Saint Katharine Drexel

Katharine Drexel was born in Philadelphia on November 26, 1858, into one of the wealthiest banking families in America. Her parents taught her that wealth was a gift to be shared, and the family opened their home to the poor several times a week. In 1887, during an audience with Pope Leo XIII, she asked him to send missionaries to Native American missions; the Pope answered by asking why she did not become a missionary herself.

In 1891 she founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament to serve Native Americans and African Americans, and over six decades she spent her inheritance, some twenty million dollars, on schools and missions in many states. In 1925 she founded Xavier University of Louisiana, the only historically Black Catholic university in the US. After a heart attack in 1935 she spent her last twenty years in prayer. She died on March 3, 1955, and Saint John Paul II canonized her on October 1, 2000.

Her remains rest at the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul in Philadelphia, where pilgrims pray for racial justice and for vocations. Catholic schools named after her, and Xavier University in New Orleans, mark her day with Masses and service projects.