the gift of the true Faith, a vocation to serve God is the greatest gift that God can give to a soul. He declared that a vocation is a singular proof of God’s special love for that soul.