[3] Hope completed his theological training at Melbourne's St John's College before Archbishop Wright of Sydney made him a deacon in 1914 and ordained him a priest in 1916.
Hope's biographer said of his incumbency: "during the years when Christ Church was fighting hard for its very existence, the Catholic Faith was at its most triumphant, both in personal practice and in service to those in need.
[8] Hope also established contact with the Order of St Luke the Physician and started to conduct public services of healing, a ministry that continues to this day.
One felt it amid the incense and candles (for Father John loved all these signs of God’s presence) and one felt it even more through the love that pulsed through the church so that all were welcome there, not only those dressed in their Sunday best but also all Father John’s friends from prison and reform school and the darkest alleys among the streets.”[9] The author Kylie Tennant, a long-standing friend of Hope, wrote of him: “He was a type of medieval churchman, a big handsome man with great spiritual powers.
Never one to be concerned with personal wealth (he gave a house, "Tranby", in Glebe to the Aboriginal Co-operative College),[11] his parish established an endowment to support his retirement.