Day 123 -- Saint John Nepomucene Neumann

I have only heard about Saint John Neumann from the Seton Neumann Center where I made my Cursillo weekend. Saint John Neumann had an interesting life. He had four sisters and one brother and was named after Saint John Nepomucene. He was born on March 28, 1811 in Bohemia. He was an excellent student and from an early age he felt called to religious life. He entered the seminary, in addition to studying theology, he studied astronomy and botany.

On the day of John's ordination, the bishop was sick and the ordination was not rescheduled because there was an over-abundance of priests, so John decided to go to America to be ordained. He walked almost all the way to France to take a ship to America.

John arrived unannounced in Manhattan in 1836 and Bishop John Dubois was happy to ordain him as there were only 36 priests and 200,000 Catholics in New York and New Jersey. He was ordained on June 28, 1836 and was sent to Buffalo. The parish priest, Father Pax, gave him the option of staying in Buffalo or going to the rural area; John chose the difficult area. He stayed in a small town with an unfinished church and when it was finished he moved to a town with a log church. He build a log cabin for himself, rarely slept, often lived on bread and water, and walked miles to visit the farms. His parishioners were from many counties, but he knew twelve languages, so he was able to work with them all.

He joined the Redemptorists in Pittsburgh in 1840 and took his final vows in Baltimore a year later; he was the first Redemptorist to take final vows in the USA. He was missioned to Maryland, Ohio, and Virginia. He became the superior of the Redemptorists in America in 1847. He was bishop of Philadelphia in 1852.

As bishop, he built 50 churches and began building a cathedral. He also open almost 100 schools and the number of students in Catholic schools grew from 500 to 9,000. He wrote newspaper articles, two catechisms and many works in German. He was the first American man and first American bishop to be canonized. He died on January 5, 1860 of a stroke in Philadelphia. He was canonized on June 19, 1977 by Pope Paul VI.

"A true education aims at the formation of the human person with respect to the good of those societies of which, as a man, he is a member, and in whose responsibilities, as an adult, he will share."