Welcome to "North American Sanctity," a new series on holy men and women, boys and girls, saints and those on the road to sainthood, from Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Some will be familiar, others less so; but all are inspiring!
“If you do not establish the order in question, you will allow to pass an opportunity of doing immense service to the Church which may not occur again.”
— Bishop James O’Connor to St. Katharine Drexel
By Kimberly Bruce
Saint Katharine Drexel (feast day, March 3) was the second American-born saint in the Catholic Church, after St. Elizabeth Seton.
Canonized by Pope St. John Paul II in 2000, St. Katharine founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament and dozens of schools, missions, and churches for Native and African Americans beginning in the late 19th century. The most famous is Xavier University, the first black Catholic institution in the U.S., located in New Orleans.
Saint Katharine’s first school opened in 1885 for Native Americans, only 20 years after the Civil War had ended.
Fighting racism
Pope John Paul remarked that St. Katharine’s apostolate “served to raise awareness of the continuing need, even in our own day, to fight racism in all its manifestations.” He praised her, saying, she “gave her life and wealth totally” in service of God and neighbor.
Katharine was born in Philadelphia in 1858, the second daughter to wealthy parents, Francis and Hannah Drexel. Hannah died shortly after Katharine’s birth. Francis married Emma Bouvier, and a third daughter was born to the family in 1863.
A faith-filled woman, Emma opened their home to serve the poor three times a week. Her daughters learned early on that caring for the poor was a Christian virtue and duty. “Kate,” as Katharine was called, had the opportunity to practice what she’d learned when Emma later developed cancer, and Kate became her caregiver for the final three years of her life.
Be a missionary!
Through their many travels, Katharine and her siblings saw first-hand just how poorly the Native Americans lived and were treated.
Upon Francis Drexel’s death in 1885, each daughter inherited several million dollars. In turn, each gave money to support the St. Francis Mission on South Dakota’s Rosebud Reservation.
While vacationing in Europe, two years later, the sisters were granted a private audience with Pope Leo XIII in Rome. Expressing her desire to the Pope to be a contemplative, along with her concerns for the Native American population, Katharine said:
It has seemed to me more than once, Your Holiness, that I ought to aid them by my personal work among them as well, and if I enter an enclosed congregation, I might be abandoning those whom God wants me to help…Perhaps Your Holiness will designate a congregation that would give all its time and effort to the Indian missions.
Pope Leo responded, “Why not be a missionary yourself, my child?”
She questioned her spiritual director, the future Bishop James O’Connor, further, and he responded, “I was never so sure of any vocation, not even my own, as I am of yours. If you do not establish the order in question, you will allow to pass an opportunity of doing immense service to the Church which may not occur again.”
Religious life
Saint Katharine entered the Sisters of Mercy in 1889. When the time came to take her final vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, Katharine added a fourth: “To be the mother and servant of the Indian and Negro races.” She founded a new order, the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, in 1891.
Her work was not without its share of enemies, however. Dynamite was found near their motherhouse in Pennsylvania; Ku Klux Klansmen threatened the nuns with violence in Texas; segregationists burned one of their schools; and even some priests did not share Katharine’s convictions for social change.
A life of mercy
Saint Katharine lived a life of mercy towards others, nonetheless, exemplifying the virtues St. Faustina petitioned the Lord for in her Diary: “I want to be completely transformed into Your mercy and to be Your living reflection, O Lord. May the greatest of all attributes, that of Your unfathomable mercy, pass through my heart and soul to my neighbor” (Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, 163.)
Fellow sister, Ruth Catherine Spain, who aided the cause for Katharine’s canonization, said Katharine “was a pioneer for the most downtrodden and the poorest of the poor. She didn’t have a prejudiced molecule in her body, never mind a bone. She believed that everyone was a child of God.”
Life of prayer
Working hard until she suffered a major heart attack in 1935 at the age of 77, St. Katharine assumed a life of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament for the remainder of her years until her death at 96 on March 3, 1955.
Two miracles attributed to St. Katharine’s intercessory prayers from Heaven preceded her canonization. The first was the miraculous healing of Robert Gutherman from deafness in 1974; the second was the healing of 2-year-old Amy Wall from nerve deafness in both ears in 1994.
Today, 238 Associates of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament exist in 21 locations throughout the U.S., and a Shrine honoring St. Katharine is in the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul in Philadelphia.
Gifts and callings
What burdens your heart? What are you called to fix? Like St. Katharine, may we recognize the gifts and callings within us that can aid our neighbor and act upon them.
As St. John Paul II said, “May the example of St Katharine Drexel be a beacon of light and hope inspiring all of us to make an ever-greater gift of our time, talent, and treasure for the benefit of those most in need.”
Let's ask St. Katharine Drexel to pray for us that we also might identify the most neglected, underserved, or overlooked people in our own homes, communities, families, and workplaces. Let's ask her intercession that we may be the face of Christ turned with love to them, and bring the Holy Spirit of love into all hearts and homes during this Lenten season of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving in penance for our sins and the healing of the Church and the world.
Saint Katharine Drexel, pray for us!
Next in the series: Blessed Maria Concepción Cabrera Arias de Armida, March 3
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