Sainte Catherine Marie
Drexel
Elle naquit à Philadelphie
aux Etats-Unis, dans une famille fortunée et donna tout ce qu’elle possédait
pour soutenir la population noire qui vivait dans un état misérable après
l'émancipation des esclaves. Elle combattit les préjugés raciaux et, pour cela,
et fonda les Sœurs du Saint-Sacrement pour les Indiens et les Noirs. A leur
intention, elle ouvrit de nombreuses écoles dont la "Xavier
University" ouverte aux Afro-américains à La Nouvelle-Orléans en
Louisiane. Elle dut affronter courageusement les difficultés et les obstacles
que lui valaient ses initiatives audacieuses. Elle mourut en 1955.
Sainte Catherine Marie
Drexel
A Philadelphie aux
Etats-Unis, fondatrice de la Congrégation des Sœurs du Saint-Sacrement (+ 1955)
Elle naquit à
Philadelphie aux États-Unis, dans une famille très riche et donna toute sa
fortune pour soutenir la population noire qui vivait dans un état misérable
après l'émancipation des esclaves. Elle combattit les préjugés raciaux et,
pour cela, et fonda les Sœurs du Saint-Sacrement pour les Indiens et les gens
de couleur. A leur intention, elle ouvrit de nombreuses écoles dont la
"Xavier University" ouverte aux Afro-américains à La Nouvelle-Orléans
en Louisiane. Elle dut affronter courageusement les difficultés et les
obstacles que lui valaient ses initiatives audacieuses.
Canonisée le 1er octobre
2000 par Jean-Paul II
- Xavier
university of Louisiana - les Sœurs du Saint-Sacrement, congrégation fondée
en 1891 - en anglais.
- Katharine
Drexel - Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament - en anglais.
À Philadelphie, en
Pennsylvanie aux États-Unis, en 1955, sainte Catherine Drexel, vierge, qui
fonda la Congrégation des Sœurs du Saint-Sacrement et dépensa non seulement les
biens qu’elle avait reçus en héritage, mais encore toutes ses forces, pour
éduquer et aider les Indiens et les Noirs d’Amérique.
Martyrologe romain
SOURCE : http://nominis.cef.fr/contenus/saint/5971/Sainte-Catherine-Marie-Drexel.html
SAINTE CATHERINE
MARIE DREXEL
Religieuse, fondatrice,
sainte
1858-1955
Katharine Drexel naît à
Philadelphie (Pennsylvanie) en 1858. Son père, catholique, est banquier; c'est
un millionnaire philanthrope. Sa mère, protestante, meurt peu après sa
naissance, et son père se remarie. Dan sa famille, on lui enseigne que les
biens dont ils disposent ne sont pas seulement pour eux, mais doivent être
partagés avec les moins chanceux. Au cours d'un voyage en famille dans l'Ouest
de Etats-Unis, elle est profondément émue par la pauvreté et les conditions
dégradantes de vie des Peaux-Rouges et des Noirs (Afro-américains). Elle
utilise alors sa fortune pour financer des œuvres et aider des missionnaires.
En 1887, elle crée l'école Sainte Catherine, sa première école, à Santa Fe
(Nouveau-Mexique). Elle est bien effleurée parfois par l'idée d'une vocation
religieuse, mais la pensée de prendre l'habit et de renoncer au monde à jamais
lui fait horreur. Au cours de l'un de ses voyages en Europe, elle va à Rome et
expose la situation sociale à Léon XIII en lui demandant d'envoyer des
missionnaires. Quelle n'est pas sa surprise quand le Pape lui demande
doucement: "Et pourquoi, mon enfant, ne vous feriez-vous pas missionnaire
vous-même?" La première réaction, après l'audience, est la colère. Sur le
bateau du retour, son émotion n'est pas encore calmée. Elle projette d'en
parler à l'arrivée à son directeur spirituel, l'évêque James O'Connor.
Cet événement constitue sûrement un tournant dans la vie de la bienheureuse
Katharine. Avec un grand courage, elle place sa confiance dans le Seigneur et
elle choisit de donner entièrement non seulement sa fortune, mais toute sa vie
au Seigneur. En 1890, elle entre au Noviciat des Sœurs de la Miséricorde à
Pittsburgh avec l'intention de pouvoir fonder, par la suite, une communauté
religieuse qui aurait pour finalité l'adoration du Saint Sacrement et
l'évangélisation des Américains de couleur et des Indiens. En 1891, au terme
d'une année de noviciat, elle prononce ses vœux simples qui font d'elle la
première Sœur et la supérieure de la communauté du Saint-Sacrement. L'année
suivante, les Sœurs achèvent de s'installer dans le couvent Sainte-Elizabeth à
Cornwells Heights (Pennsylvanie). Leur spiritualité est basée sur l'union avec
le Seigneur-Eucharistie et le service des pauvres et des victimes de
discriminations raciales. Son apostolat contribue à diffuser la conscience
qu'il faut combattre toutes les formes de racisme au moyen de l'éducation et
des services sociaux. En effet, dans les plantations, les gens de couleur sont
très mal payés et les enfants ne sont pas scolarisés. Elle crée une soixantaine
d'écoles. Sa plus grande œuvre est l'érection en 1925, à la Nouvelle-Orléans,
de la "Xavier University" pour les Noirs. (Lorsqu'en1954 la Cour
suprême abolira la séparation des races dans les écoles, cette université
ouvrira ses portes à tous les étudiants sans distinction de couleur ou de
religion.
En 1935, malade et plus que septuagénaire, une crise cardiaque l'affaiblit
beaucoup, et voilà vingt ans qu'elle n'est plus à la tête de sa communauté. Les
18 dernières années de sa vie, devenue presque totalement immobile, elle
consacre son temps à une prière intense. Elle meurt en 1955, à 96 ans. Ses
dernières paroles sont: "O Esprit Saint, je voudrait être une plume, afin
que votre souffle m'emporte où bon vous semble." Entre l'ardente jeune
fille qui regimbait quelque peu contre l'aiguillon — épisode romain qu'elle
aimait à rappeler en souriant —, et la femme très âgée livrée sans résistance
au souffle de l'Esprit, quel chemin parcouru! "Puisse son exemple aider
les jeunes en particulier à reconnaître que l'on ne peut pas trouver de plus
grand trésor que de suivre le Christ avec un cœur sans partage en utilisant
généreusement les dons que nous avons reçus au service des autres afin de
collaborer ainsi à l'édifice d'un monde plus juste et plus fraternel."
(Jean Paul II)
Canonisée le 1° octobre 2000, place Saint-Pierre, par le Pape Jean-Paul II.
SOURCE : http://voiemystique.free.fr/catherine_marie_drexel.htm
.JPG)
CHAPELLE PAPALE POUR LA
CANONISATION DES BIENHEUREUX
HOMÉLIE DE SA SAINTETÉ
JEAN PAUL II
Dimanche 1er octobre 2000
1. "Ta parole
est vérité: consacre-nous dans ton amour" (Chant à l'Evangile:
cf. Jn 17, 17). Cette invocation, écho de la prière que le Christ
adresse au Père après la Dernière Cène, semble s'élever de la foule des saints
et des bienheureux, que l'Esprit de Dieu, de génération en génération, suscite
dans l'Eglise.
Aujourd'hui, deux mille
ans après le début de la Rédemption, nous faisons nôtres ces paroles, tandis
que nous avons devant nous comme modèles de sainteté Agostino Zhao Rong et
ses 119 compagnons, martyrs en Chine, Maria Josepha du Coeur de Jésus Sancho de
Guerra, Katharine Mary Drexel et Giuseppina Bakhita. Dieu
le Père les a "consacrés dans son amour", réalisant la
demande du Fils qui, pour lui donner un peuple saint, a ouvert les bras sur la
croix et, en mourant, a détruit la mort et proclamé la résurrection (cf. Prière
eucharistique, II, Préface).
A vous tous, chers frères
et soeurs, réunis ici en grand nombre pour exprimer votre piété envers ces
témoins lumineux de l'Evangile, j'adresse un salut cordial.
2. "Les
préceptes du Seigneur apportent la joie" (Ps. resp.). Ces paroles du
Psaume responsorial reflètent bien l'expérience d'Agostino Zhao Rong et de ses
119 compagnons, Martyrs en Chine. Les témoignages qui nous sont parvenus
laissent entrevoir chez eux un état d'âme empreint d'une profonde sérénité et
joie.
L'Eglise est aujourd'hui
reconnaissante au Seigneur, qui la bénit et l'inonde de lumière à travers la
splendeur de la sainteté de ces fils et filles de la Chine. L'Année Sainte
n'est-elle pas le moment le plus opportun pour faire resplendir leur témoignage
héroïque? La jeune Anna Wang, âgée de 14 ans, résiste aux menaces du bourreau
qui la somme d'apostasier, et, se préparant à être décapité, le visage
lumineux, déclare: "La porte du Ciel est ouverte à tous" et
murmure trois fois de suite "Jésus". A ceux qui viennent de lui
couper le bras droit et qui se préparent à l'écorcher vif, Chi Zhuzi, âgé de 18
ans, crie avec courage: "Chaque morceau de ma chair, chaque goutte
de mon sang vous répéteront que je suis chrétien".
Les 85 autres Chinois,
hommes et femmes de tout âge et de toute condition, prêtres, religieux et
laïcs, ont témoigné d'une conviction et d'une joie semblables en scellant leur
fidélité indéfectible au Christ et à l'Eglise à travers le don de la vie. Cela
est survenu au cours de divers siècles et en des temps complexes et difficiles
de l'histoire de Chine. La célébration présente n'est pas le lieu opportun pour
émettre des jugements sur ces périodes de l'histoire: on pourra et on
devra le faire en une autre occasion. Aujourd'hui, à travers cette proclamation
solennelle de sainteté, l'Eglise entend uniquement reconnaître que ces martyrs
sont un exemple de courage et de cohérence pour nous tous et font honneur au
noble peuple chinois.
Parmi cette foule de
martyrs resplendissent également 33 missionnaires, hommes et femmes, qui
quittèrent leur terre et tentèrent de s'introduire dans la réalité chinoise, en
assumant avec amour ses caractéristiques, désirent annoncer le Christ et servir
ce peuple. Leurs tombes sont là-bas, représentant presque un signe de leur
appartenance définitive à la Chine, que, même dans leurs limites humaines, ils
ont sincèrement aimée, dépensant pour elle toutes leurs énergies. "Nous
n'avons jamais fait de mal à personne - répond l'Evêque Francesco Fogolla au
gouverneur qui s'apprête à le frapper avec son épée - au contraire, nous avons
fait du bien à de nombreuses personnes".
Dieu fait descendre le
bonheur (en langue chinoise dans le texte).
3. Dans la première
lecture ainsi que dans l'Evangile de la liturgie d'aujourd'hui, nous avons vu
que l'Esprit souffle là où il le désire et que Dieu, en tout temps, élit des
personnes pour manifester son amour aux hommes et qu'il suscite des
institutions appelées à être des instruments privilégiés de son action. C'est ce
qui est arrivé à sainte Maria Josepha du Coeur de Jésus Sancho Guerra,
fondatrice des Servantes de Jésus de la Charité.
Dans la vie de la
nouvelle sainte, première basque à être canonisée, se manifeste de façon
particulière l'action de l'Esprit. Celui-ci la guida vers le service des
malades et la prépara à être la Mère d'une nouvelle famille religieuse.
Sainte Maria Josepha
vécut sa vocation comme une véritable apôtre dans le domaine de la santé, son
service cherchant à conjuguer l'attention matérielle avec l'attention
spirituelle, procurant par tous moyens le salut des âmes. Bien qu'elle fut
malade lors des douze dernières années de sa vie, elle ne s'épargna aucun
effort ni aucune souffrance, et se prodigua sans limites pour le service
caritatif du malade dans un climat d'esprit contemplatif, en rappelant que
"l'assistance ne consiste pas seulement à donner des médicaments et de la
nourriture au malade, il existe un autre type d'assistance,... celle du coeur,
en cherchant à s'adapter à la personne qui souffre".
Que l'exemple et
l'intercession de sainte Maria Josepha du Coeur de Jésus aident le peuple
basque à bannir pour toujours la violence, et qu'Euskadi devienne une terre
bénie et un lieu de coexistence pacifique et fraternelle, où soient toujours
respectés les droits de toutes les personnes et où le sang innocent ne soit
jamais versé.
4. "C'est un
feu que vous avez thésaurisé dans les derniers jours" (Jc 5,
3).
Dans la seconde Lecture
de la Liturgie d'aujourd'hui, l'Apôtre Jacques réprimande les riches qui se
reposent sur leur richesse et traitent les pauvres injustement. Mère
Katharine Drexel est née dans l'aisance à Philadelphie, aux Etats-Unis.
Mais ses parents lui ont enseigné que les possessions de sa famille n'étaient
pas seulement pour eux mais devaient être partagées avec les moins chanceux.
Devenue une jeune femme, elle fut profondément touchée par la pauvreté et les
conditions désespérées qu'enduraient de nombreux natifs américains et
afro-américains. Elle commença à consacrer sa fortune à l'oeuvre missionnaire
et éducative parmi les membres les plus pauvres de la société. Plus tard, elle
comprit que cela n'était pas suffisant. Avec un grand courage et une grande
confiance dans la grâce de Dieu, elle choisit de donner entièrement non
seulement sa fortune, mais toute sa vie au Seigneur.
A sa communauté
religieuse, les Soeurs du Bienheureux Sacrement, elle enseigna une spiritualité
fondée sur l'union de prière avec le Seigneur-Eucharistie et le service zélé
aux pauvres et aux victimes des discriminations raciales. Son apostolat
contribua à diffuser une conscience croissante du besoin de combattre toutes
formes de racisme à travers l'éducation et les services sociaux. Katharine
Drexel représente un excellent exemple de la charité concrète et de la
solidarité généreuse avec les plus pauvres qui est depuis longtemps la marque
distinctive des catholiques américains.
Puisse son exemple aider
les jeunes en particulier à reconnaître que l'on ne peut pas trouver de plus
grand trésor que de suivre le Christ avec un coeur sans partage et en utilisant
généreusement les dons que nous avons reçus au service des autres et pour l'édification
d'un monde plus juste et plus fraternel.
5. "La loi de
Yahvé est parfaite, [...] sagesse du simple" (Ps 19 [18], 8).
Ces paroles tirées du
Psaume responsorial d'aujourd'hui résonnent avec puissance dans la vie de Soeur
Giuseppina Bakhita. Enlevée et vendue en esclavage à l'âge de 7 ans, elle
endura de nombreuses souffrances entre les mains de maîtres cruels. Mais elle
comprit que la vérité profonde est que Dieu, et non pas l'homme, est le
véritable Maître de chaque être humain, de toute vie humaine. L'expérience
devint une source de profonde sagesse pour cette humble fille d'Afrique.
Dans le monde
d'aujourd'hui, d'innombrables femmes continuent d'être victimes de
représailles, même dans les sociétés modernes développées. Chez sainte
Giuseppina Bakhita, nous trouvons un brillant défenseur de la véritable
émancipation. L'histoire de sa vie inspire non pas l'acceptation passive, mais
la ferme résolution à oeuvrer de façon effective pour libérer les jeunes filles
et les femmes de l'oppression et de la violence, et pour leur restituer leur
dignité dans le plein exercice de leurs droits.
Mes pensées se tournent
vers le pays de la nouvelle Sainte, qui est déchiré par une guerre cruelle
depuis dix-sept ans, ne laissant entrevoir que peu de signes en vue d'une
solution. Au nom de l'humanité qui souffre, j'en appelle une fois de plus à
tous ceux qui sont en charge de responsabilités: ouvrez vos coeurs aux
cris de millions de victimes innocentes et empruntez le chemin de la
négociation. Avec la Communauté internationale, j'implore de ne pas continuer à
ignorer l'immense tragédie humaine. J'invite toute l'Eglise à invoquer
l'intercession de sainte Bakhita pour tous nos frères et soeurs persécutés et
esclaves, en particulier en Afrique et dans son Soudan natal, afin qu'ils
puissent connaître la réconciliation et la paix.
J'adresse enfin une parole
de salut affectueux aux Filles de la Charité canossienne, qui se réjouissent
aujourd'hui de voir élever leur Consoeur à la gloire des autels. Qu'elles
sachent tirer de l'exemple de sainte Giuseppina Bakhita un élan renouvelé en
vue d'un dévouement généreux au service de Dieu et de leur prochain.
6. Très chers frères
et soeurs, encouragés par le temps de grâce jubilaire, renouvelons la
disponibilité à nous laisser profondément purifier et sanctifier par l'Esprit.
Nous sommes attirés sur cette voie également par la Sainte dont nous rappelons
aujourd'hui la mémoire: Sainte Thérèse de l'Enfant-Jésus. A elle,
Patronne des missions, ainsi qu'aux nouveaux saints, confions aujourd'hui la
mission de l'Eglise au début du troisième millénaire.
Que Marie, Reine de tous les Saints, soutienne le chemin des chrétiens et de tous ceux qui sont dociles à l'Esprit de Dieu, afin qu'en chaque partie du monde, se diffuse la lumière du Christ Sauveur.
Sainte Catherine Marie
DREXEL
Nom: DREXEL
Prénom: Catherine (Katharine Mary)
Nom de religion: Catherine Marie (Katharine Mary)
Pays: Etats-Unis
Naissance: 26.11.1858 à Philadelphie
Mort: 03.03.1955 à Cornwells Heights (Pennsylvanie)
Etat: Religieuse - Fondatrice.
Note: Fonde en 1891 les Sœurs du Très Saint Sacrement au service des Noirs et des Indiens. Supérieure générale jusqu'en1937. Création d'une soixantaine d'écoles dont la célèbre Xavier University.
Béatification: 20.11.1988 à Rome par Jean Paul II
Canonisation: 01.10.2000 à Rome par Jean Paul II
Fête: 3 Mars
Réf. dans l’Osservatore Romano: 1988 n.47 - 2000 n.40 p.1-6 - n.41 p.7.10
Réf. dans la Documentation Catholique: 1989 p.48 - 2000
n.19 p.906-908.
Notice brève
D'une famille très riche, elle fut é mue devant la misère des Noirs américains et fonda en 1891, pour leur service et celui des Indiens, une Congrégation religieuse dont elle demeura supérieure générale, constamment réélue, jusqu'en 1937: les Sœurs du Très Saint Sacrement.
Son intense activité apostolique se traduisit par la création d'une soixantaine
d'écoles, dont la célèbre Xavier University, à la Nouvelle-Orléans, puisque
aucune université Catholique du Sud ne voulait accepter d'étudiants noirs. Elle
fonda encore des dispensaires et des centres catéchétiques.
Notice développée
Katharine Drexel naît à Philadelphie (Pennsylvanie) en 1858. Son père, Catholique, est banquier; c'est un millionnaire philanthrope.
Sa mère, protestante, meurt peu après sa naissance, et son père se remarie. Dan sa famille, on lui enseigne que les biens dont ils disposent ne sont pas seulement pour eux, mais doivent être partagés avec les moins chanceux.
Au cours d'un voyage en famille dans l'Ouest de États-Unis, elle est profondément émue par la pauvreté et les conditions dégradantes de vie des Peaux-Rouges et des Noirs (Afro-américains).
Elle utilise alors sa fortune pour financer des œuvres et aider des Missionnaires. En 1887, elle crée l'école Sainte Catherine, sa première école, à Santa Fe (Nouveau-Mexique).
Elle est bien effleurée parfois par l'idée d'une vocation religieuse, mais la pensée de prendre l'habit et de renoncer au monde à jamais lui fait horreur.
Au cours de l'un de ses voyages en Europe, elle va à Rome et expose la
situation sociale à Léon XIII en lui demandant d'envoyer des Missionnaires.
Quelle n'est pas sa surprise quand le Pape lui demande doucement: "Et
pourquoi, mon enfant, ne vous feriez-vous pas Missionnaire vous-même?"
La première réaction, après l'audience, est la colère. Sur le bateau du retour, son émotion n'est pas encore calmée. Elle projette d'en parler à l'arrivée à son directeur spirituel, l'Évêque James O'Connor.
Cet événement constitue sûrement un tournant dans la vie de la bienheureuse
Katharine. Avec un grand courage, elle place sa confiance dans Le Seigneur et
elle choisit de donner entièrement non seulement sa fortune, mais toute sa vie
au Seigneur.
En 1890, elle entre au Noviciat des Sœurs de la Miséricorde à Pittsburgh avec
l'intention de pouvoir fonder, par la suite, une Communauté Religieuse qui
aurait pour finalité l'Adoration du Saint Sacrement et l'évangélisation des
Américains de couleur et des Indiens.
En 1891, au terme d'une année de noviciat, elle prononce ses vœux simples qui
font d'elle la première Sœur et la supérieure de la Communauté du
Saint-Sacrement.
L'année suivante, les Sœurs achèvent de s'installer dans le couvent
Sainte-Elizabeth à Cornwells Heights (Pennsylvanie).
Leur spiritualité est basée sur l'union avec Le Seigneur-Eucharistie et le service des pauvres et des victimes de discriminations raciales.
Son apostolat contribue à diffuser la conscience qu'il faut combattre toutes les formes de racisme au moyen de l'éducation et des services sociaux.
En effet, dans les plantations, les gens de couleur sont très mal payés et les enfants ne sont pas scolarisés.
Elle crée une soixantaine d'écoles. Sa plus grande œuvre est l'érection en 1925, à la Nouvelle-Orléans, de la "Xavier University" pour les Noirs.
(Lorsqu'en1954 la Cour suprême abolira la séparation des races dans les écoles,
cette université ouvrira ses portes à tous les étudiants sans distinction de
couleur ou de religion.
En 1935, malade et plus que septuagénaire, une crise cardiaque l'affaiblit
beaucoup, et voilà vingt ans qu'elle n'est plus à la tête de sa Communauté.
Les 18 dernières années de sa vie, devenue presque totalement immobile, elle consacre son temps à une Prière intense.
Elle meurt en 1955, à 96 ans. Ses dernières paroles sont: "O Esprit Saint,
je voudrais être une plume, afin que votre souffle m'emporte où bon vous
semble."
Entre l'ardente jeune fille qui regimbait quelque peu contre l'aiguillon —
épisode romain qu'elle aimait à rappeler en souriant —, et la femme très âgée
livrée sans résistance au souffle de l'Esprit, quel chemin parcouru!
"Puisse son exemple aider les jeunes en particulier à reconnaître que l'on ne peut pas trouver de plus grand trésor que de suivre Le Christ avec un cœur sans partage en utilisant généreusement les dons que nous avons reçus au service des autres afin de collaborer ainsi à l'édifice d'un monde plus juste et plus fraternel." (Jean Paul II)
Canonisée le 1° Octobre 2000, place Saint-Pierre, par le Pape Saint Jean-Paul II.
Also
known as
Catherine Marie Drexel
Profile
Daughter of the extremely
wealthy railroad entrepreneurs and philanthropists Francis Anthony and Emma
(Bouvier) Drexel. She was taught from an early age to use her wealth for the
benefit of others; her parents even opened their home to the poor several
days each week. Katharine’s older sister Elizabeth founded a Pennsylvania
trade school for orphans;
her younger sister founded a liberal arts and vocational school for poor blacks
in Virginia.
Katharine nursed her mother through
a fatal three-year illness before
setting out on her own; Emma died in 1883.
Interested in the
condition of Native Americans, during an audience in 1887,
Katharine asked Pope Leo
XIII to send more missionaries to Wyoming for
her friend, Bishop James
O’Connor. The pope replied,
“Why don’t you become a missionary?”
She visited the Dakotas,
met the Sioux chief, and began her systematic aid to Indian missions,
eventually spending millions of the family fortune. Entered the novitiate of
the Sisters of Mercy. Founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament
for Indians and Colored, now known simply as the Sisters of the Blessed
Sacrament in Santa Fe, New
Mexico, USA in 1891.
Advised by Mother Frances
Cabrini on getting the Order’s rule approved in Rome. She received the approval
in 1913.
By 1942 she
had a system of black Catholic schools
in 13 states, 40 mission centers, 23 rural schools,
50 Indian missions,
and Xavier University in New
Orleans, Louisiana,
the first United
States university for
blacks. Segregationists harassed her work. Following a heart
attack, she spent her last twenty years in prayer and
meditation. Her shrine at
the mother-house was declared a National Shrine in 2008.
Born
26 November 1858 at
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
3 March 1955 of
natural causes at the mother-house of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament,
1663 Bristol Pike, Bensalem, Pennsylvania, USA 19020-8502
interred at
the National Shrine of Saint Katharine Drexel in Bensalem
the Shrine closed to the
general public on 30
December 2017
relics moved
to the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in
the summer of 2018 and
open for public veneration in September 2018
26 January 1987 by Pope John
Paul II
20
November 1988 by Pope John
Paul II
1 October 2000 at Rome, Italy by Pope John
Paul II
Additional
Information
other
sites in english
Catholic
Fire: Katharine Drexel, Model of Charity
Catholic Fire: Novena
Catholic News Agency: Historically Black Catholic
University Founded by a Saint
Regina
Magazine: American Millionaire Saint
Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament
images
video
sitios
en español
Martirologio Romano, 2001 edición
fonti
in italiano
Dicastero delle Cause dei Santi
spletne
strani v slovenšcini
Readings
The patient and humble
endurance of the cross whatever nature it may be is the highest work we have to
do. – Mother Katharine Drexel
Oh, how far I am at 84
years of age from being an image of Jesus in his sacred life on earth! –
Mother Katharine Drexel
MLA
Citation
“Saint Katharine
Drexel“. CatholicSaints.Info. 29 June 2023. Web. 18 February 2024.
<https://catholicsaints.info/saint-katharine-drexel/>
SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/saint-katharine-drexel/
Cathedral
Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Completed
in 1864; architects John Notman and Napoleon Eugene Henry Charles Le Brun.
KATHARINE DREXEL
(1858-1955)
Born in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, in the United States of America, on November 26, 1858, Katharine
Drexel was the second daughter of Francis Anthony Drexel and Hannah Langstroth.
Her father was a well known banker and philanthropist. Both parents instilled
in their daughters the idea that their wealth was simply loaned to them and was
to be shared with others.
When the family took a
trip to the Western part of the United States, Katharine, as a young woman, saw
the plight and destitution of the native Indian-Americans. This experience
aroused her desire to do something specific to help alleviate their condition.
This was the beginning of her lifelong personal and financial support of
numerous missions and missionaries in the United States. The first school she
established was St. Catherine Indian School in Santa Fe, New Mexico (1887).
Later, when visiting Pope
Leo XIII in Rome, and asking him for missionaries to staff some of the Indian
missions that she as a lay person was financing, she was surprised to hear the
Pope suggest that she become a missionary herself. After consultation with her
spiritual director, Bishop James O'Connor, she made the decision to give
herself totally to God, along with her inheritance, through service to American
Indians and Afro-Americans.
Her wealth was now
transformed into a poverty of spirit that became a daily constant in a life
supported only by the bare necessities. On February 12, 1891, she professed her
first vows as a religious, founding the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament whose
dedication would be to share the message of the Gospel and the life of the
Eucharist among American Indians and Afro-Americans.
Always a woman of intense
prayer, Katharine found in the Eucharist the source of her love for the poor
and oppressed and of her concern to reach out to combat the effects of racism.
Knowing that many Afro-Americans were far from free, still living in
substandard conditions as sharecroppers or underpaid menials, denied education
and constitutional rights enjoyed by others, she felt a compassionate urgency
to help change racial attitudes in the United States.
The plantation at that
time was an entrenched social institutionin which the coloured people continued
to be victims of oppression. This was a deep affront to Katharine's sense of
justice. The need for quality education loomed before her, and she discussed
this need with some who shared her concern about the inequality of education
for Afro-Americans in the cities. Restrictions of the law also prevented them
in the rural South from obtaining a basic education.
Founding and staffing
schools for both Native Americans and Afro-Americans throughout the country
became a priority for Katharine and her congregation. During her lifetime, she
opened, staffed and directly supported nearly 60 schools and missions,
especially in the West and Southwest United States. Her crowning educational
focus was the establishment in 1925 of Xavier University of Louisiana, the only
predominantly Afro-American Catholic institution of higher learning in the
United States. Religious education, social service, visiting in homes, in
hospitals and in prisons were also included in the ministries of Katharine and
the Sisters.
In her quiet way,
Katharine combined prayerful and total dependence on Divine Providence with
determined activism. Her joyous incisiveness, attuned to the Holy Spirit,
penetrated obstacles and facilitated her advances for social justice. Through
the prophetic witness of Katharine Drexel's initiative, the Church in the
United States was enabled to become aware of the grave domestic need for an
apostolate among Native Americans and Afro-Americans. She did not hesitate to
speak out against injustice, taking a public stance when racial discrimination
was in evidence.
For the last 18 years of
her life she was rendered almost completely immobile because of a serious
illness. During these years she gave herself to a life of adoration and
contemplation as she had desired from early childhood. She died on March 3,
1955.
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.
Katharine Drexel
was beatified by Pope John Paul II on November 20, 1980.
SOURCE : http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/saints/ns_lit_doc_20001001_katharine-drexel_en.html
_-_stained_glass%2C_St._Katharine_Drexel.jpg)
Saint
Stephen, Martyr Roman Catholic Church (Chesapeake, Virginia) - stained glass,
St. Katharine Drexel
St. Katharine Drexel
St. Katharine Drexel was
born in Philadelphia in 1858. She had an excellent education and traveled
widely. As a rich girl, she had a grand debut into society. But when she nursed
her stepmother through a three-year terminal illness, she saw that all the Drexel
money could not buy safety from pain or death, and her life took a profound
turn.
She had always been
interested in the plight of the Indians, having been appalled by reading Helen
Hunt Jackson’s A Century of Dishonor. While on a European tour, she met Pope
Leo XIII and asked him to send more missionaries to Wyoming for her friend
Bishop James O’Connor. The pope replied, “Why don’t you become a missionary?”
His answer shocked her into considering new possibilities.
Back home, she visited
the Dakotas, met the Sioux leader Red Cloud and began her systematic aid to
Indian missions.
She could easily have married. But after much
discussion with Bishop O’Connor, she wrote in 1889, “The feast of St. Joseph
brought me the grace to give the remainder of my life to the Indians and the
Colored.” Newspaper headlines screamed “Gives Up Seven Million!”
After three
and a half years of training, she and her first band of nuns (Sisters of the
Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored) opened a boarding school in Santa
Fe. A string of foundations followed.
By 1942 she had a system
of black Catholic schools in 13 states, plus 40 mission centers and 23 rural
schools. Segregationists harassed her work, even burning a school in
Pennsylvania. In all, she established 50 missions for Native Americans in 16
states.
Two saints met when she was advised by Mother Cabrini about the
“politics” of getting her Order’s Rule approved in Rome. Her crowning
achievement was the founding of Xavier University in New Orleans, the first
Catholic university in the United States for African Americans.
At 77, she suffered a
heart attack and was forced to retire. Apparently her life was over. But now
came almost 20 years of quiet, intense prayer from a small room overlooking the
sanctuary. Small notebooks and slips of paper record her various prayers,
ceaseless aspirations and meditation. She died at 96 and was canonized in 2000.
SOURCE : http://www.ucatholic.com/saints/katharine-drexel/
The Lansford Historic District in is
a national historic district located at Lansford Carbon County,
Pennsylvania. Our Lady of the Angels Academy on left, St. Katharine Drexel
Parish in center, Trinity Lutheran Church on right.
Saint Katharine Drexel
Virgin and Foundress
L'Osservatore Romano
Feast: March 3
Born in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, U.S.A. on 26 November 1858, Katharine was the second daughter of
Francis Anthony Drexel, a wealthy banker, and his wife, Hannah Jane. The latter
died a month after Katharine's birth, and two years later her father married
Emma Bouvier, who was a devoted mother, not only to her own daughter Louisa
(born 1862), but also to her two step-daughters. Both parents instilled into
the children by word and example that their wealth was simply loaned to them
and was to be shared with others.
Katharine was educated
privately at home; she travelled widely in the United States and in Europe.
Early in life she became aware of the plight of the Native Americans and the
Blacks; when she inherited a vast fortune from her father and step-mother, she
resolved to devote her wealth to helping these disadvantaged people. In 1885
she established a school for Native Americans at Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Later, during an audience
with Pope Leo XIII, she asked him to recommend a religious congregation to
staff the institutions which she was financing. The Pope suggested that she
herself become a missionary, so in 1889 she began her training in religious
life with the Sisters of Mercy at Pittsburgh.
In 1891, with a few
companions, Mother Katharine founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for
Indians and Colored People. The title of the community summed up the two great
driving forces in her life—devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and love for the
most deprived people in her country.
Requests for help reached
Mother Katharine from various parts of the United States. During her lifetime,
approximately 60 schools were opened by her congregation. The most famous
foundation was made in 1915; it was Xavier University, New Orleans, the first
such institution for Black people in the United States.
In 1935 Mother Katharine
suffered a heart attack, and in 1937 she relinquished the office of superior
general. Though gradually becoming more infirm, she was able to devote her last
years to Eucharistic adoration, and so fulfil her life’s desire. She died at
the age of 96 at Cornwell Heights, Pennsylvania, on 3 March 1955. Her cause for
beatification was introduced in 1966; she was declared Venerable by Pope John
Paul II on 26 January 1987, by whom she was also beatified on 20 November 1988.
Taken from:
L'Osservatore Romano
Weekly Edition in English
21 November 1988, page 2
SOURCE : http://www.ewtn.com/library/mary/drexel.htm
SAINT KATHARINE DREXEL
Saint Katharine Drexel
was born Catherine Marie, second daughter of Francis and Hannah Drexel of
Philadelphia on November 26, 1858. Her mother died about a month after her
birth. In1860 her father, a well-known banker and philanthropist, married Emma
Bouvier. Devout Catholics, they gave a great deal of their time and money to
philanthropic activities. Catherine and her two sisters were educated privately
and were encouraged to conduct a Sunday school for children of the employees of
their family’s summer home. While conducting these sessions, Catherine
developed a devotion to St. Frances of Assisi and she vowed that, like St.
Frances, she would one day give all she had to the poor. Both parents instilled
in their children the idea that their wealth was simply loaned to them and was
meant to be shared with others, especially the poor.
Catherine’s life was
jarred by the protracted illness, and then death in 1883, of her step-mother,
to whom she was devoted; two years later, her father died. At that time she
seriously considered entering a convent but was persuaded by her religious
counselor, Bishop James O’Connor of Omaha, NE, not to make a hasty decision but
rather “wait and pray.” At the time of his death, her father left the largest
fortune recorded in Philadelphia at that time. His three daughters received
bequests that provided them with an extremely generous income for life. The
rest of his fortune was donated to his favorite charities. The sisters
continued to use their great wealth to respond to the many requests for aid
they received from churchmen throughout the country.
In 1885, Catherine and
her sisters traveled to the Western part of the United States, visiting Indian
reservations. Having seen first-hand the poverty and suffering there, she began
to build schools, supply food and clothing, and provide salaries for teachers
on the reservations. She was also able to find priests to serve the spiritual
needs of the people. In 1887 she established her first boarding school, St.
Catherine Indian School, in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
That same year, Catherine
visited Rome to request Pope Leo XIII to provide missionaries to staff the
schools she was funding. The Holy Father responded by suggesting that Catherine
become a missionary herself. On February 12, 1891, in an arrangement with
Bishop James O’Connor, Catherine began a novitiate with the Sisters of Mercy in
Pittsburgh, with the understanding that in two years she would found her own order,
the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored People; she would,
she vowed, “be the mother and servant of these races.”
In late 1889 she received
the religious habit and the name of Sister Mary Katharine. Thirteen companions
joined her as the first Sisters of the new order. The motherhouse of the new
order was established at St. Elizabeth’s Convent, Cornwells Height (Bensalem
Township), PA. Mother Katharine, as she was now called, made the decision not
to admit black women in part because laws in some Southern states would force
them to house black and white nuns in segregated convents, and in part to avoid
drawing worthy candidates away from two all black religious orders already
established.
Founding and staffing
schools for both Native and African Americans throughout the country became a
priority for Mother Katharine and her congregation. In 1894 she purchased 1,600
acres in Rock Castle, Virginia, on which to build a boarding school for black
girls. The school opened in 1899 as St. Francis de Sales School. Nearby was St.
Emma’s built in 1895 by her sister Louise. St. Emma’s was a boarding school of
black boys. Both schools concentrated on vocational arts in the belief that
this was the best way at the time to provide training for young blacks to
become economically independent.
Soon thereafter, a school
for Pueblo children was established in New Mexico. Mother Katharine made it a
priority to visit all the schools she helped.
In 1901, Mother Katharine
had made a trip to visit St. Francis de Sales School and to discuss setting up
small catechetical centers in nearby places in Virginia. This necessitated a
considerable amount of train travel. Once in a coach between Richmond and
Lynchburg, the train stopped at a small station marked Columbia. She noticed a
gilt cross gleaming through the trees and said to her companion, Mother
Mercedes, “Do you think that is a Catholic Chapel?” Mother Mercedes replied
that she did not think so, as she had been told there was no Mass celebrated
between Richmond and Lynchburg. Mother Katharine arranged to visit the small
private Wakeham Chapel beneath the cross she had spotted and discovered that no
Masses had been held in years and there was only an elderly caretaker in
residence. Mother Katharine told the caretaker that although she could not
promise that Mass would be said in the Chapel, she would send a few of her
Sisters from St. Francis de Sales there each week to teach catechism She
fulfilled that promise that same year and soon arranged for Josephite Fathers
to say Mass there. The Wakeham Chapel unofficially became a Public Chapel,
known as St. Joseph’s, which is still in existence. Her Sisters remained part
of St. Joseph’s until 1971.
In 1915 Louisiana relocated
a black college, Southern University, out of New Orleans. Mother Katharine
purchased the vacant campus and reopened the school as Xavier College (now
Xavier University). The primary mission of the college was to train lay
teachers who would then staff schools for black children in rural Louisiana.
Xavier was the first and only Catholic college for African-Americans and a
pioneer in co-education.
In 1922, Fr. Sylvester
Eisenmann, a Benedictine priest, visited Mother Katharine at the motherhouse in
Pennsylvania to beg for assistance. He did not want financial aid but rather a
teacher for his small school in Marty, SD, near Yankton. Touched to tears by
his story, Mother Katharine nevertheless felt she could not spare any of her
Sisters to go and teach school. She did, however, promise to pray about his
request overnight. The next day, she reversed her decision. Within two months’
time, Mother Katharine and three of the Sisters arrived at the St. Paul Mission
in Marty to begin teaching. Within a decade more than 400 Native American
children were being educated at St. Paul’s Mission by the 23 Sisters of the
Blessed Sacrament.
Having taken a vow of
poverty, Mother Katharine lived the rest of her life with extreme frugality,
wearing a single pair of shoes for ten years and using her pencils down to the
erasers. During the same time, her income from her father’s trust amounted to
more than $1,000 a day.
From the age of 33 until
her death, she dedicated her life and personal fortune of $20 million to her
work. She was a constant worker, personally reviewing each request for aid,
often indicating her decision on a note on the letter of inquiry. She traveled
tirelessly. Her strongest priority was the creation of church buildings and
schools. No believer in segregation, she recognized that in her time a
segregated church or school was often the most that could be hoped for. She
generally confined her response to pleas for aid to buying land, erecting
buildings, as well as occasionally paying salaries. She had neither the time
nor inclination to supervise. One result of her practice was that she almost
completely avoided conflict with the priests and bishops in charges of the
missions she sponsored. By 1942 she had established a system of 40 mission
centers and 23 rural schools in 13 states.
In 1935 Mother Katharine
suffered a severe heart attack and was confined primarily to a wheelchair. For
the next twenty years lived her life in prayerful retirement at St. Elizabeth’s
Convent. She died there on March 3, 1955 at the age of 96. At the time of her
death 501 members of her order were teaching in 63 schools and missions in 21
states, including Virginia.
Mother Katharine’s
dedication inspired her Sisters and admirers to begin the cause of her
sainthood less than 10 years after her death. In 1987, she was credited with
the miraculous healing of a man’s deaf ear. Pope John Paul II bestowed upon her
the title “Blessed.” In 1999 her intervention was declared to have resulted in
the cure of deafness in a 17-month-old child. She was canonized “Saint
Katharine Drexel” on October 1, 2000. She is only the second American-born
saint.
Our thanks to the Sisters
of the Blessed Sacrament for information about St. Katharine. Learn more at
their website: www.katharinedrexel.org.)
SOURCE : http://www.katharinedrexelcc.org/?page_id=80
Katherine Drexel: A Saint
for Modern Americans
by Br. Lawrence Mary
M.I.C.M., Tert. January 31, 2006
On October 1, 2000, Pope
John Paul II solemnly decreed that Katharine Drexel, Founder of the Sisters of
the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored People, is a saint of the
Catholic Church. A third-generation, thoroughly “Red-blooded” American had been
added to the rolls of the canonized saints.
First, let us briefly
summarize the significant events in the life of our saint. Katharine Drexel,
the second of three sisters, Elizabeth, Katharine and Louise, was born in 1858.
Her father, Francis, was a Catholic; her natural mother, Hannah Langsroth Drexel,
a Baptist Quaker, died soon after giving birth to Katharine. Two years later,
her father married a Catholic, Emma Bouvier, who gave birth to a third
daughter, Louise, in 1863. In 1887, in a private audience with Pope Leo XIII,
Katharine pleaded for priests to serve the American Indians. His fateful reply
was that she, herself, should become that missionary. At the end of 1888, at
the age of thirty, she received permission from her spiritual director to
become a religious and joined the Sisters of Mercy for her training. In 1891,
she founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Negroes.
(Intending to extend the focus of her order, she later changed the word
“Negroes” to “Colored People.”) The order grew to include sixty schools and
missions while the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament eventually numbered more
than five hundred. In 1935, when she was seventy-seven years old, St. Katharine
suffered a severe heart attack and until her death in 1955 lived in prayerful
retirement. Her cause was opened in 1964 and in 2000 Pope John Paul II
canonized her.
A Privileged American
Catholic Childhood
If anyone could be
described as having been “born with a golden spoon in her mouth,” it would have
been Katharine Drexel and her sisters, Elizabeth and Louise. Few American girls
would have had more of an excuse to be distracted by the world and what it has
to offer than these daughters of one of the most prominent and wealthy families
in the United States. Their father, Francis Drexel, was an outstanding banker
and exchange broker — a founding partner in what was known at the time as
Drexel, Morgan and Company.
Francis Drexel and his
second wife, Emma (Bouvier), were more than devout Catholics. They were
determined to instill truly Catholic teachings and norms of behavior into their
children. They understood the principle, later summed up by the great Fr.
Leonard Feeney, that “Catholicism is a manner.” Thus, from an early age, Emma
trained her daughters in the dispensing of alms and performing other works of Catholic
Charity. She had the charitable heart of a great Catholic woman who wanted her
children to capture the spirit of true Catholic Charity and learn how to give
alms prudently — in sharp contrast to other wealthy Americans of the day who
engaged in self-serving, pompous philanthropy.
Convinced that a proper
education and formation are essential ingredients of a Catholic manner, Francis
and Emma retained two devout Catholic women, both of whom would have a major
influence on the Drexel girls. Johanna Ryan, their trusted servant, was from
Ireland, where she had tried to become a Sister of the Sacred Heart but was
unable to continue because of her health. Although a simple person, she was
unflinching in her defense of the Faith and taught the girls of the necessity
of the Catholic Faith in order for one to be saved. The absolute sincerity of
Johanna’s faith was somewhat indecorously demonstrated during an audience with
Pope Pius IX in 1875. After the family had visited a few moments with the Holy
Father, she fell to the floor, threw her arms around his knees and exclaimed,
“Holy Father — praise God and His Blessed Mother — my eyes have seen our dear
Lord, Himself!”
A more reserved Miss Mary
Cassidy, the governess, was also from Ireland. The Drexels hired her after a
careful search for someone that was not only a devout Catholic but had a deep
and broad education with emphasis on literature and philosophy. As part of Miss
Cassidy’s tutoring program for the girls, she required regular compositions and
lengthy letters while the family traveled. Katharine remained a prodigious
letter writer for the rest of her life. We know a great deal about her
intellectual, emotional and spiritual development from the thousands of her
letters, memos and personal notes that have been preserved in the archives of
the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament.
Several qualities of
Katharine’s life are indicative of the road to sanctity she was to follow. The
first was her intense love of the Blessed Sacrament which manifested itself
when she was a little girl as a fervent desire to make her First Holy Communion.
In a letter to her mother, written in 1867, she said, “Dear Mama, I am going to
make my First Communion and you will see how I will try to be good. Let me make
it in May, the most beautiful of all the months.”
Katharine’s love for Our
Lord in the Blessed Sacrament was to grow in intensity throughout her life.
After she formed her order, she took great pleasure in building a tabernacle in
a location where the Blessed Sacrament had never been adored before. Often, at
night, long after everyone else had retired for the evening, the sacristan
would find her in the darkened church, kneeling with arms outstretched in front
of the Blessed Sacrament or the Crucifix. Her concentration was so intense that
she remained completely unaware that she was being observed. Throughout her
life she meditated before and upon Jesus present in the Tabernacle and recorded
many of her reflections and prayers. One of her later notes reads as follows:
“Ah, Lord, it is but too
true, YOU ARE NOT LOVED! Shall we not strive by every means in our power to
make you known and loved? Shall we not try to pay many an extra visit to our
dearest Friend, ever present in the Blessed Sacrament, ever living to make
intercession for us? And may this prayer, dearest Lord, be on our lips when we
bow down in lowly adoration in your sacramental presence: ‘Sacred Heart of
Jesus, you love! O Sacred Heart of Jesus, you are not loved! O would that you
were loved!’ Our Lady, open your heart to me, your child. Teach me to know your
Son intimately, to love him ardently, and to follow him closely.”
The salvation of souls,
especially those souls that were the most neglected and forgotten, was the
great quest of St. Katharine. Even as a little girl, she and her sisters knew
that only Catholics are saved. As may be expected in “pluralistic” America,
this proper Catholic belief led to several embarrassing incidents for Mr. and
Mrs. Drexel, who, although they were devout Catholics, appear to have been
somewhat weak in this area. As mentioned earlier, St. Katharine’s natural
mother, Hanna Langsroth, as well as her grandparents, Piscator and Eliza
Langsroth, were Protestants. One day, during a visit at the Langsroth’s,
Katharine’s older sister, Elizabeth, said to her grandmother, “Oh, Grandma, I
am so sorry for you because you can never go to heaven.”
“And, why cannot
Grandmother go to heaven?” Mrs. Langsroth asked.
With the simplicity and
purity of a truly Catholic child, Elizabeth replied, “You are a Protestant and
Protestants never go to heaven.”
On another occasion, a
friend of Grandma Langsroth’s, a Protestant minister, was visiting at the same
time as were Elizabeth and Katharine. As the girls relayed the story in later
years, when Mrs. Langsroth asked the minister to say grace before the meal, it
caused them to go into a kind of panic. The girls decided to hold up their
rosaries in full view during the meal prayer as a clear statement of their
Catholicism. It appears that their feistiness for the Faith was more the result
of the instruction of Johanna, the family servant and staunch Irish Catholic,
than of the direct influence of Mr. and Mrs. Drexel. In fact, both of these
early defenses of the faith caused some embarrassment for Francis and Emma.
Sadly, they decided to smooth the ruffled feathers of the errant grandmother
rather than support the innocent defense of the Faith provided by their
children.
Despite this weakness in
the belief of their parents, the Drexel daughters recognized the necessity of
sacramental Baptism for salvation. When the oldest sister, Elizabeth, was
married and in danger of losing a baby, she wrote to Katharine, “My pious and
good little religious sister, Katharine, we count on your prayer to bring ours
safely to the waters of Baptism and beyond them through a good and useful life
to Heaven.” Later Mother Katharine would record this plea to the Mother of God,
“O Mary, make me endeavor, by all the means in my power, to extend the kingdom
of your Divine Son and offer incessantly my prayers for the conversion of those
who are yet in darkness or estranged from His fold.”
Death and
the Awakening of a Vocation
In 1883, when Katharine
was twenty-four years old, her mother died from a very painful and lingering
cancer. Katharine had been her nurse during the illness and was profoundly
moved by her mother’s resignation to the Will of God and received deep
realizations about the evil of Original Sin. It was at her mother’s bedside
that thoughts of a religious vocation came to Katharine repeatedly and
forcibly. Two years later, her father died. It was a time of profound soul
searching which resulted in growth in the spiritual life and the serious
examination of her vocation. In particular, she pondered whether or not she
would stay in the world, knowing that its allurements lay at her feet, or
whether she would pursue a life of austerity and voluntary poverty.
Some years before her
mother’s death, at the age of fourteen, she had taken as her spiritual director
Fr. James O’Connor, the local parish priest. A few years later, he was
consecrated Bishop and moved to Omaha, Nebraska. They began a lengthy
correspondence on the topic of her vocation, the plight of the Indians under
his care and many other spiritual matters. Because most of their letters have
been preserved, we have a unique opportunity to penetrate into Katherine’s
spiritual development. The graces gained through the means of a good spiritual
director cannot be overestimated and, as is clear from his letters, Bishop
O’Connor was a holy and intelligent guide for our saint. It was Bishop O’Connor
who, for several years, challenged her initial advancement towards a religious
vocation when he detected remnants of worldliness, impulsiveness, vanity or
scrupulosity. Katharine’s natural inclination was to become a contemplative.
Bishop O’Connor, as an insightful spiritual father, knew that this was not the
appropriate venue to develop her spirituality and to utilize her talents and
education. It was he who encouraged and guided her towards the financial
support of the Indian missions, an endeavor which would eventually be
incorporated into her new religious order.
Mrs. Drexel had taught
her daughters of their obligations to the less fortunate and how to engage in
works of Catholic Charity appropriate for a family who was very blessed by God.
From their very early years they assisted their mother while she thrice weekly
threw open the doors of her home to assist the poor and needy and donated money
for rent, medicine, food, clothing and other necessary items. In this manner,
they donated over twenty thousand dollars per year. Mrs. Drexel taught them how
to dispense alms with prudence and justice. For example, she employed a
well-qualified person to investigate and ascertain the need where assistance
was to be given.
In 1884, during their
first trip out West, the family visited Montana, where she saw first hand the
poverty and destitution of the Indian missions. During a conversation with the
priest in charge of one of the missions, she asked what she could do to help.
He told her that the small, primitive chapel needed a statue. Before she left,
she used her own personal money and purchased a beautiful statue of Our Lady
from a catalog and had it shipped to the mission. When she informed her father
of what she had done, instead of reprimanding her for her extravagance, he put
his arm around her and, with great tenderness, told her how glad he was for her
generosity. This began her life-long commitment of personal support of the
Indian missions. Later in her life, Katharine recalled when, as a young
student, she studied the history of America and learned of Christopher
Columbus, she was convinced the only reason for his voyage was to convert the
Indians.
It was not until 1888,
nearly two years after her providential personal audience with Pope Leo XIII,
that Bishop O’Connor dropped his opposition to her desires to pursue a
religious vocation. During that audience, Katharine dropped to her k nees and
pleaded for missionaries for Bishop O’Connor’s Indians. To her astonishment,
His Holiness responded, “Why not, my child, yourself become a missionary?” The
shock and instant realization of the implications of his comment made her
physically ill. Influenced by the Holy Father’s words, Bishop O’Connor guided
her continuing support of the Indian missions and used it as a preparation for
the work of the religious community she would eventually found. For another two
years, he strongly encouraged Katharine to probe the depths of her
spirituality. He assisted her to continually clarify her thoughts and
aspirations until she had attained the vision and depth to pursue the great
work that would eventually lie before her. For the present, he encouraged her
to remain in the world, assist Indian and other missions, and work for the
conversion of her non-Catholic family members.
As stated before, the
guidance of a holy and prudent spiritual director is of immense value. From one
of Bishop O’Connor’s letters, here is a small sample of the advice he gave
Katharine when she was twenty-five years old:
“Most of the reasons you
give, in your paper, for and against your entering the states considered, are
impersonal, that is, abstract and general. These are very well as far as they
go, in settling one’s vocation, but additional and personal reasons
are necessary to decide it. The relative merits of the two states cannot be in
question. It is of faith that the religious state is, beyond measure, the more
perfect. It must be admitted, too, that in both, dangers and difficulties are
to be encountered and overcome. One of these states is for the few, the other,
for the many85.
“You give positive
personal reasons for not embracing the religious state. The first — the
difficulty you would find in separation from your family, does not merit much
consideration, as that would have to be overcome, in any case. The second —
your dislike for community life is a very serious one, and if it continues to
weigh with you, you should give up all thought of religion. You would meet many
perfect souls there, but some, even among superiors, who would be far from
perfect. To be in constant communion with these, to be obliged to obey them, is
the greatest cross of the religious life. Yet to this, all who ‘would be
perfect,’ must be prepared to submit. Indeed, toleration of their faults and
shortcomings is, in the Divine economy, one of the indispensable means of
acquiring perfection. The same must be said of ‘the privations and poverty,’
and the monotony of the religious life, to which you allude. If you do not feel
within you the courage, with God’s help, to bear them, for the sake of Him to
whom they lead, go no further in your examination. Thousands have borne such
things and have been sanctified by them, but only such as had foreseen them,
and resolved, not rashly, to endure them for Our Lord.”
Finally, at the end of
1888, when Katharine was thirty years old and her desire to enter the religious
life became impossible to restrain, he gave his enthusiastic permission for her
to pursue a religious vocation. Although her natural inclination was to join a
cloistered order, Bishop O’Connor led her to the realization that the needs of
the Indian and other missions were such that she would have to found a new
order. This new religious order would use her wealth and talents to serve these
desperate peoples in a manner peculiar to the United States. First, she would
enter the convent of the Sisters of Mercy. There, Bishop O’Connor arranged that
she be trained for the purpose of founding of her own religious order — an
order that would eventually work for the conversion of the most neglected of
all Americans: the Indians and the Negroes. One of Bishop O’Connor’s greatest
challenges as her spiritual director was to help Katharine to exercise careful
prudence over her fortune once she entered the religious life. At first she
wanted to divest herself of everything in order to practice holy poverty. She
preferred to have the American hierarchy disburse these funds to the missions
rather than herself. He wisely saw the need for her to retain control over
these funds in order to ensure the success of the missionary activity of her
new order, and he convinced her to refrain from formally divesting herself of
her inheritance. In fact, without these funds her new order could never have
accomplished the remarkable achievements we are about to describe.
The Birth of a Religious
Order
Although her inclinations
were evident for many years, Katharine was what is referred to today as a “late
vocation.” She was thirty years old when she entered the convent of the Sisters
of Mercy as a postulant. Her years of excellent schooling, practical training
and spiritual growth would be refined by the discipline of the religious life.
She now began to deepen her contemplative spirit. Her own writings and those
who knew her attest to the fact that Katharine never fell prey to the heresy of
“Americanism.” This error, which was spreading across our country at the time,
divided the active from the passive virtues and overemphasized the active life
— good works and activities — to the detriment of the meditative prayer life.
She had the deep realization that the apostolic life must spring forth from the
spirit of contemplative prayer life or it would never produce good fruits. Love
of the Blessed Sacrament and the desire to share this love with others was the
source of her missionary zeal.
Prior to her becoming a
religious, Katharine and her sisters were major financial supporters of the
Indian missions. As knowledgeable Catholics are aware, since the Revolutionary
War, the United States Government has been in the hands of the Protestants. The
policy towards the Indians was one of continual displacement. When the Indians
rebelled and uprisings occurred, they were subdued and moved. In 1870,
President Grant made an attempt to rectify the injustices perpetrated by the
government and initiated his “Peace Policy.” He assigned the Indian agencies to
the religious groups who had established prior missions in the various tribes
and groups.
Although Grant’s
intention was good, things did not work out well in practice. Of the total
seventy-two Indian missions, thirty-eight were originally Catholic. Under the
auspices of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the government gave over to
Protestant control thirty of the Catholic missions, containing eighty thousand
Catholic Indians. This was a direct violation of President Grant’s official
policy statement, which had specified that the missions were to remain under
the control of the missionaries who instituted them. Without money and
missionaries many of the Indians were in grave danger of losing their Faith and
drifting into various forms of heresy or apostasy. They also suffered many
injustices at the hands of their new Protestant masters. The religious and
Indian representatives wrote strong letters to the Secretary of the Interior to
protest this direct violation of the policy. Their letters were never answered.
In addition to the
failure of Grant’s well-intentioned program, in 1881, Garfield was elected and
was openly opposed to the Peace Plan. Garfield’s assassination soon after his
election proved no reprieve either, for Vice President Arthur appointed Henry
M. Teller — a man hostile to Grant’s policy — as the new Secretary of the
Interior. Teller terminated the arrangement whereby religious associations
selected Indian bureau agents. He simply ignored all appeals and requests to
correct the many injustices replying, “I do not know what you mean by the Peace
Policy of the Government.”
In 1885, following the
collapse of Grant’s Plan and prior to Katharine’s entrance into the religious
life, two of the most intrepid Catholic missionaries traveled across the
country to seek a meeting with Katharine and her sisters, Elizabeth and Louise.
The two were Bishop Martin Marty, O.S.B., Vicar Apostolic of Northern
Minnesota, and Reverend Joseph Stephan, Director of the Bureau of Catholic
Indian Missions. Both were zealous, experienced missionaries who were deeply
concerned over the preservation of the Faith of the Indians in the formerly
Catholic territories. They appealed for help to educate the Indians. Schools
were desperately needed. They described the abject poverty and horrible
conditions and explained that the salvation of many souls hung in the balance.
With the assistance of the Drexels, many Indians could be preserved in the
Faith. Katharine and her sisters were deeply moved by their appeal and
generously responded. By 1907 they had donated over 1.5 million dollars to the
Indian Missions in addition to all of their other works of Charity.
The association with
Father Stephan would last until the end of his life. He and other selfless
missionaries would open Katharine’s eyes to the need for qualified religious to
teach and work among the Indians. Money was not enough; workers were
desperately needed as well. The priests, along with their bishops, sent appeals
for aid to the Drexel sisters so that these souls would remain Catholic.
Eventually, her deep realization of the need for qualified, selfless and stable
religious became the germ of the new order she was to found — The Sisters of
the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Negroes. The goal of the order would be
education, both in the Faith and in the trades that would be most useful for
solid employment and conducting family life. Schools were to be built and
staffed. Tabernacles would be established and the Blessed Sacrament adored
where it had never been worshiped before.
Bishop O’Connor guided
her through these years of decision and the formation of the new order. His
influence was such that she referred to the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament as
Bishop O’Connor’s order. He had helped her prudently to fund and care for
various Indian missions. He was a keen observer of human nature and realized
that, if Katharine were seen as a source of limitless funds, other donors would
not step forward. He advised her to donate as secretly as possible, to fund
only the start of a new program, and immediately to locate other donors once it
had been established.
In 1890, just a year
before the official establishment of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament,
Bishop O’Connor passed to his eternal reward. Katharine was devastated and
began to despair of her ability to carry on with the founding of the new
religious order. She felt completely abandoned. The Archbishop of Philadelphia,
Patrick Ryan, who had been an intimate friend of Bishop O’Connor, wrote her a
letter in which he promised to visit after he had celebrated the Requiem High
Mass for Bishop O’Connor. She had met him on a number of occasions since his
installation as Archbishop in 1884, and they were on very friendly terms. In the
past, he had written her a number of letters with spiritual advice and had, on
several occasions, celebrated Mass in the Drexel home. During the promised
meeting, she confided her profound distress and sense of inadequacy. He
replied, “If I share the burden with you, if I help you, can you go on?” This
was the beginning of a long and fruitful spiritual relationship — one that
would last for the next twenty years. He truly became her father in God.
Archbishop Ryan knew the minds of Bishop O’Connor and Katharine as well as the
needs of the Catholic missions in America. His guidance proved most
providential for the Catholics in this country and for the growth in personal
sanctity of our saint.
Shortly after this
meeting, in one of Archbishop Ryan’s first letters to Katharine, he advised her
to acquire a deep interior spirit and warned her that the success of her future
activities would depend on that spirit. Katharine took his words very much to
heart. She had received similar advice from Bishop O’Connor and had already
begun to cultivate a life of reflection and prayer from which she would draw
the strength to live a very active religious life. This growth in her spiritual
life was one of the remarkable traits which distinguished her from the “social
activists” of the day. The Paulists and other contemporaneous American
Catholics were stressing the active virtues to the exclusion of the
contemplative. In his letter, Testem Benevolentiae , Pope Leo XIII
condemned the idea as part of a heresy named “Americanism.” Katharine was
neither a theological nor a practical Americanist.
Reaping the Harvest
Finally, on February 12,
1891, Katharine made her profession as the first Sister of the Blessed
Sacrament for Indians and Colored People. The initial vows of poverty, chastity
and obedience were for five years, to which she added another vow: “To be the
mother and servant of the Indian and Negro races according to the rule of the
Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament; and not to undertake any work which would
lead to the neglect or abandonment of the Indian and Colored races.” She
desired to unite herself with the great missionaries of the age — to continue
and enhance their work of converting the nation.
Although Katharine was
willing to give up everything completely, Archbishop Ryan made it clear that
her vow of poverty was not to include a complete renunciation of her
inheritance. He advised her, “As to the mode of holding the property, this
should be only until the Motherhouse is completed and you have entered
it. Afterwards , the property should be in the name of yourself and a
few of the sisters, as in the case of the Good Shepherd and other institutions.
But there is time enough for this consideration.” In other words, it was
necessary that she retain control of the finances of her new order, while
maintaining her spirit of poverty. Fortunately, she was most obedient to her
spiritual advisor. As a result, her personal poverty was a virtue that
continued to grow until it was one that she practiced to a heroic degree.
The Drexel’s summer home,
which the family had named “St. Michael’s,” was remodeled to become the first
novitiate for the new order. It was located in Torresdale, Pennsylvania, a
suburb of Philadelphia. The new home of the order housed ten novices and three
postulants. Immediately, they set about forming a school for the area
residents, both white and Colored. Having discussed the purpose of the order
and the people who would be the focus of its missionary efforts, we deem a
slight diversion necessary.
In recent years St.
Katharine has been portrayed as some sort of saint of “Social Justice” — as one
who campaigned for the “rights” of the Colored and Indian peoples. Nothing
could be further from the truth. Closely akin to her concern for her own
personal sanctity was her burning desire for the salvation of souls through
conversion to the Catholic Faith. When her efforts in this endeavor were
undermined or openly opposed, she worked to overcome these obstacles. She was
not intimidated by anyone who attempted to impede the salvation of souls. She
discovered the intense prejudice against Negroes and Indians — a particularly
evil manifestation of Protestantism in America. In several instances, similar
to today’s Traditional Catholics, she was forced to use more discreet means to
secure property for her schools for the Negro children in the South. In more
than one instance, she purchased a property through an intermediary. In
Nashville, for instance, when the former owner discovered who had purchased the
property and that it would be used as a school for Negro children, he organized
the neighbors in an attempt to thwart the project. He even attempted to
resurrect a long abandoned proposal to build a road through the property — all
for naught.
Such bigotry was not
limited to the South. In 1891, her ancestral home of St. Michael’s in
Torresdale, Pennsylvania was to be remodeled to serve as the new order’s
Motherhouse. Just before Archbishop Ryan was to conduct the formal ceremony to
lay the cornerstone of the new Motherhouse, they had a terrible fright. A stick
of dynamite was found in the very spot marked for the cornerstone. There were
rumors that all the Catholics on the platform attending the ceremony would be
blown to bits. When Archbishop Ryan was apprised of the situation, he requested
a dozen plainclothes policemen to be present during the ceremony. The architect
of the building project had a clever idea of his own. He bought a dozen
broomsticks and placed them into a wooden box, which he nailed shut and
labeled, “HANDS OFF, DO NOT TOUCH, HIGH EXPLOSIVE, NITROGLYCERINE.” He had one
of the workmen guard the box. His idea was to force the perpetrators to
reconsider their nefarious plot. The plan was a resounding success. Word went
through the local community that no one was to go near the platform or the
guests. The ceremony was concluded without incident. Thus, from the very
beginnings of her new order, Sr. Katharine was confronted by the bigotry that
was to be her constant adversary throughout her lifetime of missionary activity.
Through the intercession
of Archbishop Ryan, Katharine’s new order was saved from a different type of
disaster. When she entered the religious life, Katharine had already been
providing financial aid to St. Stephen’s Cheyenne mission in Wyoming. She received
some urgent letters from the local ordinary, Bishop Burke, concerning the
plight of the mission from a lack of qualified religious to assist the priest.
She and some of her new sisters received permission from Archbishop Ryan to
visit the mission. She found it to be in a deplorable state because of the lack
of qualified religious. She met with Bishop Burke and promised support,
intimating that she would supply sisters to take over the school. When she
returned to the Motherhouse in Torresdale, Archbishop Ryan enjoined her from
sending anyone to the mission. The young sisters, who were still postulants and
novices, had not completed their formation. The rigors of a frontier mission
would overwhelm them, despite their youthful enthusiasm. Although her disappointment
was intense, she obeyed his directive, later admitting the imprudence of her
original decision. Archbishop Ryan wisely determined that the sisters should
not leave the Motherhouse until they were steeped in religious principles and
well formed in holiness. Only after several more years of preparation did he
give permission for the sisters to begin to operate in the Indian missions.
Katharine soon discovered
that scarcity of religious personnel was the problem that dogged all Catholic
missions in the United States. Not only did the Indian missions in the West
desperately need assistance, the Negro missions of the South needed it as much
or even more. Eventually, the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament would not only
send sisters to Wyoming, but to Santa Fe, New Mexico; San Jose, California; Old
Laguna, New Mexico; and many other places. While she was improving and staffing
these missions she was busy near home as well. With the assistance of her two
natural sisters, Elizabeth and Louise, she built St. Emma’s Industrial and
Agricultural Institute near Richmond, Virginia. It was a trade school for Negro
students. Its purpose was to prepare the students to make an honorable living
for themselves and their future families.
The Navajos had been
subdued by the United States Army and placed on a reservation in Arizona.
Through the efforts of Sr. Katharine’s friend, Fr. Stephan, land was purchased,
and a Navajo mission was established. At first she supported the operation only
financially. The Navajo language was extremely difficult to master, and there
were many obstacles to establishing a mission. However, Father Stephan located
three Franciscan priests who accepted the challenge and painstakingly set about
to teach themselves the language and write a book of translation. With the
establishment of a Catholic Navajo mission, Sr. Katharine built a boarding
school, St. Michael’s, which was accomplished only after many setbacks and
difficulties. The happy result was that the Navajos eventually became among the
most devout and enthusiastic of all the Indian Catholics.
The growth of the Sisters
of the Blessed Sacrament was gradual, but in 1904, fifteen years after the
order was founded, there were 104 sisters functioning in the Motherhouse, in
Santa Fe, Rock Castle and St. Michael’s in Arizona. Special mention should be made
of Xavier University in New Orleans. Begun in 1917 as a two-year Normal School,
it became a full-fledged university by 1925. It was the first university in the
country that admitted Negroes. It soon attracted students from around the
country and such far off places as the Caribbean and Africa.
In 1955, the order held
51 convents from which were conducted 49 elementary schools, 12 high schools,
Xavier University in New Orleans, 3 houses of social service and a house of
studies in Washington, D.C. At that time, the number of sisters exceeded five
hundred, although by 2000, the year of St. Katharine’s canonization, that
number had dwindled to a little over two hundred. (Such are the “fruits” of
Vatican Council II, which minimized the importance of the dogma extra
ecclesiam nulla salus . If salvation can be found outside of the Catholic
Church, there is certainly no need for missionaries.)
A Contemplative at Last
In her initial
consideration of a religious vocation, St. Katharine was inclined to become a
contemplative. This dream would not be fulfilled through her new order, which
was involved in missionary activity, but rather by God’s providence. In 1935,
when she was seventy-seven years old, she suffered her first major heart attack
during a visit to the missions. She was returned to the Motherhouse in
Torresdale. There, her doctor confirmed the serious nature of her illness, and
she was advised to reduce radically her level of activity. When she tried to
minimize the problem by saying, “Nobody is necessary for God’s work. God can do
the work without any of His creatures,” her doctor replied simply, “Certainly,
Mother, I agree with you, but ordinarily He does not.” The point was made.
After years of submitting her will to God’s, her docility was complete, and she
consented to live the life of an invalid until her death in 1955.
For the first several
years following her heart attack, St. Katharine was involved in the decisions
and plans involving the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament. However, she slowly
became more enfeebled. Eventually, she did not leave her little room, which was
located on the second floor of the Motherhouse. She spent her days and nights
in prayer. Her growth in profound sanctity is documented, for she filled
notebooks with the results of her meditations and middle-of-the-night
adorations. She willingly accepted her role as a suffering soul for the success
of her order and the conversion of the Indians and Colored People. Finally, on
March 3, 1955, she quietly and peacefully gave up her soul to her Divine
Bridegroom.
The Saint of “Social
Justice”?
Even when she was alive,
there were those who attached themselves to St. Katharine or ingratiated
themselves with her for their own ends, including the liberal Jesuit Father
LaFarge, the indifferentist Cardinal Cushing of Boston, and even one extremely
devout-looking priest who was not a priest at all! These associations have led
some to the conclusion that St. Katharine was sort of a Catholic Martin Luther
King, Jr. This conclusion is supported by much of the available literature on
her. As is common these days, the research for this article was begun on the
Internet. Reading a number of the articles that appear on various web sites —
including that of St. Katharine’s own order — one may begin to wonder if St.
Katharine’s canonization was purely an act of “political correctness.” Even
though it should not be possible, did the Pope err when he canonized her?
Sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly, all of the Internet sources referred
to her as a sort of “Saint of Social Justice for Minorities and/or Women.” Now
the Church has traditionally canonized someone because he or she exhibited one
or more virtues to an heroic degree. But what sort of virtue is “Social
Justice,” and how can it be practiced to an heroic degree? Was her canonization
simply one more post-Vatican II novelty?
“The servant is not
greater than his master. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute
you” (Jn. 15:20). Our Lord told His Apostles to remember these words, and Catholics
today should keep them in mind, too. Jesus has been so historically revised as
to be made everything from a “nominal Jew” to a tree-hugging pantheist, to a
“Witness of Jehovah,” and more. Certainly Katherine, His servant, is also
susceptible to revisionism. A read through the older books about St. Katharine
and, especially, of her own writings, will make clear that the story of her
life of virtue, like so many things, has been distorted by the Modernists. One
very interesting example of this is a pair of books written by Ellen Tarry, a
Negro woman and a former pupil in one of Sr. Katharine’s schools. In 1958, she
wrote a book that was part of the “Vision Books” series entitled Katharine
Drexel, Friend of the Neglected. It was a straightforward account, written
with great empathy. She properly referred to Negroes as “Negroes” and Indians
as “Indians” and Colored People as “Colored People.” That is the way Katharine
referred to them and included them in the official name of her order — “Sisters
of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Negroes.” St. Katharine later modified
this to “Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored People”
because she did not want her missionary activities limited to those two groups.
She wanted to include all Colored People.
In 2000, Pauline Books
and Media of Boston republished this same book under the title, Saint
Katharine Drexel, Friend of the Oppressed. From the title, you may already
begin to get the picture. Since the publication of the first edition, Ellen Tarry
has become a well-known worker for “social justice.” She prides herself on
being a member of “the New York Coalition of 100 Black Women, the New York
Chapter of the National Association of Media Women, the Schomberg Corporation,
Commission Emeritus of the Office of Black Ministry, Archdiocese of New York
and has served as a non-governmental observer at the United Nations.” She spent
many years working in the New York office of the Department of Housing and
Urban Development (HUD) as a “relocations advisor and then as an equal
opportunity officer.” In the latest edition of her book, St. Katharine has
become a woman whose “generous heart was also moved by the deprivations and
injustices suffered by many African Americans.” Negroes have become “African
Americans” and Indians have become “Native Americans.” Even though the story of
Katharine’s life prior to the establishment of her order remains basically the
same, the entire focus of the book has changed. Suddenly, from a story about a
woman growing in holiness and dedicated to the salvation of souls, it has been
changed to that of a woman who is a campaigner for the “civil rights” of the
peoples.” The emphasis is entirely topsy-turvy.
The question remains:
What virtues did St. Katharine practice heroically — virtues that should be
imitated by the Faithful? For Americans, in particular, St. Katharine provides
us with a challenging example of heroic poverty of spirit and charity.
Katharine was born into one of the richest families in America. She had all of
the advantages such a background would provide — luxurious accommodations, the
finest food, a marvelous education, an unlimited ability to travel, excellent
social connections and a proper introduction to high society as a debutante and
all that goes with it. In short, she had everything that could have turned her
into a wealthy, high-society, spoiled brat. Yet, her life was one that
exemplified true poverty of spirit.
As described by Fr.
Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, O.C.D., in his book Divine Intimacy ,
“Poverty of spirit includes detachment not only from material goods, but also
from moral and even spiritual goods. Whoever tries to assert his own
personality, seeking the esteem and regard of creatures, who remains attached
to his own will and ideas, or is too fond of his independence, is not poor in
spirit, but is rich in himself, in his self-love and his pride.” As we have
seen, throughout her life Katharine was entirely docile to the counsels and
advice of her spiritual director. She felt herself to be an entirely inadequate
instrument of God. In practice, she treated herself as the humblest of
servants. She always took the meanest of accommodations, ate the simplest foods
and gave all personal belongings away. From her last years we have the
following touching example of her poverty. After she had become enfeebled and
was bedridden, her primary source of visible consolation was a small holy card
with a picture of Pope St. Pius X. She held it in her hands for hours every day
while she prayed. Once, when a longtime acquaintance, Father William Markoe,
came to call, she saw in his face something that troubled her. When he was
leaving, she gave him her most precious possession — her little picture of St.
Pius X. Such was Katharine’s spirit of poverty. Her entire life was a sacrifice
for others; she held nothing back for herself.
Aside from her personal
growth in sanctity, St. Katharine’s primary concern was the salvation of souls.
Everything else was only a means to this end. She burned with the desire to
provide the opportunity for all Americans to love the Blessed Sacrament as much
as she did. Her true Charity was intense. An old Indian who had been educated
by the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament and who was a close friend of St.
Katharine for many decades until her death in 1955 said, “She never mixed two
religions together. She always stressed the Catholic.” At her canonization,
when there was much talk about Katharine being a “saint of the oppressed” and
“advocate for social justice,” an elderly sister, who had taken care of St.
Katharine during her last years, made this wise observation, “Her greatest
accomplishment was her sanctity.”
St. Mary Katharine
Drexel, pray for us!
SOURCE : http://catholicism.org/katherine-drexel.html
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Saint Katharine Drexel Chapel (Harpswell, Maine
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Saint
Katharine Drexel Chapel (Harpswell, Maine
CAPPELLA PAPALE FOR THE
CANONIZATION OF 123 NEW SAINTS
HOMILY OF JOHN PAUL II
Sunday 1 October 2000
1. "Your word is
truth; sanctify us in your love" (Gospel Acclamation, Italian
Lectionary; cf. Jn 17: 17). This invocation, an echo of Christ's
prayer to the Father after the Last Supper, seems to rise from the host of
saints and blesseds whom the Spirit of God continues to raise up in his
Church from generation to generation.
Today, 2,000 years since
the beginning of Redemption, we make these words our own, while we have before
us as models of holiness Augustine Zhao Rong and his 119 companions,
martyrs in China, María Josefa of the Heart of Jesus Sancho de Guerra,
Katharine Mary Drexel and Josephine Bakhita. God the Father "sanctified
them in his love", granting the request of the Son, who opened his arms on
the Cross, put an end to death and revealed the resurrection, in order to win
for the Father a holy people (cf. Eucharistic Prayer II, Preface).
I extend my cordial
greeting to you all, dear brothers and sisters, gathered here in great numbers
to express your devotion to these shining witnesses of the Gospel.
2. "The precepts of
the Lord give joy to the heart" (Responsorial Psalm). These words of
the Responsorial Psalm clearly reflect the experience of Augustine Zhao
Rong and his 119 companions, martyrs in China. The testimonies which have come down
to us allow us to glimpse in them a state of mind marked by deep serenity and
joy.
Today the Church is
grateful to her Lord, who blesses her and bathes her in light with the
radiant holiness of these sons and daughters of China. Is not the Holy Year the
most appropriate moment to make their heroic witness shine resplendently? Young
Ann Wang, a 14-year-old, withstood the threats of the torturers who invited her
to apostatize. Ready for her beheading, she declared with a radiant face:
"The door of heaven is open to all", three times murmuring:
"Jesus". And 18-year-old Chi Zhuzi, cried out fearlessly to those who
had just cut off his right arm and were preparing to flay him alive:
"Every piece of my flesh, every drop of my blood will tell you that I am
Christian".
The other 85 Chinese men
and women of every age and state, priests, religious and lay people, showed the
same conviction and joy, sealing their unfailing fidelity to Christ and the
Church with the gift of their lives. This occurred over the course of several
centuries and in a complex and difficult era of China's history. Today's
celebration is not the appropriate time to pass judgement on those historical
periods: this can and should be done elsewhere. Today, with this solemn
proclamation of holiness, the Church intends merely to recognize that those
martyrs are an example of courage and consistency to us all, and that they
honour the noble Chinese people.
Resplendent in this host
of martyrs are also the 33 missionaries who left their land and sought to
immerse themselves in the Chinese world, lovingly assimilating its features in
the desire to proclaim Christ and to serve those people. Their tombs are there
as if to signify their definitive belonging to China, which they deeply loved,
although with their human limitations, and for which they spent all their
energies. "We never wronged anyone", Bishop Francis Fogolla replied
to the governor who was preparing to strike him with his sword. "On the
contrary, we have done good to many". (In Chinese) God sends down
happiness.
3. Both the first reading
and the Gospel of today's liturgy show us that the Spirit blows where he wills,
and that God, in every age, chooses individuals to show his love to mankind and
raises up institutions called to be privileged instruments of his action. So it
was with St María Josefa of the Heart of Jesus Sancho de Guerra, foundress
of the Servants of Jesus of Charity.
In the life of the new
saint, the first Basque to be canonized, the Spirit's action is remarkably
visible. He led her to the service of the sick and prepared her to be the
Mother of a new religious family.
St María Josefa lived her
vocation as an authentic apostle in the field of health, since her style of
care sought to combine motherly and spiritual attention, using every means to
achieve the salvation of souls. Although she was ill for the last 12 years of
her life, she spared no effort or suffering and was unstinting in her
charitable service to the sick in a contemplative atmosphere, recalling that
"care does not only consist in giving the sick medicine and food; there is
another kind of care ... and it is that of the heart, which tries to adapt
itself to the suffering person".
May María Josefa of the
Heart of Jesus help the Basque people to banish violence for ever, and may
Euskadi be a blessed land and a place of peaceful and fraternal coexistence,
where the rights of every person are respected and innocent blood is no longer
shed.
4. "See what you
have stored up for yourselves against the last days!" (Jas 5: 3).
In the second reading of
today's liturgy, the Apostle James rebukes the rich who trust in their wealth
and treat the poor unjustly. Mother Katharine Drexel was born into
wealth in Philadelphia in the United States. But from her parents she learned
that her family's possessions were not for them alone but were meant to be
shared with the less fortunate. As a young woman, she was deeply distressed by
the poverty and hopeless conditions endured by many Native Americans and
Afro-Americans. She began to devote her fortune to missionary and educational
work among the poorest members of society. Later, she understood that more was
needed. With great courage and confidence in God's grace, she chose to give not
just her fortune but her whole life totally to the Lord.
To her religious
community, the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, she taught a spirituality
based on prayerful union with the Eucharistic Lord and zealous service of the
poor and the victims of racial discrimination. Her apostolate helped to bring
about a growing awareness of the need to combat all forms of racism through
education and social services. Katharine Drexel is an excellent example of that
practical charity and generous solidarity with the less fortunate which has
long been the distinguishing mark of American Catholics.
May her example help
young people in particular to appreciate that no greater treasure can be found
in this world than in following Christ with an undivided heart and in using
generously the gifts we have received for the service of others and for the building
of a more just and fraternal world.
5. "The law of the
Lord is perfect, ... it gives wisdom to the simple" (Ps 19: 8).
These words from today's
Responsorial Psalm resound powerfully in the life of Sr Josephine
Bakhita. Abducted and sold into slavery at the tender age of seven, she
suffered much at the hands of cruel masters. But she came to understand the
profound truth that God, and not man, is the true Master of every human being,
of every human life. This experience became a source of great wisdom for this
humble daughter of Africa.
In today's world,
countless women continue to be victimized, even in developed modern societies.
In St Josephine Bakhita we find a shining advocate of genuine
emancipation. The history of her life inspires not passive acceptance but
the firm resolve to work effectively to free girls and women from oppression
and violence, and to return them to their dignity in the full exercise of their
rights.
My thoughts turn to the
new saint's country, which has been torn by a cruel war for the past 17 years,
with little sign of a solution in sight. In the name of suffering humanity I
appeal once more to those with responsibility: open your hearts to
the cries of millions of innocent victims and embrace the path of
negotiation. I plead with the international community: do not
continue to ignore this immense human tragedy. I invite the whole Church to
invoke the intercession of St Bakhita upon all our persecuted and enslaved
brothers and sisters, especially in Africa and in her native Sudan, that they
may know reconciliation and peace.
Lastly, I address an
affectionate greeting to the Canossian Daughters of Charity, who are rejoicing
today because their sister has been raised to the glory of the altars. From the
example of St Josephine Bakhita may they be able to draw renewed encouragement
for generous dedication in the service of God and neighbour.
6. Dear brothers and
sisters, encouraged by this time of Jubilee grace, let us renew our willingness
to be deeply purified and sanctified by the Spirit. We are also drawn to this
path by the saint whose memorial we celebrate today: Theresa of the Child
Jesus. To her, patroness of the missions, and to the new saints we entrust the
mission of the Church at the beginning of the third millennium.
May Mary, Queen of All
Saints, support the steps of Christians and of all who are docile to the Spirit
of God, so that the light of Christ the Saviour will spread to every part of
the world.
© Copyright 2000 -
Libreria Editrice Vaticana
Filadelfia, Stati Uniti,
26 novembre 1858 - Pennsylvania, 3 marzo 1955
Suo padre è il ricco
banchiere Francis A. Drexel. Sua madre, Anna, muore poche settimane dopo che
lei è nata. Con la sorella maggiore Elisabetta viene allora affidata a una zia,
ma nel 1860 torna a casa, perché suo padre si risposa con Emma Bouvier (del
casato di Jacqueline, moglie del presidente J.F. Kennedy) dalla quale avrà una
terza figlia, Luisa. Emma sa essere ottima madre per tutte e tre. E per altri
ancora. In questa famiglia profondamente cattolica, fede e opere camminano
insieme, ed Emma coinvolgerà via via le tre figlie nel soccorso generoso e
puntuale alla gente più abbandonata di Filadelfia.
Con gli anni, Caterina
studia, viaggia, va a cavallo. E legge la Bibbia, guidata da un sacerdote di
origine irlandese, padre O’ Connor, che sarà poi vescovo nel Nebraska. I suoi
viaggi si orientano presto verso gli Stati del Sud, dove nelle piantagioni
vivono i neri, ufficialmente non più schiavi dal 1865, ma sempre poveri,
subalterni, quasi rassegnati all’umiliazione; e verso gli Stati del Nord e Sud
Dakota, dove sopravvivono gli indiani sconfitti, la gente Navajo. Caterina si
sforza di offrire aiuto col denaro paterno, ma sente che “dare l’offerta” non
basta. A questo mondo innocentee punito bisogna dedicare la vita.
Nel gennaio 1887 arriva a
Roma, è ricevuta in udienza dal pontefice Leone XIII, e gli chiede di mandare
missionari tra quella gente. Risposta del Papa: «Perché non si fa lei stessa
missionaria?». E lei decide, ma non d’impulso. Prepara senza fretta ogni cosa,
incominciando da sé stessa. Fa il noviziato tra le Suore della Misericordia, e
nel febbraio1891 fonda poi con 13 giovani la Congregazione del Santissimo
Sacramento con quell’impegno preciso: promozione umana di indiani e neri
d’America, partendo dall’istruzione. Guida tutto lei, percorrendo il Paese
sempre con i mezzi pubblici, lottando contro molta avversione bianca all’idea
che dei “figli degli schiavi” e “figli dei selvaggi” si istruiscano come i
bianchi. E contro i sabotaggi cavillosi o anche maneschi, per impedirle di
comprare case e terreni. Fa sorgere 145 missioni cattoliche e scuole speciali,
manda le suore a visitare i poveri nelle case, negli ospedali e nelle carceri,
a rianimare quelli che non sperano nemmeno più. Nel 1925 fonda a New Orleans
(Louisiana) la Xavier University, l’istituto cattolico che è aperto a indiani e
a neri, preparandoli a fare gli insegnanti.
Viene infine il momento
in cui la stampa americana fa conoscere a tutti Madre Drexel e la sua opera in
difesa dei diritti umani (l’espressione è ancora poco usata; con lei i fatti
precedono le parole). Verso gli 80 anni, il crollo fisico la costringe prima al
riposo e poi all’immobilità, fino alla morte in età di 97 anni.
Martirologio
Romano: A Philadelphia in Pennsylvania negli Stati Uniti d’America, santa
Caterina Drexel, vergine, fondatrice della Congregazione delle Suore del
Santissimo Sacramento, che utilizzò con generosità e carità i beni dai lei
ereditati per l’istruzione e il riscatto degli Indiani e dei neri.
Nata a Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, negli Stati Uniti d'America, il 26 novembre 1858, Katharine
Drexel era la seconda figlia di Francis Anthony Drexel ed Hannah Langstroth
Drexel. Suo padre era un famoso banchiere e filantropo. Entrambi i genitori
istillarono nelle loro figlie l'idea che la ricchezza era data loro in prestito
e doveva perciò, essere condivisa con gli altri.
Durante un viaggio della
famiglia nell'ovest degli Stati Uniti, Katharine, da giovane donna, notò lo
stato abietto e degradante dei nativi americani. Fu questa un'esperienza che
risvegliò il desiderio di fare qualcosa di specifico per alleviare la loro
condizione. Segnò questo il principio di un impegno personale e finanziario di
tutta una vita a sostegno di numerose missioni e missionari negli Stati Uniti.
La prima scuola da lei fondata fu quella di Santa Caterina, in Santa Fé, New
Mexico (1887) per gli Indiani.
In seguito, durante
un'udienza a Roma con papa Leone XIII, al quale Katharine chiedeva missionari
per alcune missioni tra gli Indiani da lei finanziate, con sua sorpresa il Papa
suggerì che diventasse missionaria lei stessa. Dopo essersi consultata con il
suo direttore spirituale, il Vescovo James O'Connor, prese la decisione di donarsi
totalmente a Dio, insieme con la sua eredità, attraverso un impegno di servizio
a favore degli Indiani e degli Afro-Americani.
La sua ricchezza
diventava ora la povertà di spirito che fu per lei una realtà vissuta
costantemente in una vita in cui per il suo sostentamento c'era il minimo
necessario. Il 12 febbraio 1891, fece la prima professione religiosa, fondando
le Suore del Santissimo Sacramento, il cui scopo doveva essere quello di
diffondere il messaggio evangelico e la vita eucaristica in mezzo agli Indiani
ed Afro-Americani.
Donna d'intensa
preghiera, Katharine trovò sempre nell'Eucaristia la sorgente del suo amore per
i poveri e gli oppressi e l'ansia di combattere gli effetti del razzismo.
Conscia del fatto che molti degli Afro-Americani erano ben lungi dall'essere
liberi, vivendo essi ancora in condizioni inferiori al normale, o come mezzadri
o come domestici insufficientemente retribuiti; consapevole pure che a loro
venivano negati sia l'istruzione che i diritti costituzionali di cui altri
godevano; mossa da una profonda compassione, sentì l'urgenza e il bisogno di
prodigarsi affinché negli Stati Uniti si cambiassero la mentalità e gli
atteggiamenti razziali.
Le piantagioni erano a
quel tempo un'istituzione sociale senza sbocco, per cui gli Afro-Americani
continuavano ad essere vittime di oppressione. Questo fatto costituiva
come una profonda pena per il senso di giustizia di Katharine. La
necessità di offrire alla gente di colore un'istruzione di qualità assumeva per
lei un'importanza sempre più grande, per cui parlò di questo urgente bisogno
con altre persone che condividevano la sua preoccupazione circa l'ineguaglianza
esistente per gli Afro-Americani: nelle città era per loro impossibile ricevere
una buona istruzione, mentre nelle campagne del sud esistevano anche
restrizioni legali che impedivano ad essi di ottenere un'educazione di
base.
La fondazione di scuole e
la creazione di buoni corpi insegnanti per tutti, Indiani ed Afro-Americani,
attraverso gli Stati Uniti diventò così una priorità assoluta per Katharine e
la sua Congregazione.
Durante l'intera sua vita
ella aprì, dotandole di insegnanti e finanziandole direttamente, circa 60
scuole e missioni, specialmente nell'ovest e sud-ovest degli Stati Uniti. Ciò
che costituì l'apice dei suoi sforzi nel campo dell'educazione, fu l'erezione,
nel 1925, della "Xavier University" nella Louisiana, l'unica
istituzione d'istruzione superiore negli Stati Uniti destinata prevalentemente
ai cattolici di colore. Educazione religiosa, servizio sociale, visite alle
famiglie, negli ospedali, nelle prigioni, facevano parte del ministero di
Katharine e delle sue consorelle.
In maniera molto calma e
serena, Katharine armonizzava preghiera e totale dipendenza dalla Divina
Provvidenza con un'attività molto marcata. La sua gioiosa incisività in
sintonia con lo Spirito Santo, superava barriere e facilitava il suo procedere
sulle vie della giustizia sociale. Attraverso la testimonianza profetica di
Katharine Drexel, la Chiesa negli Stati Uniti divenne gradualmente consapevole
della grave necessità di un apostolato diretto in favore degli Indiani ed
Afro-Americani. Essa non esitò mai ad alzare la voce contro l'ingiustizia e
prese pubblicamente una chiara posizione ogni qualvolta c'era evidenza di discriminazione
razziale.
Negli ultimi 18 anni
della sua vita, Katharine Drexel fu ridotta da una grave malattia ad uno stato
di quasi completa immobilità. Durante questo periodo si diede interamente ad
una vita di adorazione di contemplazione così come aveva desiderato sin dalla
sua tenera età. Morì il 3 marzo 1955.
Alle Suore del Santissimo
Sacramento, che continuano oggi il suo apostolato, ed in verità a tutti i
popoli, Katharine ha lasciato un quadruplice dinamico retaggio:
– il suo amore per l'Eucaristia,
il suo spirito di preghiera, e la sua visione dell'unità di tutti i popoli,
incentrata nell'Eucaristia;
– il suo indomito spirito
di coraggiosa iniziativa nell'affrontare le ingiustizie sociali esistenti nei
riguardi delle minoranze etniche — e ciò cento anni prima che tali problemi
diventassero di pubblico interesse negli Stati Uniti;
– la sua convinzione
sull'importanza di offrire a tutti una istruzione di qualità, e gli sforzi da
lei compiuti perché ciò divenisse realtà;
– il dono totale di se
stessa, della sua eredità e di tutti i suoi beni in un servizio disinteressato
per coloro che sono vittime dell'ingiustizia.
Katharine Drexel è stata
beatificata da Papa Giovanni Paolo II il 20 novembre 1988 e proclamata santa
nell'anno 2000.
Fonte : Santa Sede
SOURCE : http://www.santiebeati.it/dettaglio/43675
KATHARINE DREXEL (1858-1955)
vergine fondatrice della Congregazione delle Suore del SS.mo Sacramento per gli indiani e la gente di colore
Nata a Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, negli Stati Uniti d'America, il 26 novembre 1858, Katharine Drexel
era la seconda figlia di Francis Anthony Drexel ed Hannah Langstroth Drexel.
Suo padre era un famoso banchiere e filantropo. Entrambi i genitori istillarono
nelle loro figlie l'idea che la ricchezza era data loro in prestito e doveva
perciò, essere condivisa con gli altri.
Durante un viaggio della
famiglia nell'ovest degli Stati Uniti, Katharine, da giovane donna, notò lo
stato abietto e degradante dei nativi americani. Fu questa un'esperienza che
risvegliò il desiderio di fare qualcosa di specifico per alleviare la loro
condizione. Segnò questo il principio di un impegno personale e finanziario di
tutta una vita a sostegno di numerose missioni e missionari negli Stati Uniti.
La prima scuola da lei fondata fu quella di Santa Caterina, in Santa Fé, New Mexico
(1887) per gli Indiani.
In seguito, durante
un'udienza a Roma con papa Leone XIII, al quale Katharine chiedeva missionari
per alcune missioni tra gli Indiani da lei finanziate, con sua sorpresa il Papa
suggerì che diventasse missionaria lei stessa. Dopo essersi consultata con il
suo direttore spirituale, il Vescovo James O'Connor, prese la decisione di
donarsi totalmente a Dio, insieme con la sua eredità, attraverso un impegno di
servizio a favore degli Indiani e degli Afro-Americani.
La sua ricchezza
diventava ora la povertà di spirito che fu per lei una realtà vissuta
costantemente in una vita in cui per il suo sostentamento c'era il minimo
necessario. Il 12 febbraio 1891, fece la prima professione religiosa, fondando
le Suore del Santissimo Sacramento, il cui scopo doveva essere quello di
diffondere il messaggio evangelico e la vita eucaristica in mezzo agli Indiani
ed Afro-Americani.
Donna d'intensa
preghiera, Katharine trovò sempre nell'Eucaristia la sorgente del suo amore per
i poveri e gli oppressi e l'ansia di combattere gli effetti del razzismo.
Conscia del fatto che molti degli Afro-Americani erano ben lungi dall'essere
liberi, vivendo essi ancora in condizioni inferiori al normale, o come mezzadri
o come domestici insufficientemente retribuiti; consapevole pure che a loro
venivano negati sia l'istruzione che i diritti costituzionali di cui altri
godevano; mossa da una profonda compassione, sentì l'urgenza e il bisogno di
prodigarsi affinché negli Stati Uniti si cambiassero la mentalità e gli atteggiamenti
razziali.
Le piantagioni erano a
quel tempo un'istituzione sociale senza sbocco, per cui gli Afro-Americani
continuavano ad essere vittime di oppressione. Questo fatto costituiva come una
profonda pena per il senso di giustizia di Katharine. La necessità di offrire
alla gente di colore un'istruzione di qualità assumeva per lei un'importanza
sempre più grande, per cui parlò di questo urgente bisogno con altre persone
che condividevano la sua preoccupazione circa l'ineguaglianza esistente per gli
Afro-Americani: nelle città era per loro impossibile ricevere una buona
istruzione, mentre nelle campagne del sud esistevano anche restrizioni legali
che impedivano ad essi di ottenere un'educazione di base.
La fondazione di scuole e
la creazione di buoni corpi insegnanti per tutti, Indiani ed Afro-Americani,
attraverso gli Stati Uniti diventò così una priorità assoluta per Katharine e
la sua Congregazione.
Durante l'intera sua vita
ella aprì, dotandole di insegnanti e finanziandole direttamente, circa 60 scuole
e missioni, specialmente nell'ovest e sud-ovest degli Stati Uniti. Ciò che
costituì l'apice dei suoi sforzi nel campo dell'educazione, fu l'erezione, nel
1925, della «Xavier University» nella Louisiana, l'unica istituzione
d'istruzione superiore negli Stati Uniti destinata prevalentemente ai cattolici
di colore. Educazione religiosa, servizio sociale, visite alle famiglie, negli
ospedali, nelle prigioni, facevano parte del ministero di Katharine e delle sue
consorelle.
In maniera molto calma e
serena, Katharine armonizzava preghiera e totale dipendenza dalla Divina
Provvidenza con un'attività molto marcata. La sua gioiosa incisività in
sintonia con lo Spirito Santo, superava barriere e facilitava il suo procedere
sulle vie della giustizia sociale. Attraverso la testimonianza profetica di
Katharine Drexel, la Chiesa negli Stati Uniti divenne gradualmente consapevole
della grave necessità di un apostolato diretto in favore degli Indiani ed
Afro-Americani. Essa non esitò mai ad alzare la voce contro l'ingiustizia e
prese pubblicamente una chiara posizione ogni qualvolta c'era evidenza di
discriminazione razziale.
Negli ultimi 18 anni
della sua vita, Katharine Drexel fu ridotta da una grave malattia ad uno stato
di quasi completa immobilità. Durante questo periodo si diede interamente ad
una vita di adorazione di contemplazione così come aveva desiderato sin dalla
sua tenera età. Morì il 3 marzo 1955.
Alle Suore del Santissimo
Sacramento, che continuano oggi il suo apostolato, ed in verità a tutti i
popoli, Katharine ha lasciato un quadruplice dinamico retaggio:
– il suo amore per
l'Eucaristia, il suo spirito di preghiera, e la sua visione dell'unità di tutti
i popoli, incentrata nell'Eucaristia;
– il suo indomito
spirito di coraggiosa iniziativa nell'affrontare le ingiustizie sociali
esistenti nei riguardi delle minoranze etniche — e ciò cento anni prima che
tali problemi diventassero di pubblico interesse negli Stati Uniti;
– la sua convinzione
sull'importanza di offrire a tutti una istruzione di qualità, e gli sforzi da
lei compiuti perché ciò divenisse realtà;
– il dono totale di se
stessa, della sua eredità e di tutti i suoi beni in un servizio disinteressato
per coloro che sono vittime dell'ingiustizia.
Katharine Drexel è stata
beatificata da Papa Giovanni Paolo II il 20 novembre 1988.
SOURCE : https://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/saints/ns_lit_doc_20001001_katharine-drexel_it.html
Voir aussi : http://www.clairval.com/lettres/fr/2002/02/13/5130202.htm
