Today we celebrate the Feast Day of Saint Katherine Drexel. Philadelphia heiress and founder of the religious Congregation of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored People, Saint Katherine Drexel dedicated her life to a mission of serving African-Americans and Native-Americans in the United States. Particularly, her interest was in education. Thus she used her inherited money to establish schools and the like. Her accomplishments, for example, include financing the printing of 500 copies of a Navaho-English Catechism of Christian Doctrine for the use of for Navaho children in 1910 and in 1915 she founded Xavier University in New Orleans, the first Catholic University in the United States for African-Americans. She holds a special place, though, in Belmont Abbey’s history. When the construction of the abbey church was on the verge of ceasing due to lack of funds, it was Saint Katherine Drexel who provided the funding necessary in order to complete the church, with the provision of the inclusion of pews for African-Americans. In My Lord of Belmont, Father Baumstein writes, 

Mother Katherine responded more generously than Leo Haid dared to expect. She offered four thousand dollars under the usual condition. The bishop executed a document on July 1 (1893), affirming that the “Benedictine Fathers gladly [promise] to give the Colored Catholics the same care they bestow upon the Whites” …Work on the church never had to stop. Mother Drexel sent a check for the whole amount on 16 October, a full three months ahead of schedule (121).

Abbot Haid offered the first Mass on December 17, 1893, in the still unfinished church, dedicating it to Drexel and all the benefactors that made its completion possible. The completed Abbey Church of Maryhelp would be blessed by James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore, on Wednesday, 11 April 1894. 

In celebrating the Feast Day of Saint Katherine Drexel today, then, we thank her in gratitude for her charity and all the blessings of her missionary work. May all of her work continue to bear fruit.

Let us pray:

Ever loving God, You called Saint Katharine Drexel to teach the message of the Gospel and to bring the life of the Eucharist to the African-American and Native-American peoples. By her prayers and example, enable us to work for justice among the poor and oppressed. Draw us all into the Eucharistic community of Your Church, that we may be one in You. Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.