About St. Katharine Drexel

I am excited to spend this week getting to know St. Katharine Drexel, who is the second American-born saint to be canonized. St. Katharine’s story is a little different from most of the saints we have discussed so far because she lived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and she lived a long life. That has not been true for many of the saints we have studied recently. The Franciscan Media site captured my interest in St. Katharine in their reflection:

“Saints have always said the same thing: Pray, be humble, accept the cross, love and forgive. But it is good to hear these things in the American idiom from one who, for instance, had her ears pierced as a teenager, who resolved to have “no cake, no preserves,” who wore a watch, was interviewed by the press, traveled by train, and could concern herself with the proper size of pipe for a new mission. These are obvious reminders that holiness can be lived in today’s culture as well as in that of Jerusalem or Rome.” (found here, para 9)

Her Young Life

St. Katharine was born to Francis Anthony Drexel and Hannah (Langstroth) Drexel November 26, 1858. She was their second daughter. Hannah died weeks later, but Francis remarried Emma (Bouvier) Drexel and had another daughter. Francis was a wealthy banker, but he and Emma raised their daughters with a strong sense of faith.  The girls saw Francis stop for a half hour of prayer every night, and Emma opened their home a few days each week to care for the poor. They distributed food, clothing, and rent assistance, even seeking out women who might be too afraid or too proud to come to them for help, but Emma taught the girls to always do so in a respectful way to avoid embarrassing anyone.

Even while growing up, Katharine never let the family’s wealth distract from her faith. Then after nursing her stepmother through a 3-year battle with cancer, she became even more aware that money could not promise happiness. After all, it wasn’t able to save her stepmother from cancer.

Finding Her Mission

On a family trip to the western United States, Katharine became acutely aware of the poor living conditions for the Native American people in that part of the country. She soon became dedicated to improving their lives and the lives of African American people in the southern United States.

When her father died in 1885, he left part of his substantial estate to various charities and the rest to the three girls. To protect them from suitors trying to get their money, he stipulated that the remaining estate, on their deaths, would go first to any grandchildren and then to several specific charitable organizations.

Katherine and her sisters made an initial donation to the St. Francis Mission of South Dakota’s Rosebud Reservation, but she quickly realized that the mission really needed people to help as much as it needed money. But Katharine was feeling called to religious life, and she was seeking a contemplative life.

The girls were granted an audience with Pope Leo XIII on a trip to Europe, and she took advantage of the opportunity to ask him to send missionaries to the St. Francis Mission. She argued, “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.” (cited here, para 20) In response to her request, the pope asked why she wouldn’t just become a missionary herself.

Entering Religious Life

Katharine went back home and spoke with a dear friend and spiritual director, Father James O’Connor. Before this trip, he had counseled her to slow down and pray about it before entering a religious order. Now he agreed with her new conviction. He further advised her to found her own order instead of joining an established one because they might assign her to things other than her desired mission to serve the Native and African American people. In her words, “The feast of St. Joseph brought me the grace to give the remainder of my life to the Indians and the Colored.” (cited here, para 14)

Her decision to enter religious life was quite a shock to those in the social circles of Philadelphia. In fact, the Philadelphia Public Ledger ran a headline, “Miss Drexel Enters a Catholic Convent – Gives Up Seven Million.” (see reference here, para 24) When she took her initial vows in November of 1889, she not only took the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, but she added a fourth vow, “To be the mother and servant of the Indian and Negro races.” (quoted here, para 26) She took her final vows February 12, 1891.

Establishing Her Mission

Now known as Mother Katharine, she established a religious congregation called the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament. They opened their first mission boarding school, St. Catherine’s Indian School, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1894, and soon opened other schools for Native Americans in the states west of the Mississippi River. They also opened schools for African Americans in the southern part of the United States.

Thanks to her inheritance, Mother Katherine also financed a mission for the Navajos in Arizona and New Mexico, and convinced the friars of St. John the Baptist Province to help staff it. Additionally, she financed the printing of a Navajo-English Catechism of Christian Doctrine for the Navajo children in 1910. And perhaps her crowning achievement was the 1915 founding of Xavier University in New Orleans, the first Catholic University in the United States with the purpose of serving primarily African American students.

By 1942, Mother Katherine and her Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament had a system of Catholic schools for African American students in 13 states, along with 40 mission centers and 23 rural schools. They also had 50 missions for Native Americans in 16 states.

Her Later Life

At the age of 77, Mother Katharine suffered a major heart attack and had to retire from official duties. For nearly 20 years after that, she lived a life of quiet and intense prayer. Dr. Norman Francis, the president of Xavier University in New Orleans believes it was a genuine miracle that she lived that long after a serious heart attack because the Lord was protecting her mission. He made this observation because the Drexel fortune, which was financing the mission, would revert to the charities her father designated in his will upon her death,

During those final years of quiet, she recorded her prayers and aspirations in small notebooks. These writings are certainly a source of inspiration even today.

Sainthood

Mother Katharine died March 3, 1955, at age 96. She is buried at her order’s motherhouse, but St. Raphael the Archangel Catholic Church in Raleigh, North Carolina, and the Day Chapel of Saint Katharine Drexel Parish in Sugar Grove, Illinois, also house her relics.

According to a release from the Vatican News Services (found here):

“Katharine left a four-fold dynamic legacy to her Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, who continue her apostolate today, and indeed to all peoples:

– her love for the Eucharist, her spirit of prayer, and her Eucharistic perspective on the unity of all peoples;

– her undaunted spirit of courageous initiative in addressing social iniquities among minorities — one hundred years before such concern aroused public interest in the United States;

– her belief in the importance of quality education for all, and her efforts to achieve it;

– her total giving of self, of her inheritance and all material goods in selfless service of the victims of injustice.”

Pope John Paul II beatified Katherine November 20, 1988, and canonized her October 1, 2000. She is a patron saint for racial justice and philanthropists. Please join us this week as we consider Katherine’s mission, the obstacles and hatred she faced as she tried to accomplish that mission, and the wonderful legacy that she left for our country and for the Church.