Daily readings with reflections

Readings & Reflections: Tuesday of the First Week of Lent & St. Katharine Drexel, March 3,2020

Readings & Reflections: Tuesday of the First Week of Lent & St. Katharine Drexel, March 3,2020

The Lord promises that the Word which comes from his mouth will be like the rain and snow the come down from the heavens: Our Father who are in heaven. God’s fruitful Word gives bread to the one who eats: Give us this day our daily bread. God’s Word shall do his will: Thy will be done. God’s Word shall not return to him void: They Kingdom come. We forgive those who trespass against us. It will achieve the end for which God sends it: Deliver us from evil.

AMDG+

Opening Prayer

“Lord, give me a lively faith, a firm hope, a fervent charity, and a great love for you. Take from me all lukewarmness in the meditation of your word, and dullness in prayer. Give me fervor and delight in thinking of you and your grace, and fill me with compassion for others, especially those in need, that I may respond with generosity”  Amen,

Reading 1
Is 55:10-11

Thus says the LORD:
Just as from the heavens the rain and snow come down
And do not return there till they have watered the earth,
making it fertile and fruitful, Giving seed to the one who sows
and bread to the one who eats, So shall my word be
that goes forth from my mouth; It shall not return to me void,
but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it.

The word of the Lord.

Responsorial Psalm
Ps 34:4-5, 6-7, 16-17, 18-19
R. (18b) From all their distress God rescues the just.

Glorify the LORD with me,
let us together extol his name.
I sought the LORD, and he answered me
and delivered me from all my fears.
R. From all their distress God rescues the just.

Look to him that you may be radiant with joy,
and your faces may not blush with shame.
When the poor one called out, the LORD heard,
and from all his distress he saved him.
R. From all their distress God rescues the just.

The LORD has eyes for the just,
and ears for their cry.
The LORD confronts the evildoers,
to destroy remembrance of them from the earth.
R. From all their distress God rescues the just.

When the just cry out, the LORD hears them,
and from all their distress he rescues them.
The LORD is close to the brokenhearted;
and those who are crushed in spirit he saves.
R. From all their distress God rescues the just.

Gospel
Mt 6:7-15

Jesus said to his disciples:
“In praying, do not babble like the pagans, who think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them. Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

“This is how you are to pray:
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. “If you forgive men their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.”

The Gospel of the Lord.

Reflection 1 – The Word of God

Jesus speaks to us through the His Word which reaches into our innermost being and addresses our deepest needs. God through his Word comes into our lives and guides us based on His complete understanding of Who we are, what we need and what is right and acceptable.   God’s Word is capable of changing hearts and lives.

Anything we do that is beyond His Word is therefore not of our Lord. Even if we say we sought God in prayer, our imperfect beings and our sinful nature could influence us, such that what we have could be products of our own minds and flesh.

We are therefore all enjoined to abandon our pride and arrogance and to submit to God’s Word whose ways and thoughts are far above ours.   In the same light, we need not worry amidst the concerns and trials that we face. All we have to do is focus on God and His Word. Listen and obey God as He speaks to us daily.

We may lose everything that the world can afford us, our talents, our careers, our family and our closest friends who have warmed our hearts but with God’s Word we are always kept whole as God’s word is wealth, wisdom and total righteousness. God’s Word is “like rain and snow that comes down from heaven. It does not return there till they have watered the earth, making it fertile and fruitful, giving seed to the one who sows and bread to the one who eats. So shall God’s Word be that goes forth from His mouth, it shall not return to Him void but shall do His will, achieving the end for which He sent it.”

Let us take Scripture into our hearts and let God’s Word guide, judge and heal us with all the power of the Holy Spirit.  It will do the work that God sent it to do!   “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

God’s Word for us today is to FORGIVE. Forgiveness liberates us and sets us free to enjoy the blessings that come with life. Forgiveness does not mean what the offender did was right. It simply means that we are willing to forgive and allow God to contend with those who contend with us. What God is asking from us is to forgive because He has forgiven us. He wants us to give Him the discretion of dealing with those who have offended us.

God is the final judge of mankind and He will make sure justice is complete. Amidst conflict and differences, sin and transgressions among God’s people, let us decide to forgive and follow God’s Word and pray the way Jesus taught us to prayer, “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy Kingdom come…If you forgive men their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.”

Following and abiding by God’s Word will reap the benefits of His grace, healing and forgiveness. God said in Isaiah 55: “so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; It shall not return to me void, but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it.”

Direction

To receive God’s blessings of a righteous life, one should submit and abide by His Word. To forgive and to love should be our decision at all times.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, I always pray that your Word and not my word be deeply imbedded in my heart. In Jesus, I pray. Amen.

Reflection 2 – An old man’s prayer

Have you heard the story about the 85-year old man who was arrested for praying? You probably have. That’s the story of Daniel, an elderly Jewish resident in Babylon sentenced to death for faithfully talking to God (Dan 6). Although the prayer that sent Daniel to the lions’ den is his most famous talk with God (Dan 6:11), it wasn’t the only time we see him in prayer.

In Daniel 9, we read an example of how he prayed. Daniel had been reading in his scroll of Jeremiah that the captivity of his people was 67 years into exile (Jer 25:8-11). He was eager for it to end. God had called His people to live righteously, but they weren’t doing that. Daniel decided to live righteously despite their lack of faith. He began to pray that God would not delay the end of the captivity. As he prayed, Daniel focused on worship and confession. His pattern of prayer gives us an insight into talking to God. We are to recognize that God is “great and awesome” (Dan 6:4) and that “we have sinned” (Dan 6:15). In prayer, we praise and confess.

In today’s gospel, Jesus gives his disciples a prayer that shows us how to begin to discover the essence of God. Our prayer should first of all focus on God rather than on ourselves. We acknowledge God’s holiness. We ask that we may know and follow God’s will and work toward the kingdom. We quietly trust that God will be there for us and give us what we need. We commit ourselves to living a godly life of forgiveness and holiness. We place ourselves in God’s care.

As we quietly and humbly trust in God’s love, our relationship strengthens. As we place ourselves in God’s presence and commit to working for the coming of the kingdom, we show our belief in the words of Isaiah, that God’s word will not return void, but will achieve the end for which it was sent (Is 55:10-11).

May, our Lent be a time of discovering more of the essence of God and responding to those wonders with quiet trust and devoted service. Let us begin the day with God, Our Father. Kneel down to Him in prayer. Lift up your heart to His abode. And seek His love to share.

“Father in heaven, you have given me a mind to know you, a will to serve you, and a heart to love you. Give me today the grace and strength to embrace you holy will and fill my heart with your love that all my intentions and actions may be pleasing to you. Give me the grace to be charitable in thought, kind in deed, and loving in speech towards all.”

Reflection 3 – Your heavenly Father knows what you need

Do you believe that God’s word has power to change and transform your life today? Isaiah says that God’s word is like the rain and melting snow which makes the barren ground spring to life and become abundantly fertile (Isaiah 55:10-11). God’s word has power to penetrate our dry barren hearts and make them springs of new life. If we let God’s word take root in our heart it will transform us into the likeness of God himself and empower us to walk in his way of love and holiness.

Let God’s word guide and shape the way you judge and act
God wants his word to guide and shape the way we think, act, and pray. Ambrose (339-397 AD), an early church father and bishop of Milan, wrote that the reason we should devote time for reading Scripture is to hear Christ speak to us. “Are you not occupied with Christ? Why do you not talk with him? By reading the Scriptures, we listen to Christ.”

We can approach God our Father with confidence
We can approach God confidently because he is waiting with arms wide open to receive his prodigal sons and daughters. That is why Jesus gave his disciples the perfect prayer that dares to call God, Our Father. This prayer teaches us how to ask God for the things we really need, the things that matter not only for the present but for eternity as well. We can approach God our Father with confidence and boldness because the Lord Jesus has opened the way to heaven for us through his death and resurrection.

When we ask God for help, he fortunately does not give us what we deserve. Instead, God responds with grace, mercy, and loving-kindness. He is good and forgiving towards us, and he expects us to treat our neighbor the same. God has poured his love into our hearts through the gift of the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Romans 5:5). And that love is like a refining fire – it purifies and burns away all prejudice, hatred, resentment, vengeance, and bitterness until there is nothing  left but goodness and forgiveness towards those who cause us grief or harm.

The Lord’s Pray teaches us how to pray
Consider what John Cassian (360-435 AD), an early church father who lived for several years with the monks in Bethlehem and Egypt before founding a monastery in southern Gaul, wrote about the Lord’s Prayer and the necessity of forgiving one another from the heart:

“The mercy of God is beyond description. While he is offering us a model prayer he is teaching us a way of life whereby we can be pleasing in his sight. But that is not all. In this same prayer he gives us an easy method for attracting an indulgent and merciful judgment on our lives. He gives us the possibility of ourselves mitigating the sentence hanging over us and of compelling him to pardon us. What else could he do in the face of our generosity when we ask him to forgive us as we have forgiven our neighbor? If we are faithful in this prayer, each of us will ask forgiveness for our own failings after we have forgiven the sins of those who have sinned against us, not only those who have sinned against our Master. There is, in fact, in some of us a very bad habit. We treat our sins against God, however appalling, with gentle indulgence – but when by contrast it is a matter of sins against us ourselves, albeit very tiny ones, we exact reparation with ruthless severity. Anyone who has not forgiven from the bottom of the heart the brother or sister who has done him wrong will only obtain from this prayer his own condemnation, rather than any mercy.”

Do you treat others as you think they deserve to be treated, or do you treat them as the Lord has treated you – with mercy, steadfast love, and kindness?

“Father in heaven, you have given me a mind to know you, a will to serve you, and a heart to love you. Give me today the grace and strength to embrace your holy will and fill my heart and mind with your truth and  love that all my intentions and actions may be pleasing to you. Help me to be kind and forgiving towards my neighbor as you have been towards me.” – Read the source: http://dailyscripture.servantsoftheword.org/readings/2020/mar3.htm

Reflection 4 – The Our Father

We can establish a parallelism between the Our Father and a great many of our Lord’s gestures and words, thereby showing how the Our Father expresses the basic sentiments of all prayer. Note the following similarities:

Father:

  • Matthew 11:25-26: I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth.
  • John 12:28: Father, glorify your name.
  • John 17:6-11: I manifested your name to men; keep in your name those whom you gave me.

Your Reign:

  • Luke 17:20: The Kingdom of God does not come in a way that dazzles the eyes.
  • John 18:36: My kingdom is not of this world.
  • Luke 10:11: The Kingdom of God is close at hand.

Your will:

  • Luke 22: 42: Let not my will but thine be done.
  • Hebrew 10:7: This is why I come, Father: to do your will.
  • John 4:34; John 6:38.

Our Bread:

  • Matthew 6:25: Do not be concerned about what you will eat…
  • Luke 11:9-13: Ask… which one of you will give a stone to his son if he asks for a loaf of bread.

Forgive me:

  • Matthew 18:21-22: Up to seventy-seven
  • Mark 11:24-26: the parable of the two debtors
  • Luke 23: 34: Father, forgive them…

Temptation:

  • Luke 22:31: Simon, Simon, I prayed for you so that your faith would not fail.
  • Matthew 26:41: Watch and pray in order not to enter into temptation – John 17:12

Evil:

  • Mark 9: 29: This kind of demon can be driven out by no other means but prayer.
  • John 17:15: I do not pray that you take them from the world, but that you preserve them from evil.

Reflection 5 – Storm Before The Calm

If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. —Matthew 6:14

The small church was struggling, and everyone knew why. Two elderly church members had a conflict, and the people had divided their loyalties between them, which made any kind of progress impossible. They blatantly disregarded Jesus’ instructions on forgiving others (Matthew 6:14).

A new pastor came to the church and spent several weeks teaching about forgiveness and trust. For a while, the people stuck to their divided loyalties and continued to slog along in their stagnant pool of distrust.

After much prayer, the pastor felt directed by the Lord to take action. So during a morning service, he called on the two men to stand and then asked them to forgive each other. He knew that if the church were ever to have peace again, a storm of confrontation had to occur. The men faced off, paused, and then embraced. Tears ran down their faces as each begged the other for forgiveness. Forty-five minutes later, the crying and hugging and forgiving throughout the congregation finally stopped. The church was revitalized to serve together as a loving community for the glory of God.

Forgiveness is a powerful thing, bringing a comforting calmness. With it, we can enjoy harmony with God’s people; without it, the storm continues.  — Dave Branon

Forgiveness is Christianity in action (Source: Our Daily Bread, RBC Ministries).

Reflection 6 – Give Credit Where It’s Due

Remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth. –Deuteronomy 8:18

Every Sunday in many churches, people recite the Lord’s Prayer, which contains this line: “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11). Then during the remainder of the week, most of them go out and earn money to buy their food. Secretly, they may sometimes feel like the ungrateful cartoon character who prayed before his meal and said, “Dear God, we paid for all this ourselves, so thanks for nothing.”

How easy it is to give ourselves the credit for acquiring things we need—that is, until we’re driven to our knees because of the lean times. In Deuteronomy 8:3, the Lord reminded Israel of their hunger in the wilderness and of His daily supply of manna to sustain them. Through this amazing provision God proved that He was their source and provider. He wanted them to remember that it was His power, not merely their own, that enabled them to get wealth (vv.17-18).

Writer Os Guiness recommends building a “ministry of remembering” into our Christian living by taking stock often, by keeping a record of God’s goodness, and by thanking Him daily for countless tiny joys. These moments of remembering help us say a decisive no to self-sufficiency. Then we can honestly pray to the Father, “Give us this day our daily bread,” with our faith resting securely in Him.  — Joanie Yoder

Often we forget as we eat our daily bread,
From whom it all has come, to us who are well-fed;
But may we all remember, as we walk upon this sod,
That everything we have is from the hand of God. –Fitzhugh

Give credit where credit is due—give thanks to God! (Source: Our Daily Bread, RBC Ministries).

Reflection 7 – The healing power of forgiveness

We all want to have stronger faith. However, this involves becoming stronger in our holiness. We have been made holy by the Holy Spirit, whom we received in fullness during our Baptisms, but learning to live out who we really are is not easy in today’s world. And yet it’s essential for increasing our faith and participating in the miraculous power of God.

Holiness requires struggling against the easier way of life that our flesh nature prefers. It requires effort to, for example, remain in the spirit of love even while others commit sins against us. Our faith is tested in how we handle those we dislike: the ex-spouse, the abusive priest, the employer who fired you, or the friend who betrayed you with no desire to make amends.

In the “Our Father” prayer that Jesus gives us in today’s Gospel passage, he puts special emphasis on forgiveness. By asking God to forgive us for our sins the same way as we forgive those who’ve sinned against us, we’re taking our holiness very seriously. The measure of mercy we give to others is the measure we’re asking God to give us, but don’t we usually prefer to receive more mercy than we give?

It’s not that God withholds forgiveness from us like a bribe to make us become more forgiving — he already forgave us 2000 years ago when Jesus died on the cross on our behalf. The fact is, we separate ourselves from God’s forgiveness whenever we refuse to forgive. In this stormy sea of our unmerciful attitude, we find it hard to believe, deep inside, that we deserve to be forgiven any more than we believe someone else deserves our forgiveness.

Jesus is challenging us to love ourselves at a holier, healthier level. Giving forgiveness frees us to enjoy life; it frees us from dependence on what others do or don’t do to us. And by entering the world of forgiveness, we open ourselves to all of the love that God has for us.

It’s okay to not enjoy forgiving others, especially when they are not remorseful. Jesus wanted to avoid his cross, too. But the only way to resurrection is through the cross.

To grow in faith, we have to stay close to Jesus in both good times and bad, when his hands are reaching out to us with healing love and when his hands are nailed to the cross. By choosing to forgive those who show no remorse, we are united to the sacrifice that Jesus made for us: We are forgiven, we are saved, we are healed.

Identify the people you haven’t really forgiven yet. Make the decision to forgive them, then meditate upon the pain that Jesus suffered in love for you. Realize how much compassion it took for Jesus to do that for you, even though you did not deserve it. Remind yourself that he continues to love you this much every day, no matter what, whether you’re sinning or not. – Read the source: http://gnm.org/good-news-reflections/?useDrDate=2017-03-07

Reflection 8 – Meet Our Father in the Lord’s Prayer

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus is showing us how intimately our Father loves us. In the first reading, we see our Father reminding us that whatever he has promised to do for us (promised in his Word), he will indeed do for us. Why do we doubt this?

Doubt comes from incomplete information: We received our first images of what God the Father is like from our human fathers and other authority figures (including mothers). Since even the best of parents imitated God imperfectly and loved us insufficiently, our knowledge of God the Father’s love is insufficient.

When we pray the “Our Father” prayer — if we really pay attention to the words, praying from our hearts instead of rattling off the words like babbling pagans — we open ourselves to his complete love. Each part of this prayer, which Jesus learned from his own experiences with the Father, is a prescription for an intimate relationship with our heavenly Daddy.

A good spiritual exercise this Lent is to pray the “Our Father” slowly, line by line, reflecting on how each part connects you to the love of the Papa who loves you perfectly and completely and unconditionally.

At the end of this Gospel reading, Jesus offers us the key that unlocks the power of our Father’s love. It’s no accident that he gives additional instruction for only one part of the prayer: “If you forgive the faults of others, your heavenly Father will forgive you yours.” Unforgiveness closes our hearts to love. When the door is shut, we’re not open to receive love, not even our perfect Father’s love.

This is why Jesus told us to pray to our Father instead of to my Father or to the Father. We’re all in this together. Our Father is Jesus’ Father. It’s a community prayer. Even when we pray it by ourselves, we are not alone. Jesus is our prayer partner.

When we pray it in church, we’re united to all of God’s children. How can we love God while refusing to love someone for whom he cares deeply? The more willing we are to love others — including those who are most difficult to love — the more we open ourselves to the love of our Father.

And the more we open ourselves to our Father’s love, the more love we have to share with others. – Read the source: http://gnm.org/good-news-reflections/?useDrDate=2018-02-20

To help with this, use the Good News WordByte, “The ‘Our Father’ Prayer: Do I Really Mean What I Pray?” gnm.org/prayers-our-father-meaning/

To expand upon this, consider how Jesus might have invented the “Our Father” prayer for his particular needs while he was still a carpenter. Read the WordByte, “Did Jesus Struggle Just Like You Do?” wordbytes.gnm.org/spiritualgrowth-struggle/

Reflection 9 – Called to forgive

“If you do not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions” (Mt 6:15).

As a young man was applying for a job and filling out the application, he came to this question: “Have you ever been arrested?” He wrote “no.” The next question was: “If you answered ‘yes,’ please explain.” The applicant, who wasn’t paying very close attention, responded this way instead of leaving it blank: “I never got caught.”

We all stand in need of forgiveness. We all fail, we all sin, we all need to be pardoned for something. We easily rationalize that our mistakes are not as grievous as another’s. But we never know the other person’s heart or what that person might have gone through. We are not to judge, we are not to compare ourselves to others. We are told simply to forgive.

“O God, I often ask your forgiveness for my own failings and sins. Now I ask you to help me to forgive, to help me to want to forgive, to keep trying until I forgive. Help me both to make this my goal and to reach it. In Jesus’ name, Amen.” (Fr. Thomas Connery, Lenten Light Reflections and Prayers).

Please follow Romeo Hontiveros at Twitter click this link: https://twitter.com/Trumpeta

Reflection 10 – St. Katharine Drexel (1858-1955 A.D.)

If your father is an international banker and you ride in a private railroad car, you are not likely to be drawn into a life of voluntary poverty. But if your mother opens your home to the poor three days each week and your father spends half an hour each evening in prayer, it is not impossible that you will devote your life to the poor and give away millions of dollars. Katharine Drexel did that.

She 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 what she read in 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, Katharine 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 Indians in 16 states.

Two saints met when Katharine 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.

Comment:

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

Quote:

“The patient and humble endurance of the cross—whatever nature it may be—is the highest work we have to do.” “Oh, how far I am at 84 years of age from being an image of Jesus in his sacred life on earth!” (St. Katharine Drexel)

Related St. Anthony Messenger article(s) 

The Legacy of St. Katharine Drexel, by Peter Finney, Jr.

Holy People ‘Walk the Talk,’ by Carol Ann Morrow

Read the source:   http://www.americancatholic.org/features/saints/saint.aspx?id=1311

SAINT OF THE DAY
Catholic saints are holy people and human people who lived extraordinary lives. Each saint the Church honors responded to God’s invitation to use his or her unique gifts. God calls each one of us to be a saint. Click here to receive Saint of the Day in your email.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katharine_Drexel
SAINT KATHARINE DREXEL, S.B.S.
Katherine-drexel.jpg

St. Katharine Drexel
FOUNDRESS
BORN November 26, 1858
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,U.S.
DIED March 3, 1955 (aged 96)
Bensalem, Pennsylvania, U.S.
VENERATED IN Roman Catholic Church
BEATIFIED November 20, 1988 by Pope John Paul II
CANONIZED October 1, 2000 by Pope John Paul II
MAJOR SHRINE Bensalem Township, Pennsylvania, U.S.
FEAST March 3
PATRONAGE Philanthropy, racial justice

Saint Katharine Drexel, S.B.S., (November 26, 1858 – March 3, 1955) was an American heiress, philanthropist, religious sister, educator, and foundress. She was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church in 2000; her feast day is observed on March 3. She is the only canonized saint to have been born a United States citizen.

Early life[edit]

Katharine Mary Drexel was born Catherine Mary Drexel in Philadelphia on November 26, 1858, the second child of investment banker Francis Anthony Drexel and Hannah Langstroth. Her family owned a considerable fortune. She was born into a tradition of philanthropy. Her uncle was the founder of Drexel University.

Hannah died five weeks after her baby’s birth. For two years Katharine and her sister, Elizabeth were cared for by their aunt and uncle, Ellen and Anthony Drexel. When Francis married Emma Bouvier in 1860 he brought his two daughters home.[1] A third daughter, Louisa, was born in 1863. Louisa would marry General Edward Morrell. The Morrells actively promoted and advanced the welfare of African Americans throughout the country. The Morrells used their wealth to build magnificent institutions that served, abated and aided the education and upward mobility of African Americans. Gen. Morrell took charge of the Indian work, while Katharine Drexel was in her novitiate.[2]

Private tutors educated the girls at their home. They toured parts of the United States and Europe with their parents.[3] Twice weekly, the Drexel family distributed food, clothing and rent assistance from their family home at 1503 Walnut Street in Philadelphia. When widows or lonely single women were too proud to come to the Drexels for assistance, the family sought them out, but always quietly. As Emma Drexel taught her daughters, “Kindness may be unkind if it leaves a sting behind.”[4]

As a young and wealthy woman, Drexel made her social debut in 1879. However, watching her stepmother’s three-year struggle with terminal cancer taught her the Drexel money could not buy safety from pain or death. Her life took a profound turn. She had always been interested in the plight of Native Americans, having been appalled by what she read in Helen Hunt Jackson’s A Century of Dishonor.[5]

When her family traveled to the Western states in 1884, Katharine Drexel saw the plight and destitution of the native Americans. She wanted to do something specific to help. Thus began her lifelong personal and financial support of numerous missions and missionaries in the United States. After her father died in 1885, Katharine and her sisters had contributed money to help the St. Francis Mission on South Dakota’s Rosebud Reservation. For many years she took spiritual direction from a longtime family friend, Father James O’Connor, a Philadelphia priest who later was appointed vicar apostolic of Nebraska. When Kate wrote him of her desire to join a contemplative order, Bishop O’Connor suggested, “Wait a while longer……. Wait and pray.”[4]

Katharine and her sisters Elizabeth and Louise were still mourning their father when they sailed to Europe in 1886. Their high-powered banker father left behind a $15.5 million estate and instructions to divide it among his three daughters — Elizabeth, Katherine, and Louisa – after expenses and specific charitable donations. However, to prevent his daughters from falling prey to “fortune hunters”, Francis Drexel crafted his will so that his daughters controlled income from his estate, but upon their deaths, their inheritance would flow to their children. The will stipulated that if there were no grandchildren, upon his daughters’ deaths, Drexel’s estate would be distributed to several religious orders and charities—the Society of Jesus, the Christian Brothers, the Religious of the Sacred Heart, a Lutheran hospital and others. Because their father’s charitable donations totaled about $1.5 million, the sisters shared the income produced by $14 million—about $1,000 a day for each woman. In current dollars, the estate would be worth about $400 million.[4]

Religious career[edit]

In January 1887, the sisters were received in a private audience by Pope Leo XIII. They asked him for missionaries to staff some Indian missions that they had been financing. To their surprise, the Pope suggested that Katharine become a missionary herself. Although she had already received marriage proposals, after consulting her spiritual director, Drexel decided to give herself to God, along with her inheritance, through service to American Indians and Afro-Americans.[6] Her uncle, Anthony Drexel, tried to dissuade her from entering religious life, but she entered the Sisters of Mercy Convent in Pittsburgh in May 1889 to begin her six-month postulancy. Her decision rocked Philadelphia social circles. The Philadelphia Public Ledgercarried a banner headline: “Miss Drexel Enters a Catholic Convent—Gives Up Seven Million”.[5]

Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament[edit]

St. Benedict the Moor School, St. Augustine (c. 1898), paid for by St. Katharine Drexel

On February 12, 1891, Drexel professed her first vows as a religious, dedicating herself to work among the American Indians and Afro-Americans in the western and southwestern United States.[6] She took the name Mother Katharine, and joined by thirteen other women, soon established a religious congregation, the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament. Mother Frances Cabrini had advised Drexel about the “politics” of getting her new Order’s Rule approved by the Vatican bureaucracy in Rome.[5] A few months later, Philadelphia Archbishop Ryan blessed the cornerstone of the new motherhouse under construction in Bensalem, Pennsylvania. In the first of many incidents that indicated Drexel’s convictions for social justice were not shared by all, a stick of dynamite was discovered near the site.[4]

Requests for help and advice reached Mother Katharine from various parts of the United States. After three and a half years of training, she and her first band of nuns opened a boarding school, St. Catherine’s Indian School, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 1897, Mother Drexel asked the friars of St. John the Baptist Province of the Order of Friars Minor in Cincinnati, Ohio, to staff a mission among the Navajos in Arizona and New Mexico on a 160-acre tract of land she had purchased two years earlier. Mother Katharine Drexel stretched the Cincinnati friars apostolically since most of them previously had worked in predominantly German-American parishes. A few years later, she also helped finance the work of the friars among thePuebloNative Americans in New Mexico. In 1910, Drexel financed the printing of 500 copies of A Navaho-English Catechism of Christian Doctrine for the Use of Navaho Children, written by Fathers Anselm, Juvenal, Berard and Leopold Osterman. About a hundred friars from St. John the Baptist Province started Our Lady of Guadalupe Province in 1985. Headquartered in Albuquerque, New Mexico, they continue to work on the Navajo reservation with the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament.[7] In all, Drexel established 50 missions for Native Americans in 16 states.[5]

Death and Legacy[edit]

Mother Katharine died at the age of 96, on March 3, 1955, at her order’s motherhouse, where she is buried.[8]

Because neither of her biological sisters had children, after Mother Katharine’s death, pursuant to their father’s will, the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament no longer had the Drexel fortune available to support their ministries.[4] Nonetheless, the order continues to pursue their original apostolate, working with African-Americans and Native Americans in 21 states and Haiti.

Veneration[edit]

Her cause for beatification was introduced in 1966. Pope John Paul II formally declared Drexel “Venerable” on January 26, 1987, and beatified her on November 20, 1988 after concluding that Robert Gutherman was miraculously cured of deafness in 1974 after his family prayed for Mother Drexel’s intercession.[8] Mother Drexel was canonized on October 1, 2000, one of only a few American saints and the second American-born saint (Elizabeth Ann Setonwas the first native-born US citizen canonized, in 1975). Canonization occurred after the Vatican determined that two-year-old Amy Wall had been miraculously healed of nerve deafness in both ears through Katharine Drexel’s intercession in 1994.[4]

The Vatican cited fourfold aspects of Drexel’s legacy:

  • a love of the Eucharist and perspective on the unity of all peoples;
  • courage and initiative in addressing social inequality among minorities – one hundred years before such concern aroused public interest in the United States;
  • her belief in quality education for all and efforts to achieve it;
  • and selfless service, including the donation of her inheritance, for the victims of injustice.[6]

St. Katharine Drexel Mission Center and Shrine[edit]

Entrance to the Drexel shrine inBensalem, PA

See also: List of shrines § United States

The Saint Katharine Drexel Mission Center and National Shrine is located in Bensalem, Pennsylvania.[9] The Mission Center offers retreat programs, historic site tours, days of prayer, presentations about Saint Katharine Drexel, as well as lectures and seminars related to her legacy. Furniture, photo displays, and other artifacts tell the story of St. Katharine Drexel, the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, and the accomplishments of Black and Native American people.

St. Elizabeth’s Convent

Her tomb lies under the main altar in St. Elizabeth Chapel.[10] Originally known as St. Elizabeth’s Convent, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.[11]Much of the art displayed in St. Elizabeth Chapel are works by or about Native American, African and Haitian artists and musicians.

Relics[edit]

A second-class relic of St. Katharine Drexel can be found inside the altar of the Mary chapel at St. Raphael the Archangel Catholic Church in Raleigh, North Carolina, and in the Day Chapel of Saint Katharine Drexel Parish in Sugar Grove, Illinois.

Namesakes[edit]

Numerous Catholic parishes, schools, and churches bear the name of St. Katharine Drexel.

Parishes[edit]

Schools[edit]

St. Katharine Drexel founded St. Michael Indian School, serving K-12th grade in St. Michaels, Arizona in 1902.

St. Katherine Drexel also founded St. Peter Claver Catholic School in Macon, Georgia in 1913 with the help of Bishop Benjamin Kiely and Father Ignatius Lissner.

Schools named in her honor include:

Churches and chapels[edit]

Streets[edit]

Other[edit]

  • The St. Katharine Drexel Region of the Secular Franciscan Order
  • Katharine Drexel library located on Knights Road in Philadelphia, PA.[17]

See also[edit]

Portal icon Biography portal
Portal icon Saints portal

References[edit]

  1. Jump up^ Larkin, Tara Elizabeth. “Drexel, St. Katharine Mary”, Pennsylvania State University, Fall, 2006
  2. Jump up^ Edward and Louisa Morrell profile, stedward.faithweb.com; accessed 19 October 2014.
  3. Jump up^ Katherine Drexel profile, katharinedrexel.org; accessed October 19, 2014.
  4. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e f Peter Finney Jr., “The Legacy of Saint Katherine Drexel”, St. Anthony Messenger; October 2000; accessed October 19, 2014.
  5. ^ Jump up to:a b c d Foley OFM, Leonard, “St. Katherine Drexel”, Saint of the Day, Lives, Lessons, and Feast, (revised by Pat McCloskey OFM) Franciscan Media; ISBN 978-0-86716-887-7.
  6. ^ Jump up to:a b c “Katherine Drexel: 1858–1955”, Vatican News Service; accessed October 19, 2014.
  7. Jump up^ McCloskey OFM, Pat, “Mother Drexel and the Cincinnati Friars”, St. Anthony Messenger
  8. ^ Jump up to:a b “Saint Katherine Drexel”, L’Osservatore Romano, p. 2, November 21, 1988
  9. Jump up^ National Shrine of Saint Katharine Drexel
  10. Jump up^ Saint Elizabeth Chapel, National Shrine of Saint Katharine Drexel
  11. Jump up^ Staff (2009-03-13). “National Register Information System”. National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service.
  12. Jump up^ St. Kstherine Drexel Parish, Cape Coral, Florida
  13. Jump up^ SKD Parish Beaver Dam, WI
  14. Jump up^ St. Joseph’s Shrine of St. Katharine Drexel, Columbia, Virginia, richmonddiocese.org; accessed October 19, 2014.
  15. Jump up^ Pope, John. “Xavier University chapel will ‘create an air of beauty and mystery’”. Times Picayune. Retrieved August 11, 2012.
  16. Jump up^ David Leighton, “Street Smarts: Generous nun the namesake for Drexel Road,” Arizona Daily Star, March 14,2014