Meg Hunter-Kilmer joins Sullivan Family Saints Initiative
Notre Dame, IN — The Sullivan Family Saints Initiative (SFSI) at the McGrath Institute for Church Life is excited to welcome its first Sullivan Family Saints Fellow, Meg Hunter-Kilmer, who will dedicate her fellowship term from January - December 2022 to increasing devotion to and promoting scholarship of the saints.
The aim of the fellowship program is to enable scholars and pastoral leaders to contribute their own creative work to the pursuit of this mission in a way that enriches both the initiative and the fellow.
Over the term of the fellowship, Hunter-Kilmer will contribute to and help develop a wide array of projects. As a speaker, she will present at signature programs of the McGrath Institute, such as Notre Dame Vision and Saturdays with the Saints. As a writer, Hunter-Kilmer will contribute to the Church Life Journal. As a researcher and educator, she will connect with and interview people related to recent saints, in addition to developing teaching resources and prayer guides. Hunter-Kilmer will also broadly advise and collaborate with Leonard DeLorenzo, who oversees the SFSI.
Said Hunter-Kilmer, “The lives of the saints offer hope to those of us who feel too broken, too ordinary, too little, or too much. When we discover saint stories that resonate with us, we begin to see that God loves us exactly as we are, with our mental illness, our dysfunctional family, our love of video games or scientific inquiry or soccer.”
“The Sullivan Family Saints Initiative brings together scholarship and devotion, which is something that Meg Hunter-Kilmer has long been doing in her writing, speaking, and ministry,” said DeLorenzo. “She is a gifted storyteller who allows the beauty and ‘realness’ of the saints to shape the imaginations of children and adults alike. Meg challenges and enriches our commonplace and far-too-limited ideas about holiness. We need to break open the beauty of holiness for our world in a fresh and urgent way. Meg will help us to do that within the Sullivan Family Saints Initiative.”
Hunter-Kilmer is a cradle Catholic and a revert to Catholicism, who was brought back to the love of the Church through the sacraments and study. She holds a BA in theology and a MTS in Systematic Theology from the University of Notre Dame. After receiving her master's degree, she taught religion in Catholic schools for five years before embarking on a new mission of driving around the country and flying around the world to teach, speak, and preach on Catholic topics, especially the lives of the saints. She is the author of two books: Saints Around the World, an international saints picture book, and Pray for Us: 75 Saints Who Sinned, Suffered and Struggled on Their Way to Holiness.
“Over and again I've seen the stories of the saints draw people deeper into the heart of Jesus, convincing them that holiness really is possible for them,” shared Hunter-Kilmer. “I'm so excited to be working with the McGrath Institute for Church Life to tell more of these stories to wider audiences, letting the lives of the saints bring hope and call all people to holiness.”
To learn more about the Sullivan Family Saints Initiative and be alerted about new resources and programming, submit your email address using the form below.
Contact: Brett Robinson, director of communications, 574-631-6109, brobins6@nd.edu