Then, something the pastor said caught his attention.
"For those of you who feel today as if your life cannot be used for good, listen to me," the pastor said. "Your life is a precious, priceless gift. And with that gift, you've got one job: Just say yes to being used for good."
O'Leary recalled this story June 4 during the closing day of the Catholic Health Assembly. His appearance wrapped up a gathering that brought about 500 people to downtown St. Louis.
O'Leary, now 48, suffered burns on 100% of his body when he was 9 while playing with gasoline and a match at his family's home in suburban St. Louis.
Doctors at St. John's Mercy Medical Center, now Mercy Hospital St. Louis, put his chances of survival at 1%. He spent five months in the hospital and endured several surgeries.
Spreading the story As a teenager and as a young man, O'Leary saw himself as a scarred, lost person. He worked in construction — not a great fit for a guy with amputated fingers, he pointed out. His life began to change for good the day after his visit at the church, when a woman called to ask if he would speak to her third-grade Girl Scout troop about his injuries and recovery. The speaking gig led to another, then another, then a book about his life, On Fire, another book, In Awe, and, in 2025, a major motion picture about his life, Soul On Fire.
O'Leary spoke about the many caregivers who helped him. Nurse Roy Whitehorn held up young John and told him: "Boy, you are gonna walk again. And I'll walk with you."
He recalled how Dr. Vatche Ayvazian, his primary burn doctor, praised the maintenance worker who cleaned O'Leary's hospital room as the most important person to the boy's recovery, since he kept the room clean and germ-free.
O'Leary showed slides of Ayvazian at his wedding and again on the red carpet at the premiere of the movie. In both photos, Ayvazian holds O'Leary's scarred hands in both of his. "I want you to look just for a moment at the way he shakes his former patient's hands, seeing the dignity in the brokenness," O'Leary said.
O'Leary showed the movie poster for Soul On Fire, a silhouette of the O'Leary character facing a collage of faces depicting those who helped him: his wife, his parents, his caregivers.
"Most movie posters make it all about the hero," he said. "If it's a story called Superman, you see a picture of Superman in the front flexing. With our film, they take the main guy, I guess, and they turn him around backwards, and they turn him into a silhouette in order to draw focus and light on where it belonged, which is the body of Christ: the ordinary, unassuming servants who showed up for little John the day he was burned."
Showing up in daily life is often difficult, he said. "How do you flourish when you don't feel like it? How do you lead when you wish someone else would step forward?" he asked the crowd.
He provided three tips for doing just that.
- Look east, watch the light come through the darkness, and be grateful. We can be grateful for things like hot coffee, cold beer, a pair of jeans that fits just right, and the belief that God works through broken people, O'Leary said. "We begin today by celebrating the fact that little things in life aren't," he said. "It's the building blocks that allow us and those we are called to lead forward to truly flourish."
- Have the ability to take action, because your work matters. O'Leary recalled the story of Ayvazian praising the maintenance worker as an example. He recounted how he reunited with nurse Whitehorn at a speaking engagement years after the accident. Whitehorn told O'Leary that he was most surprised to learn that after so many years, his own work mattered. "The mission mattered," Whitehorn told O'Leary. "I was part of someone else's merit."
- Live on fire for more. "Don't settle with the ways we've always done things," O'Leary said, stating that it's easy to lead on an island. He asked: "What does it take to lay down your life and make it about something bigger than ourselves?"
O'Leary held up a wooden cross he had been gifted after speaking recently to some Sisters of Mercy in suburban St. Louis. He was particularly moved by the gift and recalled how he spent his months as a child looking at the cross on the wall in his hospital room.
"Sometimes, when you're lonely, you need a friend," O'Leary said, "and sometimes when you're struggling, you need the reminder that the story doesn't end like this: that there's reason for hope, that redemption is still possible."
The cross now hangs over his desk as a reminder of what flourishing looks like in action.
"You're part of this type of miracle," he said, "for those you serve."