A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Mark. Upon leaving the synagogue, Jesus entered the house of Simon and Andrew with James. That's not the one I want. There's a these are special for this feast of Saint John Neumann. The gospel then for the reading of the gospel for Saint John Neumann is from the gospel according to Saint John and you'll see why.
And Jesus said, I and remember, Neumann was the bishop of Philadelphia, died roughly before the civil war about 1860. So our lord said, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. The hired hand who is no shepherd nor owner of the sheep, catches sight of the wolf coming and runs away, abandoning the sheep. He lets them to be snatched and scattered by the wolf.
That is because he works for pay. He has actually no concern for the sheep as if he owned them. And then our lord continues. I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep, and my sheep know me.
In the same way that the father knows me, and I know the father. For these sheep. Notice not for all of them. For these sheep, I will give my life and I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must lead them also and they shall hear my voice and there shall be one flock and one shepherd And this is the gospel, the good news of the lord.
In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. Yesterday, those of you who were who braved the storm and were here, know that we had the feast of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, who became would beatified in 1975 and who was buried up in the Basilica up in Emmitsburg. And I recommend a visit. After all, she's one of our own. Now today we have the masculine side of these so called native saints.
Saint John Neumann, n e u m a n, Neumann, came from Bohemia, came over here as a young immigrant, was ordained in The United States, joined the redemptorist fathers, and eventually became much to his unhappiness, Bishop of Philadelphia. Because for many reasons, many of them having the same thing to do with him as operated with Elizabeth Seton up in New York. Because the good, fervent, devout Catholics, in many instances in Philadelphia, could not accept this foreign born rather unimpressive man to be their bishop. Guess they all they thought they were all a bunch of wasps. Anyway, he became bishop of Philadelphia and had a very unhappy life there.
Despite that, and I tell you the nickname for all the besieged could be despite. Be despite the opposition he got and in many instance from his own kind, I mean, his own Catholics, his own thought. He achieved wonders, and especially in the way of education, building up schools, and building up parishes because he saw with great clarity that the heart and soul of the Christ Church is the parish. And the name of the man running the parish was pastor, which means shepherd. And the man running the diocese was the shepherd, and the name is pastor.
Pastor. Now if there's any one thing, I don't like that, you know, you can keep hitting things and they get monotonous boring and say for God's sake, is that all he knows? But the thing when you read the lives of these people, the thing that impresses me is how much they did which turned out immensely successful when at the time it looked to be utter failure. If you I I don't pretend to be any historian, certainly not. I'm no Monsignor John Ellis.
But here is a man in in Philadelphia who was not welcomed by many of his own co religionists, who had a very unhappy life, who submitted his resignation to the holy father, said if if I can serve the church, throw me out. I'm ready to leave. And he had a place to go. He was a redemptorist. You all know who they are.
They had their they were very prominent in this part of the country. Now, the the this is the thing that at the time, when you look at these lives take these two people, Elizabeth Seton and John Neumann. When you look at the at their very closely at their lives, I mean, chronologically, they look like failures. Failures. In many instances, they seem to be attacking the impossible and getting not much help from anybody, including the lord.
I mean, I'm talking about taking a very close view. But when you look back, he's only he's only dead over a little a little over a 100 years, And we get a whole new perspective, a whole new perspective. And this goes almost for all the saints. Right away, think of John Henry Newman. He was nearly thrown out of the church, you know.
I mean, expelled. The only thing saved him was Leo the thirteenth who made him a cardinal. Now he's now he's being pushed to be to be beatified. Is it what I'm saying is this, we don't have to be Newmans or Neumanns or Elizabeth Ann Seaton to realize that the ways of the Lord are not men's ways. That's putting it in the nutshell.
As Saint Paul says, what I considered success what I considered success is failure in the eyes of God. This this is hard stuff, you know, because we are a winning people. We want success yesterday, not tomorrow. We want it yesterday. That's the common view today.
They're blaming a lot of our social ills on this. Somebody sees a beautiful car coming down the road. They don't say I'm going to work hard and get that car. No. I want that car now, n o w.
And we we are all part of this. We we wanna be on the winning side, the winning team, you know, it's all of it is winning, winning, winning. And I'm a great believer in that. I'm a Lombardi man, all right straight through. I believe in winning.
The name of the game is to win. But you wanna know what goal you're going to make. What is winning? See, there's the point. What is winning?
And as I've said yes well, sometime within the last couple of days, we've been in this church so much. We what star are you following? Now if you can't answer that pretty clearly, your lives are not very integrated. And as I said, if if a picture is worth a thousand words, what is a life worth when we can say that guy did it, that woman did it. Look at her life.
And if you're talking about the saints, you're doing more than that. You're looking at somebody who and you can say, sure, your life is an inspiration. I think I've got it tough. Look at you. That's fine, and it works.
We need these heroes and heroines, but the saints are much more than that. As I said yesterday, they're in the trenches with us. They are shoulder to shoulder with us. They are not separated from the church of Jesus Christ. The mystical body of our lord, the church militant, that's where we are.
The church suffering, that's where some of the people who will eventually be in heaven, purgatory are. And then you have the church triumphant. And, of course, we're in a sense we're separate, of course. But the thing is in another very real sense, we are one. We're all in it together.
And so when we look at a saint Elizabeth Ann Seton or John Neumann, we're not looking at people simply from a point of view of learning, being inspired, being invigorated, being encouraged by the example of their lives. We're looking at someone who's standing by us and holding up our arms when the going gets tough. It's a real efficient causality. Let us never forget it. Don't overlook and ignore the company you keep.
In the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit, amen.