St. Katharine Drexel, Religious and Missionary
(a Philadelphia Saint-she lived within a mile of my childhood home. Today her home is owned by the Sisters Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and whose grounds is located a Montessori school as well as aschool for boys where which many family members have attended: St. Aloysius Academy. )
1858-1955
Feast Day: March 3
Katharine Drexel was born in Philadelphia in 1858. The daughter of a millionaire banker, she never went without as she grew up in the bosom of Philadelphia society, yet she was filled with a pious desire to submit her will to God and to take care of the poor. At the urging of her spiritual advisor, Bishop John O’Connor of Omaha, Katharine resolved to found a religious order of women dedicated to mission work among the Native American and African-American poor. In 1891, she founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament. With a keen business sense developed under her father, Mother Drexel founded numerous schools and missions throughout the South and West of the United States. Today, the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament have missions in eleven states and in Haiti.
Mother Drexel was an active administrator of her order well into her seventies, when her health gave out and she was forced into a more contemplative life at the SBS mother house outside Philadelphia. Here she spent the final twenty years of her life in prayer and reflection — a life she had wanted since, as a young woman, she had first thought of becoming a vowed religious. Her body is now entombed at the Saint Katharine Drexel Shrine in Bensalem, Pennsylvania (shown at right).
On January 27, 2000, a 1994 healing of the deafness of a young girl from Pennsylvania was accepted by Pope John Paul II as attributable to the miraculous intercession of Mother Katharine. She was formally canonized in a ceremony in Rome on October 1, 2000.
What first interested me in St. Katharine Drexel is that her uncle, Anthony J. Drexel, was the founder of my alma mater, Drexel University. As these things go, that’s a pretty close tie-in. That we’re both from Philly doesn’t hurt, either.
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- Ever loving God,
You called Saint Katharine Drexel
to share the message of the Gospel and the life of the Eucharist
With the poor and oppressed among the Native and African-American peoples.
Through her intercession may we grow in the faith and love
that will enable us to be united as brothers and sisters in You.
We ask this through our Lord, Jesus Christ,
Who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit,
One God, forever and ever. Amen
Saint Katharine Drexel, friend to the poor, pray for us!
