The saints are the work of Jesus Christ. They are one with him in heaven. As Christ implores the gift of the Holy Spirit on the whole world, his saints put their merits before God and ask him to help us still here.

There is unimpeachable evidence that God, through St. John Neumann’s fraternal concern, cured what was deemed incurable in Eva Benassi (12 years old), James Kent Lenahan (19), and Michael Flanigan (6). Those cures occurred sixty-two, eighty-nine, and one-hundred-three years after the saint’s death, which shows that he continually prays for us and that God hears his prayers.

The Church spreads the forms of popular piety that enhance the quality of Christian life. She encourages pilgrimages to places like The National Shrine of St. John Neumann, where his body is interred.

The shrine is in Northern Liberties, Philadelphia. On foot, the travel time is not more than ten minutes from anywhere in that neighborhood. Turn onto 5th St. and go a few blocks north to W. Girard Ave. The glass entryway is on the right, walk through its two sets of doors.

It’s the holiest site in the neighborhood, if not the city. It’s beautiful, too–a modern shrine renovated with beautiful hardwoods.

To see the saint, turn left after the entryway, walk down ten steps, and then past the life-sized statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and two confessional booths. Make a right and see two propped-open wooden doors with stained glass. They open onto the middle aisle of what’s called the Lower Church. Follow that downward-slopping aisle, and you’ll be face-to-face with the saint, lying in a glass reliquary under the altar.

I’ve seen unforgettable emotion in this Church.

I arrived before a 7 am daily Mass and saw a handful of congregants. They included a mother and father sitting and quietly grieving in a pew. Before the Mass started, the priest-celebrant asked if I would proclaim the readings during the Liturgy of the Word. He told me that the parents were visiting Philadelphia because their very young and terminally ill son was in the hospital. He was expected to die that day. Their suffering reached into my heart and stirred up the feelings I usually have for the parents, spouses, and children of fallen heroes.

While reading the Responsorial Psalm, I was about to say the words in the fourteenth verse of the twenty-seventh Psalm, but then I paused, looked up from the Lectionary, looked at the parents, looked down to the Lectionary, and finally proclaimed, “Be stouthearted, and wait for the LORD.”

Emotion poured out of them.

I hesitated to say the verse because God spoke to them privately, but I was also present. I didn’t expect to be the person proclaiming what God wanted to tell them. It felt like I was counseling strangers about their worst grief.

However things turned out, I assume that all of it was in God’s good care.

St. John Neumann’s biography is familiar to the locals. He was born in Bavaria in 1811 and died 49 years later in Philadelphia. God called him to the ministerial priesthood; a bishop summoned him to Holy Orders. He worked as a Diocesan priest, became a Redemptorist, and then the Holy See appointed him the fourth bishop of Philadelphia.

St. John Neumann’s accomplishments are legendary. He introduced the Forty Hours Devotion, built parish churches at the rate of about one per month, led the effort that formed Beneficial Bank (still going but under a different name), led the effort that formed the first diocesan school system, increased the number of parochial schools from 1 to 200, and invited diverse congregations of religious women and men to run those schools. One oral history says that he suffered from overwork and eventually died from exhaustion.

The children from the parish school, St. Peter the Apostle School, attend the 12:15 pm Mass every Friday. I marvel that it’s normal for them to grow up around a saint. I asked two students, “What would you say if a kid from another school asked you to name the most awesome thing about St. Peter’s?” “The playground,” said John. His sister, Juliana, said, “The classrooms.” I said the most awesome thing is the shrine, but I laughed that it would be an unpersuasive selling point for a kid!

After the daily 12:15 pm Mass is dismissed, some will stay to recite the novena invocations to St. John Neumann. The novena asks for help overcoming trials, for increased devotion to the Eucharist, for the Pope, for the clerics and the consecrated, for travelers, for the kingdom of God, for the neighborhood, and for other needs.

Something is reassuring about prayers like that novena, which have been formed over many decades. They are like the Psalms that express your soul and say what you yearn for. The novena states, for example, “Enlighten the minds of people who seek truth.” That puts into words one of my most frequent private petitions.

Pope St. John Paul II taught that by God’s will, there is an invisible unity among humans—all of us that will ever be. Our evil deeds harm everyone. That’s why all inherit Adam’s sin.

The more important fact is that our good deeds benefit everyone, which is why we gain from Jesus Christ’s spotless life. He perfectly fulfilled the law to love God and neighbor for the love of God. He earned a treasure of good that benefits those who profess his faith and receive his baptism.

St. John Neumann’s good deeds contributed to the treasury. Each year, on January 5, the Church glorifies Christ for his accomplishments in St. John Neumann.