Mother Katharine Drexel Essay, Research Paper

Mother Katharine Drexel was one of the most caring and unselfish people in

the world. She was born in Philadelphia in 1858 into an affluent family. Her

father was a wealthy banker named Francis Drexel. Mother Katharine Drexel had

the desire to give her services completely to God by taking care of the poor.

Mother Drexel had started out by giving direct service to fulfill the immediate

needs of the less fortunate. She later began to see that donating money alone

was not enough to help the poor. Giving money to the poor didn?t go to the

root of the problem. Mother Drexel had begun giving more of herself. In 1891,

she started the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament. Mother Drexel founded a

religious order for women, which was dedicated to helping the poor Native

Americans and African Americans. Along with setting up a religious order, she

founded schools and missions in the South and West of the United States. The

Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament have grown and have missions in eleven states

as well as in Haiti.

Mother Drexel had continued to be an active worker until she reached her

seventies. Because of serious health problems, Mother Drexel could no longer go

out and work. Instead she lived in the SBS motherhouse where she spent time

praying and reflecting. In 1988, Pope John Paul II gave Katharine Drexel the

title of "Blessed" after Robert Gutherman had been cured of hearing

loss after his family prayed to Mother Drexel. Also in January of 2000, the Pope

John Paul II had reported that Amy Wall, a young girl had been cured of her

deafness after prayers were made to Mother Drexel. Mother Katharine Drexel?s

feast day is on March 3.

On October 1, 2000 Mother Katharine had been canonized. Her body was laid at

the Saint Katharine Drexel Shrine in Bensalem, Pennsylvania.