From Season to Season

The daughter of one of the wealthiest men in America, Katherine Drexel was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1858. While visiting Europe, Katherine worked to recruit priests and religious to minister to Native Americans, and it was during this trip that Pope Leo XIII suggested that Katherine herself become a missionary. The following year, she established schools in the Dakotas, Wyoming, Montana, California, Oregon, and New Mexico. In 1889, Katharine entered the novitiate of the Sisters of Mercy, and in 1891 she professed her vows as the first member of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored People . Opening a novitiate in Philadelphia, she received twenty-one new sisters in the first year. The new community’s first mission was in New Mexico. Following the death of her father in 1901, Katherine and her sister each received an inheritance amounting to one thousand dollars a day. Other missions and schools soon followed, including Xavier University in New Or...

Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in his commands… Open-handed, he gives to the poor; his justice stands firm forever.    —Psalm 112:1, 9 As the citizens of the United States are already gearing up for the 2016 elections, we’re going to be hearing more about workers’ rights, labor unions, and the rights that immigrants have (or don’t have) to work or receive an education. This will all be in conjunction with the ongoing debates over raising the minimum wage that are currently taking place in many states. Added to the already tense political situation is the upcoming visit of Pope Francis, which is sure to be a watershed moment for the American Church, even as it ruffles the feathers of political conservatives and progressives alike. In its history, the Church hasn’t shied away from important social justice issues. In fact, it was Catholic leaders in the 19 th century that worked tirelessly in support of trade unions and fair wages and work...

Part of the genius of Saint Benedict of Nursia's  Rule for Monasteries  was his emphasis on a balance of work and prayer. Saint Benedict, who founded twelve monasteries in Italy in the sixth century, brought together the wisdom of generations of monks before him, but re-shaped those these teachings in the light of his own understanding of the human psyche. This is part of the reason the way of life he established is still lived by tens of thousands of Benedictine and Cistercian monks, nuns, and sisters today.  In his Rule, Benedict urges his monks to spend dedicated amounts of time each day working to support the monastery: “Idleness is the enemy of the soul. Therefore, the brothers should have specified periods for manual labor as well as for prayerful reading” (48:1). In another place, he wrote, “When they live by the labor of their hands, as our holy fathers did, then they are truly monks” (48:8).    Saint Benedict understood that work w...

Do not be satisfied with loving God by yourselves alone; make all those around you love him also, and pray that everyone will love Him . —Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini There have been a lot of things vying for our attention these past few weeks: the Ebola crisis (both in Africa and closer to home), Halloween, All Saints/All Souls weekend, and election day, to name but a few. When we add to this all the day-to-day responsibilities we each bear—especially family and professional obligations—our faith can become more and more remote and the special days that pepper the Church’s calendar can seem quite insignificant or, perhaps, quaint, at best.    Certainly the saints can seem remote. Most of the saints—even the best known—have names that sound strange to our ears and lived centuries ago in places which we will never visit. And yet, this week, we have the opportunity to reflect on a saint who is very close to us, not only in terms of when she lived her life, but w...