On March 3, we celebrate St. Katharine Drexel’s feast day. Her partnership, funding, vision and support helped the U.S. Spiritans find many of their early missions in the United States.

St. Katharine had a busy life, but we’d like to highlight some of her timeline, especially as it connects and intersects with the history of the U.S. Province. 

1858- On November 26 Katharine is born in Philadelphia, PA to a wealthy family. Her mother dies shortly after she is born. Katharine and her sisters are raised in the faith and taught to share their wealth. 

1885- When Katharine’s father dies, she and her two sisters receive a large inheritance. 

1886- Katharine finances her first project St. Catherine’s Indian School in Santa Fe, New Mexico aligned with the mission she would soon develop: serving the Black and Indigenous communities in the US. 

1887- Katharine has an audience with Pope Leo XIII and asks him to send missionaries to the indigenous communities in the United States. He asks her to consider being a missionary. 

1891- Katharine, who was discerning religious life for many years, takes vows and establishes a new order, the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, dedicated to “service to Native Americans and African Americans.” 

1895- Mother Katharine and her sister own land in Belmead, VA where they open St. Frances de Sales School for Girls and St. Emma’s Industrial and Agricultural Institute schools for Black girls and boys (respectively). The Spiritans work as Chaplains at St Emma’s on and off throughout its history.

1897- Mother Katharine was influential in the Spiritans obtaining a tract of land just a mile from her Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament on which to build a seminary, Holy Ghost Apostolic College. As the school grew and developed over the next 125 years, it became Holy Ghost Prep, still a Spiritan school today.

1915- Mother Katharine founds Xavier University of New Orleans, the only predominantly Black Catholic institution of higher learning in the United States.

Until health issues forced her to resign as Superior, Mother Katherine and her Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament:

• Opened, staffed, and directly supported nearly 60 schools and missions.
• Worked alongside Spiritans in literally dozens of parishes and schools serving African-American communities in Philadelphia, New York, Louisiana, and other parts of the deep South.
• Used more than $12 million of her inheritance for her charitable and apostolic missions.

1955- Mother Katharine dies on March 3 after 18 years of contemplation due to illness and immobility.

2000- Mother Katharine is canonized Saint Katharine Drexel by Pope John Paul II.