Monday 8th Week
Feast of St. Katharine Drexel
St. Mary’s Seminary, Roland Park
March 3, 2025
The Real Philadelphia Story!
It’s nice when the readings of the day and feast fit together. Such is my happiness as your homilist on this Monday morning. No better Gospel could be chosen to describe the life of an American saint, a wealthy heiress turned religious and servant of the marginalized, Saint Katharine Drexel.
Born in 1858, Katharine Drexel hailed from a prominent Philadelphia family. Her father, Francis Anthony Drexel, made a considerable fortune in banking and her uncle, Anthony Joseph, founded Drexel University. The family lived on a 90 acre estate in the Torresdale section of Philadelphia. But this was not simply another Gilded Age family. It was a deeply religious family with a heart for the poor. Her stepmother, Emma, regularly distributed food and clothing to the poor, and her maternal aunt was superior general of the Society of the Sacred Heart. When Katharine was only 14, she felt called to religious life but would only answer the call later in life, after an audience with Leo XIII. It was then, in 1891, that she founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament whose special ministry is serving Black and Native American peoples.
For the rest of her life, she was “the mother and servant” to those upon whom much of American society looked down. Not only did she expend her time and energy but she also used her entire inheritance to open schools to serve African American and Native American children, in the South and the Southwest.
The Gaze of the Lord
At some point in her life, the loving gaze of the Lord Jesus registered in her soul. Unlike the wealthy man whom we met in the Gospel, the man who, in his preoccupation, appeared not to notice Jesus’ gaze – Katharine Drexel craved the look of love that only the Savior can give. And she felt the gaze of Jesus, not through some esoteric spiritual technique, but rather through the Blessed Sacrament before whom she knelt in prayer. It was that encounter that prompted her to give all that she had to the poor. It was that encounter that prompted her and the sisters she attracted to follow the Lord all the days of her life, until she died in 1955.
The Upshot
When we read and reflect on today’s Gospel, we may feel the rich man’s dismay. After all, few of us are like Saint Anthony of Egypt who heard this Gospel, left everything, and lived as a desert hermit. Few of us are in the same position as Saint Katharine Drexel who came of age in a household that was both wealthy and religious, and who could spend her wealth just as she pleased. We may protest: I’m not wealthy. I have expenses. I have to be responsible.
How, then, are we to live what we have heard? Two or three things come to mind: First, let us at least be righteous like the rich young man, heeding the Lord’s words, “If you love me, you will keep my commands.” Second, let us take stock of all the ways God has blessed us, and ask ourselves if we can’t do a better job of sharing what we have with the poor. Third, let us ask ourselves how we relate to our possessions. Do we own them or do they own us? Are we attached to them or detached from them? Not for nothing does the Church call diocesan priests to simplicity of life. We are credible witnesses to Christ only if we have a heart for the poor, and only if we ‘live in this passing world with our heart set on the world to come!’ Not an easy thing to do, living as we do in an affluent society.
Let us rejoice and be glad! For nothing is impossible for God! And may God bless us and keep us always in his love!