The writer of the first letter of John writes that the key to discipleship is love. He also states that hate and jealousy drive the contempt that most of the world has for Christians. Yet, out of love, out of compassion, we are called to persevere in our faith and we are called to endure.
St John Neumann is the saint we celebrate today. Neumann was born in 1811 in the country of Bohemia, a very Catholic country that had a large number of priests. Bohemia is a country that no longer exists, but is part of the present day country of the Czech Republic. Neumann felt called to become a missionary in the rather new country of the United States. He attended seminary in New York and served as a priest in the growing missionary Church there. Neumann had a great gift for learning languages, which served him well in the very diverse Catholic Church in the United States. Although he started as a Diocesan priest, he joined the Redemptorist missionary order, eventually serving as its provincial in the US. In 1848, he became a US citizen. In 1852, Neumann became the 4th Bishop of Philadelphia. One of his main accomplishments was the establishment of a thriving system of parochial schools, the first in our country, a legacy that still has a large impact in our American Catholic Church today. He is the patron saint of Catholic eduction. A hard worker, he died of exhaustion at the young age of 49. Pope Paul VI canonized him in 1977. We Americans can take great pride in St John Neumann as our of the Fathers of the US Catholic Church. Here is a great quote for St John Neumann about our vocation as Christians: “Everyone who breathes, high and low, educated and ignorant, young and old, man and woman, has a mission, has a work. We are not sent into this world for nothing; we are not born at random… God sees every one of us; he creates every soul . . . for a purpose. He needs, he deigns to need, every one of us. He has an end for each of us; we are all equal in His sight, and we are placed in our different ranks and stations, not to get what we can out of them for ourselves, but to labor in them for him. As Christ has his work, we too have ours; as He rejoiced to do His work, we must rejoice in ours also.” What wonderful words upon which we may ponder.
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