If we wish to serve God and love our neighbor well, we must manifest our joy in the service we render to God and to them. Let us open wide our hearts. It is Joy which invites us. Press forward and fear nothing. St. Katharine Drexel

Katharine, born in Philadelphia Nov. 26, 1858, was the second daughter of Francis Drexel and Hanna Langstroth Drexel. After her mother’s death only one month after Katherine was born, Katharine and her sister, Elizabeth, were cared for by their aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Drexel. In 1860, Francis married Emma Bouvier, and, in 1863, a daughter, Louise, was born. All three children were raised in a home of deep faith and tender love.

While the family traveled extensively throughout the United States and Europe, their parents provided tutors to continue their education. In 1870, Mr. Drexel purchased a summer home, Saint Michel, in Torresdale, Pennsylvania. Katharine and Elizabeth taught at the Sunday School that Emma Drexel began for the children of employees and neighbors. Their pastor, Rev. James O’Connor, former rector of St. Charles Seminary, and later bishop of Omaha, Nebraska became a cherished family friend and would later become Katharine’s spiritual advisor.

When Katharine was 21, her stepmother developed cancer. Katharine nursed her through three years of intense suffering. It was during this time that Katharine began to think of the religious life.After her stepmother’s death, Katharine wrote to Bishop O’Connor of her desire to join the religious life. He advised her to “think, pray and wait.”

After her father’s death in 1885, Katharine and her sisters became acquainted with Msgr. Joseph Stephan and, through him, they learned of the sufferings of the Native American peoples. After witnessing the suffering of Native Americans, first hand, Katharine and her sisters began to build schools, supply food, clothing, furnishings, salaries for teachers and priests to serve the spiritual need of the Native American people. Through her continued travels in the South and the East, Katharine also became aware of the plight of African American people and began to also extend her charity to them. Throughout her lifetime and with the assistance of the Bureau of Colored and Indian Missions, Katharine encouraged and financially supported missions throughout this country. While visiting with Pope Leo XIII in Rome, Katharine asked him for missionaries to staff some of the missions that she, as a lay person, was financing. She was surprised to hear the pope suggest that she become a missionary. Katharine made the decision to give herself totally to God through service to African Americans and Native Americans. In 1889, Katharine received permission to become a religious. Although her preference was the cloistered life, Bishop O’Connor encouraged her to found an institute to work for the African Americans and Native Americans. Although she initially hesitated, she eventually came to accept this as her vocation. On Nov. 7, 1889 she received her religious habit and the name Sister Mary Katharine. On Feb. 12, 1891, Sister Mary Katharine pronounced her final vows as the first Sister of the Blessed Sacrament. Sister Mary Katharine chose the name “Blessed Sacrament” because “the Eucharist is Gods’ free and total gift to us and is the heart of our community and service.” In 1892, Sister Mary Katharine, along with 13 companions, moved into St. Elizabeths’ Convent in Cornwell Heights, Pennsylvania. Sister Mary Katharine provided spiritual guidance and administrative direction for 44 years.

The ministry of the Blessed Sacrament Sisters began with the opening of a boarding school for African American children and for Pueblo Native American children. During her lifetime, more than 60 boarding and day schools were opened in the East, Midwest and in the rural and urban areas of the South and Southwest. The most famous foundation was made in 1915 when Xavier University, an African American Catholic university, was founded to prepare teachers to work in the African American community. Xavier University was chartered in 1925.

In 1935 Mother Katharine suffered a heart attack. Two years later, she relinquished the office of Superior General. Though gradually becoming more infirmed, she was able to devote her last years to Eucharistic adoration, and so fulfillher lifes’ desire. She died at the age of 96 at Cornwell Heights, Pennsylvania on March 3, 1955.

The cause for canonization was formally opened in 1964 by John Cardinal Krol and advanced on Oct. 7, 1999. On Oct. 1, 2000, Mother Katharine Drexel was raised to sainthood by Pope John Paul II.

The Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament continue to live out the mission of their foundress, St. Katharine Drexel, to be a sign of the power of the Eucharistic Christ. They seek to effect change through education, social and health services, pastoral and spiritual ministries. They continue to share the gospel message with poor and oppressed African American and Native American peoples. They work on reservations, in urban and rural areas of the United States, Guatemala and Haiti.

Three parishes in Southeast Texas share the pride of having been recipients of the generous spirit of Mother Katharine and the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament – Blessed Sacrament Church in Beaumont, Sacred Heart Church in Port Arthur, and St. Therese Church in Orange. All three had schools – kindergarten through 12th grade – founded by the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament. These schools remained open until the mid 1960s.