At the urging of her spiritual advisor, Bishop John O'Connor of Omaha, Katharine resolved to found a religious order of women dedicated to mission work among the Native American and African-American poor. In 1891, she founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament. With a keen business sense developed under her father, Mother Drexel founded numerous schools and missions throughout the South and West of the United States. Today, the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament have missions in eleven states and in Haiti.
Mother Drexel was an active administrator of her order well into her
seventies, when her health gave out and she was forced into a more contemplative
life at the SBS mother house outside Philadelphia. Here she spent the final
twenty years of her life in prayer and reflection -- a life she had wanted
since, as a young woman, she had first thought of becoming a vowed religious.
Her body is now entombed at the Saint Katharine Drexel Shrine in Bensalem,
Pennsylvania (shown at right).
On January 27, 2000, a 1994 healing of the deafness of a young girl from Pennsylvania was accepted by Pope John Paul II as attributable to the miraculous intercession of Mother Katharine. She was formally canonized in a ceremony in Rome on October 1, 2000.
What first interested me in St. Katharine Drexel is that her uncle, Anthony
J. Drexel, was the founder of my alma mater, Drexel University. As these things
go, that's a pretty close tie-in. That we're both from Philly doesn't hurt,
either.
Saint Katharine Drexel, friend to the poor, pray for us!
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