“why don’t you become a missionary?”
Saint Katherine Drexel
On March 3, we celebrate the feast-day of Saint Katherine Drexel. The name is probably familiar to many Americans as the Drexel family name is till with us today in the form of Drexel University. Drexel University was founded by Anthony Drexel, Katharine was his daughter.
Katharine Drexel was an heiress. She grew up in magnificent mansions. She never lacked good food, her clothes were of the finest make, and when she traveled, which she did frequently, it was by a private, luxurious railway car.
But three days a week her mother opened their house to the poor. Every evening, her father spent half an hour in prayer.
When her mother fell ill, Katharine was her nurse for three years. The disease ended the life of her mother and Katharine saw that all the money and resources that were at the family’s disposal could not buy freedom from pain or untimely death.
In 1881, Katharine read Helen Hunt Jackson’s book “A Century of Dishonor” which recounted the injustices suffered by the Native American people. Katherine was appalled by what she read and while she was on a trip to Europe she met Pope Leo XIII and pleaded with the Holy Father to send missionaries to Wyoming to help the bishop there.
His reply was not what Katherine expected. The pope smiled kindly as a father would to his child and said, “why don’t you become a missionary?”
When she returned home Katherine began her aid to the Indian missions. This led to her entry into the consecrated life, becoming Mother Drexel of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored.
There are many saints who were raised in privilege only to renounce their family’s wealth in order to serve God. Salvation history is full of accounts of kings and queens, princes and princesses, and wealthy merchants who renounced their material wealth and subsisted on the generosity of other people. But Katherine Drexel was not exactly one of them. She used her wealth and her society connections to open boarding schools for Indians, establish foundations, start black Catholic schools, and build mission centers.
There is no telling how many millions of dollars St. Katharine spent in service to the poor.
Our Wealth Is Not Ours
The wealth and possession we have are not ours, they are given to us in stewardship until such time as the Lord calls us to use them in His service. But all too often we lose sight of that simple fact.
The late radio talk show host, and conservative icon, Rush Limbaugh, was famous for claiming that he had “talent on loan from God.” This seemed to infuriate his detractors who evidently interpreted the statement as arrogance or hubris. But saying that one has talent on loan from God is neither arrogant or prideful, it is a simple statement of fact.
The truth is that every person has talent on loan from God. Every person has a spark of the divine, imparted to them by the creator. Every person has been given a combination of gifts, talents, and abilities that is unique to each individual. These talents are not ours to keep but rather they are to be used in service to the human family. And like the Parable of the Talents we will one day be called by the master to give an account of how we used what was his.
Before Jesus entered Jerusalem He sent two of His disciples to a certain house where they would find the foal of a donkey upon which no one had ridden. The disciples were instructed to bring it back to Jesus and if the owner objected they were simply to say, “the master has need of it.”
Donkeys are generally thought of poorly in western culture but in the middle east of the first century they were highly prized. They were beasts of burden that made everyday tasks easier. They were also the primary means of travel for those who could afford them. There were even particular strains that were highly prized by the wealthy.
That scripture stipulates “a colt tethered on which no one has ever sat,” would seem to infer that this small detail made the animal even more valuable.
Does it surprise us when we read that the unnamed owners of the donkey willingly gave it up because the Lord was in need? What possessions do we value? Besides material things, what abilities or talents do we possess that we take pride in? Would we give them up when the Lord asks for them, out of need?
What gifts have we been given? What gifts might the Lord have need of? Do we cling to them out of uncertainty or fear, or selfishness? We must realize that, like the donkey, those gifts may make a difference. Those small gifts, given back to God may move someone closer to God. So today as we recall the Passion, the events leading up to the Crucifixion, let us ask ourselves what is our part in our history of salvation? How can we move Jesus further down the road? What is our “donkey” and what will we do when the Lord asks for what is His?
Corrie Ten Boom, A Christian activist who survived the Nazi Holocaust once said, “I’ve learned that we must hold everything loosely, because when I grip it tightly, it hurts when the Father pries my fingers loose and takes it from me.”
As Lent draws to a close and we anticipate the joys of Easter, let us reflect on how we have used the talents that are on loan to us and ask ourselves, can we do better?
Pax Vobiscum
Passion Sunday