Wood Plaque Premium - Bl. Francis Xavier Seelos by B. Nippert

Francis Xavier Seelos was born in Fussen, Bavaria, Germany in 1819. He came from a large, loving Catholic family. He decided to become a priest and sail to the U.S. to minister to the German immigrants. This was a huge and generous sacrifice because he would be leaving his close-knit family almost certainly to never see them again until they were reunited in heaven one day. As a Redemptorist priest, he served at Saint Philomena church in Pittsburgh, where he made lifelong friends with the pastor, John Nuemann. John became bishop of Philadelphia and later the first man from the U.S.