John Neumann - American Citizen and Saint

1 JN 3: 11-21

Beloved:
This is the message you have heard from the beginning:
we should love one another,
unlike Cain who belonged to the Evil One
and slaughtered his brother. 
Why did he slaughter him? 
Because his own works were evil,
and those of his brother righteous. 
Do not be amazed, then, brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. 
We know that we have passed from death to life
because we love our brothers.
Whoever does not love remains in death. 
Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer,
and you know that no murderer has eternal life remaining in him.
The way we came to know love
was that he laid down his life for us;
so we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.
If someone who has worldly means
sees a brother in need and refuses him compassion,
how can the love of God remain in him? 
Children, let us love not in word or speech
but in deed and truth.

Now, this is how we shall know that we belong to the truth
and reassure our hearts before him
in whatever our hearts condemn,
for God is greater than our hearts and knows everything. 
Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us,
we have confidence in God.

Today the Church celebrates the life of St. John Neumann who was the bishop of Philadelphia and the first American citizen to be declared a saint by the Church.  He arrived in America with one dollar to go along with his one suit. He was a polyglot and by the age of 24, he had learned six languages fluently.He was ordained a priest within three weeks of his arrival and was sent to a rural parish where he worked hard serving the Catholics in the Niagra Falls area. He was the only priest in the area and the work was lonely and he joined the Redemptorist order and later was named the Bishop of Philadelphia.  He was bishop at the time of the anti-Catholic 

riots that were instigated by the Know-Nothing Party that rose up against the flood of immigrants and Catholics during the 1830's up until 1844.  During his reign as bishop, it is said that Catholic churches were being opened at the rate of one a month. His fluency in many languages helped him in his work amongst the immigrants that were arriving from Italy and Ireland as well as other European countries. He established the first parochial school system in America and invited religious orders to come into the diocese to provide much needed social services. He was known to be a frugal man and owned only one pair of boots from the time he arrived in America.  Being a man of short stature, people were greatly amused at how John rode a horse, he was clumsy because his feet did not reach the stirrups.   John worked hard his whole life for the Lord and he died on the street of Philadelphia while running errands.  His feast day is January 5th. 

I learned something about John today that I was not aware of before.  He came from Bohemia, now the Czech Republic, and that is where my ancestors came from.  It is interesting that in my family there were some of the same frugal ways that were practiced.  As a kid, I never had more than one pair of shoes at a time.  Leather shoes for school and church and in the summer we had canvas deck shoes which were purchased cheaply at a neighborhood store called "Community Discount."  My father had the hard working drive of John Neumann but until near the end of his life did not embrace the faith. 

We can learn a lot from St. John Neumann. We can learn that we can survive in spite of the hate and distrust and prejudice that some in America have against Catholics, which is the only prejudice that is allowed.  We can see that his work in the name of the Lord was blessed by God and it flourished. He trusted in God and did the work that was sent his way and today all over the nation there are Neuman centers where Catholic youth can find one another when they are away from home for the first time in college.  

Make this First Friday of the New Year special - dedicate all of your prayers, sufferings, and sacrifices to the Poor Souls in Purgatory. They need our help and will remember you when you pray for them.  They are not faceless and nameless people. Some of them may be your relatives or friends that have recently passed. Pray for them by name and if the prayer is not needed for them, it will be applied to another.