Blessed to have met St. Katharine Drexel
By Lou Baldwin
Special to The CS&T
There are few people still alive who knew St. Katharine Drexel. Philadelphia’s
beloved saint has been dead 53 years and for 15 years before that she
was an invalid mostly confined to her room.
But Blessed Sacrament Sister Ruth Catherine Spain, who served as director
of the Blessed Katharine Drexel Guild before the saint’s canonization,
met the revered foundress of her congregation twice.
She cherishes those memories. The first time, in 1951, she was a young
novice. While she was cleaning the infirmary corridor at St. Elizabeth’s
convent, the infirmarian asked whether she would like to wish the order’s
reverend mother a happy birthday. Of course, she was thrilled.
“She had a beautiful smile, and even in her illness was so attentive
to what was said — and she was so happy to see a novice,”
Sister Ruth Catherine said.
The next time was in 1952 — on the day of Sister Ruth Catherine’s
profession.
Mother Katharine was insisting, “I want to see my daughters.”
So she and the other newly professed sisters were whisked into Mother
Katharine’s room and knelt around her bed. It was a perfect ending
to their very special day.
At the time Sister Ruth Catherine learned Mother Katherine was dead, on
March 3, 1955, she was teaching the sixth-grade class at St. Anselm School
in Chicago, her assigned mission.
When the word came, the sky darkened and it began to hail. Then, just
as quickly, the sun burst forth. Everyone knew that a holy, holy woman,
who had given her life for the poor, was dead.
Sister Ruth Catherine was introduced to the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament
when she was very young. The fourth of eight children born to Benjamin
and Ruth Spain, she often visited St. Michael’s Mission Center in
Torresdale with her parents and grandparents. The sisters had a retreat
house there, and she loved the liturgies, the processions and, especially,
adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, which was also St. Katharine’s
favorite devotion.
When she finished St. Joan of Arc School in Philadelphia’s Harrowgate
section, she went directly to the high school run by the sisters in Bensalem
for girls hoping to enter their congregation.
After her profession, Sister Ruth Catherine taught for 41 years in Illinois;
Louisiana; Washington, D.C.; Alabama; New York; Ohio, and three times
at St. Ignatius in Philadelphia.
She directed the guild from 1994 to 2000, and is now back at St. Ignatius
as a parish outreach minister, helping the poor and visiting the sick
— work that goes hand-in-hand with being a Sister of the Blessed
Sacrament.
Through all of that, she learned to appreciate St. Katharine and her work
more and more — especially in working for the guild during the canonization
process.
“It definitely changed how I thought about her,“ Sister Ruth
Catherine said. “I came to feel I knew her. She worked right alongside
the sisters and modeled what religious life as a Sister of the Blessed
Sacrament is all about. I have a great love for her because of her great
love for God, and her great love for the Native American and African-American
people.”
Lou Baldwin is a member of St. Leo Parish and a freelance writer.