Pastor's Corner, January 4, 2015

Dear Parishioners and Friends,

On January 5 we celebrate the feast day of a great American saint, St. John Neumann. As Bishop of Philadelphia from 1852 to his death in 1860, the holy bishop served a territory which includes the Diocese of Allentown. Several parishes in our diocese were founded and received visits from St. John Neumann.

It is hard for us to imagine but when St. John Neumann finished his seminary studies there were “too many” priests in his native Bohemia. He wrote to the bishop of New York who decided to ordain him and send him to the growing German parishes in his territory. Eventually Fr. Neumann joined the Redemptorist order and served in many places in the northeast. When chosen bishop of Philadelphia he spent many weeks visiting parishes and establishing the first Catholic school system in the United States, increasing the number in his diocese from 2 to 100.

St. John Neumann eventually learned 6 different languages. When Irish immigration started, he learned Gaelic so well that one Irish woman remarked, “Isn't it grand that we have an Irish bishop!”

He lived poverty so strictly that once on a visit to Germany he came back to the house he was staying in soaked by rain. When his host suggested he change his shoes, the saint remarked, “The only way I could change my shoes is by putting the left one on the right foot and the right one on the left foot. This is the only pair I own.”

St. John Neumann, intercede for us!

In Christ,

Msgr. Baker