By Sallie Bachar
Catholic Herald correspondent

Merrill Sister recalls meeting Katharine Drexel

Holy Cross Sr. John Marie Simien, however, has had that distinct privilege and it has left an indelible mark upon her.

Growing up in rural Louisiana, Simien attended St. Ann's, a small, two-room, country school that was built and funded by Katharine Drexel who was recently canonized by Pope John Paul II on Oct. 1, 2000.

Simien was only 9 years old when Mother Katharine made a surprise visit to her school. The saint was 90 years old at the time, Simien recalls, and in a wheelchair. She told the students in the little school, "You are worth a fortune to me."

Those words were not forgotten by Simien and made a lasting impression upon her young mind. St. Katharine Drexel was a very wealthy woman who had inherited several million dollars from her family but gave it all up to devote her life to the poor among the Native American and African American people. Simien reasoned that if such a wealthy woman could take a vow of poverty, give all her money away and then consider that the poor and underprivileged people on the fringes of society were worth a fortune to her, "then I can believe in a God who said I am worth dying for."

St. Katharine was born in 1858 and was raised by her father, Francis Drexel, a successful banker in Philadelphia, and her stepmother, Emma Bouvier. Her own mother died after giving birth to Katharine. Her stepmother was influential in teaching Katharine and her sisters to be charitable to those less fortunate. Twice a week the family distributed food, clothing and other assistance to the poor in Philadelphia.

Katharine also traveled extensively with her father and on one such trip to the U.S. Northwest territories in 1884, she saw firsthand the squalor and despair in which the Indians lived because of the empty promises of the government's treaties with them. She never forgot that trip.

After the death of her father in 1885 and her stepmother's death a few years earlier, Katharine felt drawn to the religious life. Still very concerned for the plight of the Indians, she made a visit to the pope (Leo XIII) and asked him to designate a religious congregation to devote its efforts to the Indian missions. Leo XIII responded with a challenge to her to do it.

In 1889 she professed her vows of poverty, chastity and obedience and added a fourth: "To be mother and servant of the Indian and Negro races."

In the years that followed, Katharine Drexel took on the pope's challenge and founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament who devote their work to African and Native Americans. She kept nothing of her inheritance for herself. She could not touch the principal because it was placed in trust but she used the interest from it to establish and fund more than 60 schools and churches throughout the south and southwest, the most notable being Xavier University in New Orleans.

She worked tirelessly for racial integration, justice and equality. She endured much suffering and opposition as the result of her work among the poor but never gave up. She was the Mother Teresa of her day, said Simien. "What she did was extraordinary. She is part of what makes me strong."

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© Superior Catholic Herald, 2001