Mother Katharine Drexel

by Cheryl C. D. Hughes

  In answering the call to become consecrated missionaries for Christ, Katharine and her sisters took the vows of the evangelical counsels of obedience, poverty, and chastity. These vows form a type of continuous kenotic exercise because they require the individual to empty herself of will, so that the will of Christ and her superiors may be fulfilled through her; of temporal goods, so that she may be filled with spiritual graces and complete dependence on the providence of God; and of personal comfort and human attachment, so that nothing will distract her from the care of her soul and those of others. Katharine and her sisters became the willing “victims of love.”

  Obedience

  Primary among the counsels is obedience. Obedience is so primary to the religious life that it is the only vow that the Benedictine sisters take. According to Katharine Drexel, “Love is surrender, surrender of the will.”47 To accept Christ’s call to the religious state of life is to make an assent of the intellect and will. The call comes to be obeyed or not. It is never a forced choice but one to be taken of one’s free will. The religious woman accepts the call joyfully and willingly. Jesus, the Bridegroom, “stands at the door and knocks.” The suitor may be rejected, or the prospective bride may run to the door and throw it open exclaiming, “My Jesus, my Spouse! My God and my All!”48

  In professing obedience, religious offer the full surrender of their own will as a sacrifice of themselves to God and so are united permanently and securely to God’s salvific will.

  After the example of Jesus Christ who came to do the will of the Father [cf. John 4:34; 5:30; Heb. 10:7; Ps. 39:9] and “assuming the nature of a slave” [Phil. 2:7] learned obedience in the school of suffering [cf. Heb. 5:8], religious under the motion of the Holy Spirit subject themselves in faith to their superiors who hold the place of God. Under their guidance they are led to serve all their brothers in Christ, just as Christ himself in obedience to the Father served his brethren and laid down his life as a ransom for many [cf. Matt. 20:28; John 10:14-18]. . . .

  Realizing that they are contributing to building up the body of Christ according to God’s plan, they [religious] should use both the forces of their intellect and will and the gifts of nature and grace to execute the commands and fulfill the duties entrusted to them. In this way religious obedience, far from lessening the dignity of the human person, by extending the freedom of the sons [and daughters] of God, lead it to maturity.49

  As consecrated women, they can only give to God, and his vicars in authority, that which is theirs to give. Katharine noted:

  The only thing we can give back to our Lord is our will. Other things He has given us He can also take back — our lives even. But our free will God does not take from us. . . . Tomorrow, of your own free will, you will renew your vows for one year with the intention (do not forget it) of persevering until death. You give your free will by that free act to God, and your will says: “We offer up the Host,” and by your own free act, you are united to the Host in that offering. Let us offer ourselves every day to live our offering more and more perfectly.

  What is that act that we offer to God? It is submission. It is to offer yourselves on the altar, joined to Christ. What does this mean? It means we offer our submission, or obedience to God. That is what makes our Mass so important for us as consecrated beings, as it did for our Lord. Once I thought our Lord was a victim only when He died on the cross. I now know that He was a victim all His life. Every day of your life you, as a religious consecrated to God by your vows, are a victim of submission and obedience.50

  Even Mother M. Katharine Drexel, the superior general of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, was called to obedience. Her duty was to obey the bishop. She had to be reprimanded constantly by her spiritual director, Bishop O’Connor, to avoid excessive deprivation of nourishment.

  With the irony of hindsight, one may read her letters and her retreat notes. One particular instance relates to obedience due superiors. While she was the superior and mother general of the order, each mission and each convent had its own superior. She wrote about herself and other superiors: “I do not want you to consider your superior from a natural viewpoint, for naturally you may like her and naturally you may not. I know of no religious order of which it could be said that their superiors immediately became saints upon becoming superiors. If such were the case, would we not all scramble for the job?”51 Furthermore, she did not want any down-faced, toe-dragging obedience: “Obey cheerfully because our Lord loves a cheerful giver. Obey courageously.”52

  Chastity

  One must be courageous indeed to give up the joy, comfort, and companionship of marriage or the relative liberty entailed in the single state to become a nun. By emptying herself of emotional and physical attachment to others through the vow of chastity, the religious woman, Katharine Drexel, for example, gave herself totally to Christ, her spouse, with an undivided love: “O happy indeed shall you be if your divine Spouse, Who is all love for you, finds you generously devoted to Him and so in love with Him that you no longer live, but He lives in you.”53 In renouncing human love, Katharine wholly accepted the more perfect acquisition of the divine love of Christ. She called chastity “the most angelic virtue consecrated in the Person of Jesus Christ and exalted in His teachings. Sisters, therefore, shall esteem nothing more precious than this heavenly gift and shall exercise constant vigilance to keep the purity of their hearts untarnished.”54 The Church also recognizes and honors holy chastity for the love of God. “Chastity ‘for the sake of the kingdom of heaven’ [Matt. 19:12] which religious profess should be counted an outstanding gift of grace. It frees the heart of man [or woman] in a unique fashion [cf. 1 Cor. 7:32-35] so that it may be more inflamed by love for God and for all [people]. It . . . symbolizes in a singular way . . . the most suitable means by which religious dedicate themselves with undivided heart to the service of God and the apostolate.”55

  The words “inflamed by love” call to mind Katharine’s exhortation to her sisters on the need to immolate self, to die to self so that Christ may live within. It was a favorite trope of hers, as in this prayer: “May our own will, desires and self-will be annihilated so that we may burn with His love.”56 Lumen Gentium repeats the idea of self-sacrifice that is found throughout Katharine’s writings, and it includes the same image of the “undivided heart” that is also found in the language of Perfectae Caritatis.

  The holiness of the Church is fostered in a special way by the observance of the [evangelical] counsels proposed by our Lord to his disciples. An eminent position among these is held by virginity or the celibate state [cf. 1 Cor. 7:32-34]. This is a precious gift of divine grace given by the Father to certain souls [cf. Matt. 19:11; 1 Cor. 7:7], whereby they may devote themselves to God alone the more easily, due to an undivided heart. This perfect continency, out of desire for the kingdom of heaven, has always been held in particular honor in the Church.57

  In writing to one of her sisters on making her final vows, Katharine congratulated the young woman, calling the appointed day the happiest in her life, excepting the day of her initial vows. She added, “Our Final Vows may be considered as a consummation of that happiest Day which consecrated us a chalice to Our Lord. Now this consecration, thank God, is forever if you are faithful to Our Lord with that fidelity with which we are sure He will be faithful to you.”58 This type of nuptial language is proper to the concept of the professed religious as a bride of Christ. The language of kenosis, of emptying oneself to be filled by the bridegroom and of the virginal chalice also to be filled by the bridegroom, is symbolic of a type of holy, mystical intercourse consummating one to the other in a marriage of eternal fidelity. However, the vow of chastity is often narrowly construed to mean simply refraining from sexual activity and repression of any sexual thoughts or desires.

  It is far more than that, as demonstrated by a rather lengthy quote from Katharine’s writings. To be chaste is to be pure in everything one does, thinks, or expresses. It is
both an interior and an exterior disposition of purity. It takes in everything from one’s modesty and cleanliness of dress, to how one sits and walks, to thinking or saying evil of another, even if it is true. Not only what is said, but also the manner in which it is expressed, is subject to the rule of chastity.

  It is by the vow of chastity that the religious acquires the inestimable honor of becoming the spouse of the King of Kings. This exalted dignity is assigned to her by the Fathers of the Church who teach that the veil and the ring serve as exterior reminders of this sublime espousal. Truly do we say on that day of our profession “He has placed His seal on my forehead that I should admit no other lover but Him,” and “I am espoused to Him whom the angels serve at whose beauty the sun and moon stand in wonder.” With regard to the virtue of chastity, our Constitutions are explicit as to the means which are to be employed for reserving “the most angelic virtue.” One of the means mentioned is religious modesty which is a precious help to chastity. Religious modesty is not an austere, unrelaxed seriousness, nor is it a repulsive coldness or indifference of manner which is calculated to repel others rather than to attract them to God. It is a manner and deportment which render it evident to all that the religious tends with her whole being to Him in Whom all her designs are centered and to Whom she would attract as many others as she can. Religious modesty is also the enemy of all affectation, singularity, and display. It leads to the practice of the hidden life in which the religious seeks only the pleasure of her Divine Spouse and finds all in Him. A truly modest religious would be ashamed and pained rather than pleased or flattered at being distinguished or particularly remarked in any way, for has she not “chosen to be an abject in the house of the Lord”? “We are dead and our life is hidden with Christ in God.” Any apparent levity or want of self-control and amiable reserve which should ever characterize the religious would be a flaw in the chaste resemblance a Sister should bear to her Divine Spouse and Model. Modesty exercises its control over the whole exterior, restraining and moderating every movement and use of the senses. It regulates the manner of walking and retrenches everything in the deportment that would be unsuitable in a religious. It admits of no unnecessary gestures or movements. It excludes unbecoming postures in sitting. It preserves as much tranquility and repose as are consistent with each duty; one who indulges in a restless, fidgety manner is almost perpetually breaking the rules of religious modesty. Modesty controls the tone of the voice and the manner of speaking. It permits no words unsuitable to our state to escape us. Modesty teaches its possessor to listen with respect to the opinions of others and not to be too forward in expressing her own. It prevents her giving opinions in a decided manner, monopolizing a conversation, interrupting others, uttering words of self-praise, contradicting, complaining of heat or cold, or indulging in gossip.

  The Sisters should speak and act in such a manner as will edify all those with whom they come in contact. They should act with childlike simplicity and always regulate their manner by rules of refinement and religious politeness.

  Curiosity, which is also contrary to religious modesty, is the capital enemy of recollection and union with God. The two cannot co-exist. The necessity of hearing and seeing what our duties impose is incumbent, but we should mortify our curiosity in what is not necessary for the discharge of our duties nor conducive to our sanctification. . . .

  The Sisters should not use slang words or phrases, which are most unbecoming to a religious and more particularly to us, dedicated as we are to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. The Sisters should ever appear as refined, dignified ladies in manner and speech.59

  In many ways, the last sentence of this quotation reveals Katharine’s understanding of what it means to be modest and pure in manner and deportment. She undoubtedly heard these same sentiments over and over again from her mother and from her teacher-governess, Mary Cassidy, as they tried to transform the “hurley-burley” young Katharine into a refined and dignified lady. However, the religious who has made the vow of chastity practices the virtue as an evangelical counsel dedicated to God out of love for him. Thus the virtue becomes supernatural in the life of the religious, especially graced as it is by the Holy Spirit and oriented toward her eschatological end in Christ. Rule 112, among others, of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament addresses how to persevere in the vow of chastity: “To preserve the angelic virtue more easily, the Sisters shall carefully restrain their senses, especially their eyes and imagination. They must be intolerant of idleness, prudent in their reading, and free of familiarity in speech and manner with anyone. They shall be constant in prayer, mortification, and penance, and devoted to humility and religious modesty.” Indeed, these are recognizable as actions consistent with the practice of kenosis.

  Poverty

  Again, through reinforcing the home as the first school of virtues, the Drexel household, though immensely wealthy, practiced spiritual poverty out of religious conviction. Katharine moved from spiritual poverty, a detachment from the goods of the earth, to practice actual material poverty as the founder of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored People. Poverty is the third evangelical counsel the religious vows to keep, and like both obedience and chastity, it, too, is practiced as an interior disposition made manifest in exterior action. It is a form of kenosis. In the sisterhood, spiritual poverty, or detachment from temporal goods, is the interior predisposition that makes it possible for sisters to give up voluntarily the goods of the created universe in joyful hope of the treasures in the world to come. It is, in fact, required before the actual poverty of consecrated life can be maintained in the proper spirit. Religious poverty does not mean abject poverty without basic needs being met. Necessary needs are to be met; it is the unnecessary goods that are to be redirected for the benefit of others. Katharine told her sisters to “desire little in this world: be not eager for what you desire, that is, live without desire: resign yourself most perfectly to the loving Providence of God your Father.”60 Perfectae Caritatis describes the person of Katharine Drexel when it posits that the “religious should diligently practice and if need be express also in new forms that voluntary poverty which is recognized and highly esteemed especially today as an expression of following Christ. By which they share in the poverty of Christ who for our sakes became poor, even though he was rich, so that by his poverty we might become rich [cf. 2 Cor. 8:9; Matt. 8:20]. With regard to religious poverty, it is not enough to use goods in a way subject to the superior’s will, but members must be poor both in fact and in spirit, their treasures being in heaven [cf. Matt. 6:20].”61

  One way that Mother Katharine kept the ideal of poverty before her spiritual daughters was through her example. An example of her desire to live in simple Christ-like poverty was the manner in which she refused to endow her order by holding back a portion of her annual income from her father’s estate, thereby to create funds to keep the order fiscally sound after her death. Clerics and kin alike discussed with her the possibility of securing the future of the congregation. Her friend Monsignor Joseph Stephan, director of the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, wrote to her at the end of 1899, “Already in this one year you have given us $83,000, Mother. Don’t you think that you should begin to think about your own congregation and set aside a permanent fund for them before giving to other missions?”62 No, she did not.

  She turned for advice to Fr. Dominic Pantanella, president of the College of the Sacred Heart in Denver, Colorado. He was a Jesuit who had fled his native Italy after an outbreak of anticlericalism turned into persecution. He eventually made his way to Old St. Joseph’s in Philadelphia, where he met the Drexel family. He was known as an expert in canon law, and he was able to help her determine an appropriate financial arrangement of her funds for her congregation. Her income, though it came directly to her as per her father’s will, was immediately signed over to the congregation. Though she was the superior of the order, it was not hers to dispose of at will. As the chief admi
nistrator for the congregation, she had the discretionary ability to allot sums up to five hundred dollars. An expenditure over that amount required her to consult with her council. In actual practice, she consulted with the council for sums over one hundred dollars.

  At the time she was formulating the rule for the SBS, the Vatican did not allow congregations to be entirely mendicant. It was important to Rome that the sisters of orders be provided for and that they did not have to beg for their upkeep. Such would be a sin against mercy and justice and therefore a scandal for the Church. At the time of her letter to Fr. Pantanella in 1903, each sister in the SBS had an income of $250 from a small endowment. Katharine’s question to the canon lawyer dealt with providing not for the sisters themselves, but for the work of their apostolate. She wanted to know if canon law required the congregation’s works to be endowed. She was opposed to endowing future work when the entirety of her income went into present expenditures for missions and schools. The reasons for her opposition to endowing future works were at once spiritual and supremely practical. She wrote:

  What provision is there for the support of our works? Answer: The beneficent Providence of God. And why do I deem it best to trust to God for the support of our works? 1st: Because riches and treasures in Heaven are where neither moths nor rust can consume them. If we use our money in alms given to other Religious for carrying on works for the salvation of Indian and Colored — works for which we ourselves have not sufficient number of Sisters to carry out ourselves — if we judiciously give the alms so as to insure that the work be carried on well & not in a half hearted way by these other Religious — I hold that we will be doing a present good for the salvation of these souls which God will reward far, far beyond that which He would reward if with worldly prudence we were to store away immense sums of money to support our Institutes.