The Catholic Church of Philadelphia has begun a months-long commemoration to mark the 25th anniversary of the canonization of St. Katharine Drexel, who was born in Philadelphia, and whose resting place is accessible to all who come to Center City at the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul.
On Monday, March 3 – her feast day, and 70 years after her death in 1955 – the Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul was the setting for a Mass to start the 25th anniversary celebration of the canonization of the only Catholic saint born in the Delaware Valley.
The celebration, concurrent with the 2025 jubilee year in the Universal Church, marks a saint who focused her life’s work on recognizing God’s presence in those son the margins of society.
“It led to the consecrated life, the founding of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, a real passion to provide for African Americans and Native Americans,” said Father Dennis Gill, rector of the cathedral. “All of it’s centered on the most holy Eucharist, the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
The current president of the religious order founded by St. Katharine reflected on the significance of the anniversary celebration.
“I’ll go to the dominant thought I had when she was canonized. And I remember among the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, the one question that kept surfacing (was), what does she want us to hear?” said Sister Stephanie Henry, who now leads the religious order based in Feasterville-Trevose. She attended St. Katharine’s canonization on October 1, 2000.
“Both of her miracles, both the one that led to her beatification and the one that led to her canonization, were healing of deafness (for Robert Gutherman in 1974, for Amy Wall in 1994). There are many signs in our nation and world and neighborhoods and communities, workplace, wherever you want to go, that we need the grace of listening to one another. We need the grace of hearing.”
Monday’s Mass was especially powerful and rare for those who attend a feast day Mass because the body of the saint lies in that very basilica. The tomb of St. Katharine resides in a shrine found to the left of the main entrance.
Father Gill said the shrine is a surprise to many who come to the city, and part of his mission is to raise awareness of St. Katharine. The City of Brotherly Love is the final resting place for St. Katharine and St. John Neumann.
“I find it really hard to believe today with social media, but she is not that well known. So we have to put her out there,” said Father Gill, who was teaching in Rome when she was canonized.
“Her little location there points to Christ and invites people to Christ, especially the mosaic, the wooden piece that’s above her tomb. It’s not startling, but she’s there in a quiet, gentle way, beckoning people to come and pray and ask her help, and she’s ready to help.”
Sister Stephanie added how the example of St. Katharine – using the resources from her family in a lifetime of confronting racism and advocating for the needs of Black and Native Americans reflects a greater need to listen to where God is within us all.
“She was not materialistic. It was about gifting herself in service of others,” Sister Stephanie said about the saint whose order started the only Catholic historically Black college in America, Xavier University in New Orleans.
“We need the grace of really owning that there’s one God who made all of us, and all are gifted and valued and none should be exploited. No one should be treated as less than others.”
That mission, to Sister Stephanie, focuses on how every person offers the reflection of God that St. Katharine found in the Eucharist.
As Father Gill suggested, the saint would draw attention not on her bodily tomb in the back of the basilica, but what’s in the front of it.
“I think she would whisper, ‘Go speak to the Lord. Go get close to Jesus.’ And I don’t think she would point to herself,” Sister Stephanie said. “I think she would point to the Lord.”
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The following events will honor St. Katharine Drexel in Philadelphia during 2025:
April 27 at 3:00 p.m.: Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament Gala at the Buck Hotel, Feasterville;
Sept. 28 at 3:00 p.m.: Concert and Social at the Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul;
Oct. 1: 25th anniversary of St. Katharine Drexel’s canonization;
Oct. 5 at 11:00 a.m.: Archdiocesan Celebration with Archbishop Nelson J. Pérez celebrating a Solemn Mass at the Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul.
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