Born in Philadelphia in 1858, her father, Francis, was a wealthy investment banker, and her mother, Hannah, died five weeks after giving birth to Katharine. 

Her father remarried and he and his wife Emma had a deep and rich faith life. 

Her father would pray for at least a half hour each day and her stepmother welcomed the poor into her house, three days each week. 

Though wealthy, Katharine and her sisters had a great understanding of their blessings and their obligation to serve others. 

But after her stepmother died of cancer when Katherine was about twenty, she realized that even great wealth cannot shelter one from suffering, and she developed a passion for those suffering from injustice, particularly Native Americans and African Americans. 

While on a trip to Europe, she met Pope Leo XIII and asked if he could send missionaries to help, but the Pope asked Katherine ”Why don’t you become a missionary?” 

When she returned home, Katharine began to do exactly that. She went to the Dakotas, met with Sioux leader Red Cloud, and began to provide financial aid to Indian Missions. 

After meeting with her friend, Bishop James O’Connor, she wrote: 

“The Feast of St. Joseph brought me the Grace to give the rest of my life to serve those most in need.” 

After three years of training, Mother Drexel and her nuns began a new order – The Sisters of The Blessed Sacrament. 

By the early 1940s, she had established Catholic schools in 13 states including 40 Mission Centers and 23 rural schools using an estimated 20 million dollars of her own personal fortune. 

One of her closest advisers, along the way, was Mother Frances Cabrini. 

She died in 1955 and was Canonized by St. Pope John Paul II in 2000, becoming the third American Saint and the second behind St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, to be born in the United States. 

St. Katharine Drexel, please pray for us.