A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint John. Jesus wanted to set out for Galilee but first, he came upon Philip Philip, Jesus said to him to Philip, follow me. Now, Philip was from Bethesda, the same town as Andrew and Peter. Philip sought out Nathaniel and said to Nathaniel, we have found the one Moses spoke of in the law, the prophets too, Jesus, son of Joseph from Nazareth. Nathaniel's response to this was, can anything good come out of Nazareth?
Philip replied, come and see for yourself. When Jesus saw Nathaniel coming toward him, he remarked, this man is a true Israelite. There is no guy in him. How do you know me, Nathaniel asked Jesus. And Jesus answered, before Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree.
Rabbi, said Nathaniel, you are the son of god. You are the king of Israel. And Jesus responded, do you believe just because I told you I saw you under a fig tree, you will see much greater things than that. Then Jesus went on to tell them, I solemnly assure you, you shall see the sky open and the angels of god ascending and descending on the son of man. And this is the gospel of the lord.
In the name of the father and of the son and the holy spirit. Amen. Today, we are celebrating the feast of Saint John Neumann of Philadelphia, also of the Redemptorist. He died about ten years after Elizabeth Seton was born. He died I mean, he was born in about 1811, and she died in 1821, as I said yesterday.
And with all due respect to the archdiocese of Philadelphia and our neighboring city and its outstanding saint, I'd like to go back to Saint Elizabeth Ann's seat. Yesterday, I had not yet read my office, but what I did stress was the fact that all she did remember, she functioned only about sixteen or seventeen years, was to try to do the will of God as she saw it as what needed doing. And then when I went after mass and read my office, I found an excerpt from a spiritual conference that she had given. And I now so I want to go back to it because to me I don't think we talked, you know, about the opus dei, the work of the Lord. But what is the work of the Lord?
Doing something tomorrow in a in a in in place that is not where you are, in a work which you do not know anything about, what is the will of the lord? See, the point is most of us know the will of the lord, but we don't like it. Anyway, this is from one of her conferences to her daughters from our neighboring saint. You just imagine her up there in that little old brick house with her daughters all around her, and she's speaking to them. And she says, and what was the first rule of our dear savior's life?
You know it was to do his father's will. Well, then the first end that I propose in our daily work is to do the will of God. To do the will of God. Secondly, to do it in the manner he wills. And now here's the clincher, and to do it because he wills So she says she's telling her little daughters, little family there, that this is the controlling principle of her life, to do the will of God, to do it in the way he wants you to do it, and then to do it because of him.
Notice that, because of God. Not because of your aim at self fulfillment, not because of your aim at happiness, not because of your father or your mother, your sister, your brother, your husband, your wife, yourself, to do it because of God. Then she continues, I know what his will is from those who direct me. Whatever they bid me to do, if it is ever so small in itself, is the will of God for me. Now right there, if any of you are acquainted with the life of Saint Teresa of Avila, this was the whole motto of her life.
She scarcely took a step without getting advice from spiritual directors and sometimes with very poor advice. But nevertheless, she she scarce well, I can say she never made an important move. By that, I mean the kind of praying she did, how she could consider these revelations or illuminations or whatever in the heck they were. She wasn't sure what they were. Even to her dying day, she wasn't sure.
So she didn't trust herself. This is Saint Theresa of Avila who has quite a reputation of being a saint, you know. So anyway, the reason I stress that this is absolutely contradictory of the present contemporary scene because everybody's doing their thing, you know, even in religion. So Elizabeth said, I know what his will is by those who direct me. And whatever they bid me to do, even if it's ever so small, that is the will of God for me.
Then do it in the manner that God wills it. And I like this very much. Not sowing an old thing as if it were a new thing, or a new thing as if it were some old garment. Not fretting because the oven is too hot, or in a because it is too cold. Now you can see that picture of the wood stove, you know, trying to get an oven at the right temperature so you can bake.
And that was a I grew up in a house like that. That was quite a trick, you know, to get the right temperature. So she's telling her dear daughters, don't worry about it, don't fret, don't fuss, you understand. Remember this is no translation, this is what she wrote of course, need I say. She said, you understand not flying and driving because you're hurried.
There's the picture of that kit, you know, these women running around getting in each other's way. Not creeping like a snail because no one pushes you. Our dear savior was never in extremes. The third object is to do his will because god wills it. That is to be ready to quit at any moment and to do anything else to which you may be called.
I just thought that might implement my well chosen remarks of yesterday Because this is you see, this is so down to earth. Here is a woman. I gave you a review of her life yesterday, who would who had everything going against her. Nothing went right with this poor lady. It although everything started with the utmost glamour and wealth and luxury and elegance, and she had everything going for And here all of a sudden, all of a sudden, out of the blue, she finds herself a pauper, she finds herself a widow, she finds herself thrown out by her relatives, she finds herself in New York where and not being able to make a living with five children.
1805, an alien, here she is. She'd become a Catholic. Her her Episcopalian friends wouldn't have anything more to do with her. And so in desperation, she says, well, I guess the only thing for me to do is to go to some place where there's a Catholic atmosphere. So she thinks she'll go to Canada.
Then she met father DuBourg, a salvation, who says, don't go to Canada. Go to Baltimore, that hit town to the South Of New York. So she comes down there and the salvation for running the seminary on Packet Street. So with five children of her own, what does she do? She opens a school.
If you have five, you might just as well have 10. That's how it began. Doing what she saw needed to be done with the advice of people that she thought could help her. Now today, as regards spiritual matters, this is just not the way it is. I met a man not long ago who went to the doctor.
Well, what had happened happened a few years before, and his physician said, Look, you've got to give up your job, you've got to get out of the office, you have to get in the open if you wish to live. The man came home. He had a pretty important job here in the government. He came home that after he told me this himself now. Told his wife, dear, we've got it I've got to give up my job.
If I wanna live, I have to take some kind of a job in the open. And she says, well, if you have to do it, we have to do it. Notice this is on the just because one man said this, and he did. He had no way of knowing how he was going to make a living in any kind of a job that would take him into the open. Well, matter of fact, became a big deal, success after success.
But what the point I'm making is that simply because one physician said, look, if you want to live, you're going to have to just give up your whole life and start afresh. He and his wife did it. A person comes to me, their marriage is breaking up, and I said, look, the first thing you have to do is to show some respect to each other. Just plain respect. Buy Emily Post, and try to treat each other as you would treat people as you meet in an elevator, at least with that much respect.
Do they take it seriously? Not at all. Not at all. I have yet, not that I've had a lot of experience, but the little experience that I've had in this matter of handling people's problems or hell helping them to handle, I have yet to have a Catholic come to me and say, what is God's will? I that has not happened.
Because you know what? They don't wanna ask that question because they know the answer. If you have a parent, a man or a woman who's contemplating leaving their family, either to get into another marriage or just to leave it because they don't want to be married anymore. Do they want to hear you tell them that that is not God's will, that God's will for them is to be faithful to their vow? They don't need me to tell them that, you know.
They know it before they come, but they never even bring it up. And I'm talking about Catholics. Catholics. People are still going to church on Sunday and all that. That's the reason Saint Elizabeth and Seaton and Bailey Seaton has a lot to offer us.
There is a God and we are his children and he is running the show. And the best we can do is to say not my will be done, but yours. In the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit. Amen.