January 05

Memorial of Saint John Neumann, Bishop 
Lectionary: 208

Reading 11 Jn 3:11-21

Beloved:
This is the message you have heard from the beginning:
we should love one another,
unlike Cain who belonged to the Evil One
and slaughtered his brother. 
Why did he slaughter him? 
Because his own works were evil,
and those of his brother righteous. 
Do not be amazed, then, brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. 
We know that we have passed from death to life
because we love our brothers.
Whoever does not love remains in death. 
Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer,
and you know that no murderer has eternal life remaining in him.
The way we came to know love
was that he laid down his life for us;
so we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.
If someone who has worldly means
sees a brother in need and refuses him compassion,
how can the love of God remain in him? 
Children, let us love not in word or speech
but in deed and truth.

Now this is how we shall know that we belong to the truth
and reassure our hearts before him
in whatever our hearts condemn,
for God is greater than our hearts and knows everything. 
Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us,
we have confidence in God.

Responsorial PsalmPs 100:1b-2, 3, 4, 5

R. (2a) Let all the earth cry out to God with joy.
Sing joyfully to the LORD, all you lands;
serve the LORD with gladness;
come before him with joyful song.
R. Let all the earth cry out to God with joy.
Know that the LORD is God;
he made us, his we are;
his people, the flock he tends.
R. Let all the earth cry out to God with joy.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
his courts with praise;
Give thanks to him; bless his name.
R. Let all the earth cry out to God with joy.
The LORD is good:
the LORD, whose kindness endures forever,
and his faithfulness, to all generations.
R. Let all the earth cry out to God with joy.

GospelJn 1:43-51

Jesus decided to go to Galilee, and he found Philip. 
And Jesus said to him, "Follow me." 
Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the town of Andrew and Peter. 
Philip found Nathanael and told him,
"We have found the one about whom Moses wrote in the law, 
and also the prophets, Jesus, son of Joseph, from Nazareth." 
But Nathanael said to him,
"Can anything good come from Nazareth?" 
Philip said to him, "Come and see." 
Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him,
"Here is a true child of Israel. 
There is no duplicity in him." 
Nathanael said to him, "How do you know me?" 
Jesus answered and said to him,
"Before Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree." 
Nathanael answered him,
"Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel." 
Jesus answered and said to him,
"Do you believe 
because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? 
You will see greater things than this." 
And he said to him, "Amen, amen, I say to you, 
you will see the sky opened and the angels of God 
ascending and descending on the Son of Man."

Meditation: "Come and see"

How can one know for certain that Jesus is truly the Son of God and Savior of the world? Philip, a new disciple of Jesus, at first failed to convince his friend Nathaniel that he had found the Messiah. Nathanial was very skeptical. He didn’t like Nazareth and didn’t want to have anything to do with people who came from such a place. How could the Messiah come from a town at the crossroads with gentiles and people of other religions? Perhaps we are like Nathanial. We reject others out of rivalry or prejudice, or we keep them at a distance because we find fault with something about them, whether it be their manners, dress, customs, associations, or whatever we dislike about them and their kind. Rather than argue with his friend, Philip took the wiser strategy of inviting Nathaniel  to "come and see" for himself who this Jesus claimed to be. Clever arguments rarely win people to the gospel, but a genuine encounter with the person of Jesus Christ can transform one's life forever.

Nathaniel was amazed that Jesus already knew him and called him "an Israelite in whom is no guile" (Psalm 32:2). How could Jesus know his heart and his deepest thoughts and desires? Jesus spoke a word to Nathaniel and it set his heart ablaze with wonder! Nathaniel was hungry for knowledge of God. He really wanted to know God personally. God places in every heart a longing and desire to know the One who created us in love for love. That is why Saint Augustine of Hippo, who found God only after many years of wandering in disbelief and darkness, exclaimed in his autobiographical Confessions: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”

What is the significance of Jesus' revelation of seeing Nathanial under the fig tree? For the Israelites, the fig tree was a symbol of God's blessing and peace.  It provided shade from the midday sun and a cool place to retreat and pray. It is very likely that Nathanial had meditated "under the fig tree" on the Messianic prophecies and prayed for their fulfillment in his time. Perhaps he dozed off for a midday nap and dreamed of God's kindgom like Jacob did when he saw a vision of the ladder which united earth with heaven (see Genesis 28:12-17). Nathaniel accepted Jesus as Messiah and Lord because Jesus spoke to the need of his innermost being – the desire to know God personally and to be united with him in his glory. Jesus' response to Nathanial's new faith is the promise that he himself will be the "ladder which unites earth with heaven". God had opened a door for Jacob that brought him and his people into a new relationship with the living God. In Jacob's dream God revealed his angelic host and showed him the throne of heaven and promised Jacob that he and descendants would dwell with the living God.

Jesus proclaims to Nathanial that he himself is the fulfillment of this promise to the Patriarch Jacob. Jesus is the true ladder or stairway to heaven. In Jesus' incarnation, the divine Son of God taking on human flesh for our sake, we see the union of heaven and earth – God making his dwelling with us and bringing us into the heavenly reality of his kingdom. Jesus' death on the Cross and his Resurrection opens the way for each of us to come into a new relationship with God as his sons and daughters. The Lord Jesus opens the way for each of us to "ascend to heaven" and to bring "heaven to earth" in the daily circumstances of our lives. God's kingdom is present in those who seek him and who do his will. Do you pray as Jesus taught, May your kingdom come and your will be done in earth as it is in heaven?

"Heavenly Father, through your Son Jesus Christ, you have opened the way to heaven for us. As you revealed yourself to your beloved Patriarchs and Apostles, so reveal yourself to me that I may glorify you in my daily life.  May I always find joy in your presence and never lose sight of the kingdom of heaven."

January 5
St. John Neumann
(1811-1860)

Perhaps because the United States got a later start in the history of the world, it has relatively few canonized saints, but their number is increasing.

John Neumann was born in what is now the Czech Republic. After studying in Prague, he came to New York at 25 and was ordained a priest. He did missionary work in New York until he was 29, when he joined the Redemptorists and became its first member to profess vows in the United States. He continued missionary work in Maryland, Virginia and Ohio, where he became popular with the Germans.
At 41, as bishop of Philadelphia, he organized the parochial school system into a diocesan one, increasing the number of pupils almost twentyfold within a short time.
Gifted with outstanding organizing ability, he drew into the city many teaching communities of sisters and the Christian Brothers. During his brief assignment as vice provincial for the Redemptorists, he placed them in the forefront of the parochial movement.
Well-known for his holiness and learning, spiritual writing and preaching, on October 13, 1963, John Neumann became the first American bishop to be beatified. Canonized in 1977, he is buried in St. Peter the Apostle Church in Philadelphia.

Comment:

Neumann took seriously our Lord’s words, “Go and teach all nations.” From Christ he received his instructions and the power to carry them out. For Christ does not give a mission without supplying the means to accomplish it. The Father’s gift in Christ to John Neumann was his exceptional organizing ability, which he used to spread the Good News.

Today the Church is in dire need of men and women to continue in our times the teaching of the Good News. The obstacles and inconveniences are real and costly. Yet when Christians approach Christ, he supplies the necessary talents to answer today’s needs. The Spirit of Christ continues his work through the instrumentality of generous Christians.

Quote:

“All people of whatever race, condition or age, in virtue of their dignity as human persons, have an inalienable right to education. This education should be suitable to the particular destiny of the individuals, adapted to their ability, sex and national cultural traditions, and should be conducive to amicable relations with other nations in order to promote true unity and peace in the world. True education aims to give people a formation which is directed towards their final end and the good of that society to which they belong and in which, as adults, they will have their share of duties to perform” (Declaration on Christian Education, 1, Austin Flannery translation).