A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint John. Jesus wanted to set out for Galilee. But first, he came upon Philip, said to him, follow me. Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the same town as Andrew and Peter. Philip sought out Nathaniel, 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 that was, can anything good come out of Nazareth? That's what they thought of Nazareth. And then Philip replied, come, see for yourself. When Jesus saw Nathaniel coming toward him, he said, this man is a real Israelite.
There is no guile in him. How do you know? How do you know me? Nathaniel asked. And our lord replied, 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 answered, do you believe just because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things by far than that. And then Jesus went on to tell them, I solemnly assure you, you shall see the sky opened and the angels of god ascending and descending on the son of man.
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. Well, as I said at the beginning of this mass, yesterday, we had the feast of saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, and today, we have the feast of saint John Neumann of Philadelphia. Elizabeth Seton died, I think, in 1820, and, John Neumann was born about 1811. So but he was born a little bit to the east of here, over in Prague, and he died in 1860.
Notice he only lived forty nine years. Forty nine years. Now, his one ambition was to be a priest, but he happened to be five feet four to begin with, and that was sort of a two strikes against him. Anyway, when the time came in Prague for him to become a study for the priesthood, they decided they had too many priests already. So they said, goodbye.
So he got on the next ship for New York and arrived in New York practically penniless with no with no English, and that's how he began his studies for the holy priesthood. He got associated with the redemptorists and became the first redemptorist ordained in The United States. And then a few years later, he became bishop of Philadelphia. Now let me tell you, he became bishop of Philadelphia because the Holy See said that's what we want, because the people of Philadelphia didn't want him, including the clergy. Because this poor little guy, only five feet four, who still had a strong accent, who still bore all the the atmosphere of an immigrant, and he made no bones about it, Here he was coming into probably the most cultured city on the Eastern Coast.
Keep that in mind, Philadelphia was something big in those days. And they didn't want any parts of them. They beseeched Rome not to make him bishop. Of course, Rome always listens to that sort of thing and they made him vicious of Philadelphia. It was swamped with poor immigrants.
And he the first thing he'd thought he had to do was to build churches, to put a roof over their heads. So he was he churches started to be to be dropping up almost one a month. He saw something had to be do for these children because he looked upon the public schools as dens of iniquity. He wasn't far wrong. And he said, we've got to do something for our kids.
And in a few years, three years, from having 900 children in parochial schools, they had over 9,000. The one point I wanna make about John Noy, he is the most unlikely person you can ever imagine to be a saint or to be anything really. He wouldn't have made he wouldn't have gotten a job as an office boy probably. I'm speaking literally. He was very unpopular.
And he even sent a letter to Rome. He says if it's for the best he didn't wanna be bishop. He he asked some nuns to pray that they wouldn't be bishop when Kendrick said, I'm going to make you bishop after when Kendrick came down to Baltimore. He didn't want it by no means. And when and he was he would he didn't have a happy life at all as a bishop because nobody particularly liked him.
He wrote to Romans, says, relieve me of this. Give me any kind of a job. Get me out of here. Rome said Nix, but he died at the age of 49. The most significant thing about him, of course, they even forgot.
Literally, when they started the process of canonization, it got shelved and was practically forgotten. I'm not exaggerating this a bit. It's really fantastic. I wanna read what Saint Benedict who, started the ball rolling effectively to make him a bit a saint. Then you see, the argument was, what has this man done to be a saint?
Fiddlesticks. Benedict fifteenth wrote this, even and this is absolutely applicable to each one of us. Benedict could be talking to each one of us here this morning. Even the most simple works performed with constant perfection in the midst of inevitable difficulties spell heroism in any servant of God. Now, yeah, I I remind you of the little flower, doesn't it?
But this is what is something we can apply to our lives. See, we're gonna a few years after our we're dead, only a few people, if there be that many, will remember us. Our lives will practically be as if they had not been. Let's face it. We won't be looked upon as heroes or heroines.
Matter of fact, we won't be looked upon as anything because for the most part, we'll be forgotten. But you see, that is not the test of being a saint. The test of being a saint is to be associated with God, not with men and women. And it isn't the magnitude of what you do, it's the quality of what you do. Just as Saint Thomas says, the virtue of magnificence.
It doesn't it means great doing great things. Well, what can how can you do great things if you don't have great resources? And Aquinas answers, that's not the point. We can all have the virtues of magnitude by using to the best of our ability what we have. You see, he was a man of great uncommon common sense.
That's my friend Aquinas. Feel like I know him. Oh, I do know him. Hope he knows me. But the now that I just wanna remember, you remember the the the day before Christmas in the Washington Post?
That article entire another miracle on 34th Street? Did any of you read that? It's about Neumann and this little Chuckie McGivern, I think his name was. I'm very good at names, you know. But it was Chuckie McGivern up there in Philadelphia.
Got the Rye disease, all hope gone. They made novenas and prayers and all that kind of stuff, you know, to Saint to Newman, who who was declared a saint. And the boy recovered. Now here's the funny thing. After he had recovered, his parents took him down to the the redemptor's house there in Philly, and, there was a picture of Neumann on the wall.
But it was Neumann as a little boy. And Chuckie turned to his parents and says, that's the boy that appeared to me in my dreams when he was nearly dead. This was in the Washington Post of all. If it's in the post, know, it's next to the next to God's word. You all know that.
But anyway, it was on the twenty fourth. Notice it's not a coincidence that this was the day before Christmas. It's a nice Christmas story, you know. We like to go to kids and all that stuff, you know. But there's something very profound here.
The point I want to make is John Neumann just lived up a little bit north of us. As I say, he died in 1860, just before the civil war, and Elizabeth Seton, right up the road here, she was a she was a a convert, as you know, from Episcopalianism, and it cost her everything to become a Catholic. Her family disowned her in New York. You I won't tell her. I guess you heard that story yesterday.
But the thing is, these people you see, we have a a terribly bad idea what it means to be a saint. We have in mind men like Saint John of the Cross. Well, they are not normal, believe me. But he's a saint. I've got to say that for him and say he's Saint Teresa of Avila, but she had more sense than he had.
But the thing is these the Catholic church has all kinds of people as saints. We've had people who were so stinky, I mean literally stinky, wandering around Rome that people didn't wanna get near him. He became a saint and is a saint today. Then we have good hygienic saints, and we have all kinds of saints. You name it, we've got it.
The one thing about being a saint is Jesus Christ and God, and it's going back to him. Notice back. There's no question of our vocation. There's no question of people finding themselves. We have peep we have already discovered ourselves because god has shown us who we are.
It's this simple. All this malarkey about finding yourself and being fulfilled, this is junk. It's very simple. I came from God. I go back to God.
Isn't that simple? That's why he made me. That's how why he made me. To know him, to love him, and to serve him in this world, and to be happy with him forever in heaven. So there's there's no argument about my destiny.
I know where I'm going. Everybody gets all uptight about the how of getting there, which is really not too important. You even old man Nietzsche said that, you know, quoted him several times in the last week. If you know the why to life, you can bear almost anything of the how. But it's what you do with that how that matters.
Whether it's laying bricks or handling money or being a banker or being a priest or a nun or a widow or a celibate or whatever. It's really not too important. What it is is how you what you do with it. How do you handle your life? It's a means to an end.
It's not an end in itself. Contrary to everything you hear, we are not born to be citizens of this world. We are born not to be citizens of this world. So these two feasts of of of Elizabeth Ann Seaton and John Neumann, they should bring home to us our possibilities personally. And it's not just possibilities.
We're talking here about salvation because to be saved means to be a saint. In the name of the father, and the son, and the holy spirit. Amen.