devotions

From heiress to saint: The radical life of St. Katharine Drexel #Catholic St. Katharine Drexel was born in 1858 to a wealthy family in Philadelphia. Five weeks after her birth, her mother died. She and her two sisters were reared by their father, Frank, a successful international banker, and stepmother, Emma — whom Katharine always considered her mother. Both were devout Catholics and loving parents. The family was generous with the poor — three times a week they opened their lavish home to those in need, offering them food, clothing, medicine, and other necessities.From the earliest ages, the Drexel children were taught to pursue personal holiness through daily Mass, meditation, the rosary, and other devotions as well as by acts of penance and sacrifice. Katharine kept notes on her efforts to grow in virtue. In 1878, she wrote: “I am resolved during this year to try to overcome impatience and give attention to lessons. I, Katie, put these resolutions at the feet of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph hoping that they will find acceptance there. May Jesus, Mary, and Joseph help me to bear much fruit in the year 1878.”When she was in her 20s, Katharine lost both of her parents and inherited a portion of the family’s vast wealth. At this time, she became aware of the plight of the Native Americans, many of whom suffered from dire poverty and a lack of education. She would devote the remainder of her life to assisting them.In two private audiences with Pope Leo XIII, she begged him to send more missionaries to the Native Americans. During one of these meetings, the Holy Father suggested to an astonished Katharine that she herself become such a missionary.Although Katharine enjoyed an opulent lifestyle, she became disillusioned with the things of the world. She wrote a longtime friend, Bishop James O’Connor, of her desire to enter religious life.“Like the little girl who wept when she found that her doll was stuffed with sawdust and her drum was hollow, I, too, have made a horrifying discovery and my discovery, like hers, is true. I have ripped both the doll and the drum open and the fact lies plainly and in all its glaring reality before me: All, all, all (there is no exception) is passing away and will pass away,” she wrote.The bishop thought Katharine could do more for the Church in her position in society and worried she might have difficulty in renouncing her wealth. She responded: “The question alone important, the solution of which depends upon how I have spent my life, is the state of my soul at the moment of death. Infinite misery or infinite happiness! There is no half and half, either one or the other.”The bishop eventually relented and advised her to found a community to work among Native Americans and African Americans, declaring: “God has put in your heart a great love for the Indian and the Negroes.” In 1891, joined by 13 others, she founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament.Mother Drexel went to work opening mission churches and boarding schools for Black and Native American children throughout the U.S.At times, prejudice and racism hindered her work. She would often buy buildings to create schools through third parties — otherwise, when sellers learned Mother Drexel was buying them to educate Black or Native children, they wouldn’t sell to her.Once, when members of the Nashville, Tennessee, city council wondered if Blacks were capable of higher education, she responded: “I cannot share these views with regard to the education of the race. I feel that if among our colored people we find individuals gifted with capabilities, with those sterling qualities which constitute character, our holy mother the Church who fosters and develops the intellect only that it may give God more glory and be of benefit to others, should also concede to the Negro the privilege of higher education.”In 1915, Katharine founded a teachers’ college in Louisiana, which would eventually become Xavier University of New Orleans and one of the first American colleges to admit Black students.Throughout her life, Mother Drexel’s chief motivation in addition to her missionary outreach was to help more souls know and love Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. She believed devotion to the Blessed Sacrament was key to the success to her community’s missionary work.She died in 1955 at the age of 96 and was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 2000. Her community’s motherhouse for decades was located in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, a Philadelphia suburb, which included a shrine — elements of which included Mother Drexel’s remains and a museum dedicated to her memory. However, due to a lack of vocations, the motherhouse closed and the property sold at the end of 2017. The St. Katharine Drexel Shrine is now part of the Cathedral Basilica of Sts. Peter and Paul in Philadelphia.St. Katharine Drexel is honored in the Church on March 3.This story was first published by the National Catholic Register, a sister news service of EWTN News, on March 3, 2021, and has been updated and adapted by EWTN News.
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From heiress to saint: The radical life of St. Katharine Drexel #Catholic St. Katharine Drexel was born in 1858 to a wealthy family in Philadelphia. Five weeks after her birth, her mother died. She and her two sisters were reared by their father, Frank, a successful international banker, and stepmother, Emma — whom Katharine always considered her mother. Both were devout Catholics and loving parents. The family was generous with the poor — three times a week they opened their lavish home to those in need, offering them food, clothing, medicine, and other necessities.From the earliest ages, the Drexel children were taught to pursue personal holiness through daily Mass, meditation, the rosary, and other devotions as well as by acts of penance and sacrifice. Katharine kept notes on her efforts to grow in virtue. In 1878, she wrote: “I am resolved during this year to try to overcome impatience and give attention to lessons. I, Katie, put these resolutions at the feet of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph hoping that they will find acceptance there. May Jesus, Mary, and Joseph help me to bear much fruit in the year 1878.”When she was in her 20s, Katharine lost both of her parents and inherited a portion of the family’s vast wealth. At this time, she became aware of the plight of the Native Americans, many of whom suffered from dire poverty and a lack of education. She would devote the remainder of her life to assisting them.In two private audiences with Pope Leo XIII, she begged him to send more missionaries to the Native Americans. During one of these meetings, the Holy Father suggested to an astonished Katharine that she herself become such a missionary.Although Katharine enjoyed an opulent lifestyle, she became disillusioned with the things of the world. She wrote a longtime friend, Bishop James O’Connor, of her desire to enter religious life.“Like the little girl who wept when she found that her doll was stuffed with sawdust and her drum was hollow, I, too, have made a horrifying discovery and my discovery, like hers, is true. I have ripped both the doll and the drum open and the fact lies plainly and in all its glaring reality before me: All, all, all (there is no exception) is passing away and will pass away,” she wrote.The bishop thought Katharine could do more for the Church in her position in society and worried she might have difficulty in renouncing her wealth. She responded: “The question alone important, the solution of which depends upon how I have spent my life, is the state of my soul at the moment of death. Infinite misery or infinite happiness! There is no half and half, either one or the other.”The bishop eventually relented and advised her to found a community to work among Native Americans and African Americans, declaring: “God has put in your heart a great love for the Indian and the Negroes.” In 1891, joined by 13 others, she founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament.Mother Drexel went to work opening mission churches and boarding schools for Black and Native American children throughout the U.S.At times, prejudice and racism hindered her work. She would often buy buildings to create schools through third parties — otherwise, when sellers learned Mother Drexel was buying them to educate Black or Native children, they wouldn’t sell to her.Once, when members of the Nashville, Tennessee, city council wondered if Blacks were capable of higher education, she responded: “I cannot share these views with regard to the education of the race. I feel that if among our colored people we find individuals gifted with capabilities, with those sterling qualities which constitute character, our holy mother the Church who fosters and develops the intellect only that it may give God more glory and be of benefit to others, should also concede to the Negro the privilege of higher education.”In 1915, Katharine founded a teachers’ college in Louisiana, which would eventually become Xavier University of New Orleans and one of the first American colleges to admit Black students.Throughout her life, Mother Drexel’s chief motivation in addition to her missionary outreach was to help more souls know and love Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. She believed devotion to the Blessed Sacrament was key to the success to her community’s missionary work.She died in 1955 at the age of 96 and was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 2000. Her community’s motherhouse for decades was located in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, a Philadelphia suburb, which included a shrine — elements of which included Mother Drexel’s remains and a museum dedicated to her memory. However, due to a lack of vocations, the motherhouse closed and the property sold at the end of 2017. The St. Katharine Drexel Shrine is now part of the Cathedral Basilica of Sts. Peter and Paul in Philadelphia.St. Katharine Drexel is honored in the Church on March 3.This story was first published by the National Catholic Register, a sister news service of EWTN News, on March 3, 2021, and has been updated and adapted by EWTN News.

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Throughout her life, St. Katharine Drexel’s chief motivation was to help more people know and love Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.

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Replica of Manila’s famed ‘Black Nazarene’ arrives in Los Angeles Archdiocese #Catholic The centuries-old devotion to Nuestro Padre Jesús Nazareno of Quiapo, Manila, in the Philippines has formally reached the U.S. West Coast as an official replica of the revered image was turned over to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and entrusted to Holy Family Parish in Artesia and the archdiocese’s Filipino ministry.The replica, gifted by the Minor Basilica and National Shrine of Jesús Nazareno in Manila, will be enthroned at Holy Family Parish and serve as a pilgrim image, visiting parishes across the archdiocese’s five pastoral regions as part of a broader evangelization initiative. Father John Cordero displays the official replica of the Jesús Nazareno from Manila’s Quiapo Church in 2025. | Credit: Holy Family Catholic Church Artesia The arrival of the image marks the fruit of an evangelization effort spearheaded by then-rector of Quiapo Church, now Bishop Rufino Sescon of Balanga, Bataan. According to Father John Cordero of the Marian Missionaries of the Holy Cross, pastor of Holy Family Parish, the development unfolded providentially.“The real starting point of this development was the evangelization initiative of the National Shrine of Jesús Nazareno in Manila, spearheaded by then-rector and now bishop of Balanga, Rufino ‘Jun’ Sescon,” Cordero told EWTN News.The replica was initially offered to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles through Father Rodel Balagtas, priest liaison to the Filipino Ministry. Although another parish had first expressed willingness to host the image, no final arrangements had been made.Months later, Sescon personally contacted Cordero — a former graduate school classmate — to reestablish communication between Quiapo Church and a receiving parish. What seemed at first a closed matter reopened, and Cordero discerned that the parish could accommodate the image by converting a religious goods store in the vestibule into a shrine.“I noticed something that had slipped my attention: We have space,” Cordero said. After consultation with Filipino Ministry leaders, including its president and parishioner Noel Motus, the parish agreed to receive the image. “It is a gift from the national shrine, and our parish was merely chosen to be the caretakers.”Formal reception and MassSescon will celebrate the Mass marking the official arrival and reception of the replica in Los Angeles on Feb. 14. Later this year, the image will also be brought to the annual Religious Education Congress, further expanding its exposure to thousands of catechists and ministry leaders.Bishop Oscar Solis of Salt Lake City — the first Filipino-born bishop to lead a diocese in the United States — is also scheduled to celebrate a Mass in connection with the image’s visit.While there was no prior organized clamor among parishioners for a Nazareno image, Cordero said the parishioners’ response after learning that their parish will be the home of the replica has been one of “sheer joy,” with Filipino and Hispanic faithful alike rallying around the new shrine.“As a pastor explaining this new devotion to my multicultural parish, I would like to point to our mutual interconnectedness with this image,” he said. “This is primarily an image of Jesus, the focal point of our Christian unity.”Historical connectionsThe original image of the Jesús Nazareno, which arrived in Manila from Mexico in 1606, bears deep historical ties to both the Philippines and the Americas. California itself was once part of Mexico, and devotion to Jesús Nazareno has long-standing roots throughout Latin America.“The image, touched by hundreds of millions of pilgrims throughout its four centuries of devotional history, connects us with the everyday faith stories of all who identify with the suffering of Our Lord,” Cordero said.In a gesture underscoring that spiritual continuity, “like the Galileans who were content with touching the tassels of the cloak of Jesus for their healing,” Cordero requested Father Jade Licuanan, the current Quiapo Basilica rector, to have the replica be touched to the original image in Quiapo before being shipped to the United States. Cordero described this as an “intimate act of blessing and sending.”Mass devotion in ManilaThe devotion to the image once known as the “Black Nazarene” is among the largest Catholic expressions of popular piety in the world. Each January, millions of barefoot devotees join the Traslación procession in Manila, accompanying the dark wooden image of Christ carrying the cross through the streets of Quiapo. Manila’s feast of the Black Nazarene draws 9.6 million devotees Cordero, who recently visited the basilica, described the scale of devotion as “mind-boggling,” noting that even hourly Masses draw thousands of worshippers.Now, he believes, the image comes to Los Angeles at a providential moment.“Amid a sociopolitical climate marked by fear and division, this symbol of our connection in the Lord and with one another, embodied in this rustic image of Jesus carrying the cross, offers us consolation and mission,” he said.Citing the U.S. bishops’ pastoral letter “A Treasured Presence,” which describes Filipino Catholics as a vital but often unseen minority in the United States, Cordero said the Nazareno highlights the “prophetic resiliency and joy” they bring to the Church.“The Jesús Nazareno reassures us that we are not alone in bearing our crosses,” he said. “In this strange new world, our Catholic faith has been our familiar refuge of connection, support, and strength.”Revitalizing faithBalagtas said he hopes the popular Filipino icon that has a rich tradition in Latin America will help revitalize the faith of the people of the largest and most ethnically diverse archdiocese in the United States, thanks to the vibrant devotion of Filipino Catholics. Father John Cordero, MMHC, signs the “Memorandum of Agreement” formalizing Holy Family Parish’s reception of the official replica of the Jesús Nazareno on behalf of the Filipino Ministry of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, as Father Jade Licuanan, rector of the Basilica and National Shrine of Jesús Nazareno in Manila, looks on in 2025. | Credit: Holy Family Catholic Church Artesia “The people who are filling the pews of the churches in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, as in other dioceses, are Filipino Catholics.”From Quiapo, Manila’s narrow streets, where millions gather each year for the Traslación, to the sprawling parishes of Southern California, the cross-bearing Christ now stands in a new land — inviting the faithful not only to venerate but also to follow him.
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Replica of Manila’s famed ‘Black Nazarene’ arrives in Los Angeles Archdiocese #Catholic The centuries-old devotion to Nuestro Padre Jesús Nazareno of Quiapo, Manila, in the Philippines has formally reached the U.S. West Coast as an official replica of the revered image was turned over to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and entrusted to Holy Family Parish in Artesia and the archdiocese’s Filipino ministry.The replica, gifted by the Minor Basilica and National Shrine of Jesús Nazareno in Manila, will be enthroned at Holy Family Parish and serve as a pilgrim image, visiting parishes across the archdiocese’s five pastoral regions as part of a broader evangelization initiative. Father John Cordero displays the official replica of the Jesús Nazareno from Manila’s Quiapo Church in 2025. | Credit: Holy Family Catholic Church Artesia The arrival of the image marks the fruit of an evangelization effort spearheaded by then-rector of Quiapo Church, now Bishop Rufino Sescon of Balanga, Bataan. According to Father John Cordero of the Marian Missionaries of the Holy Cross, pastor of Holy Family Parish, the development unfolded providentially.“The real starting point of this development was the evangelization initiative of the National Shrine of Jesús Nazareno in Manila, spearheaded by then-rector and now bishop of Balanga, Rufino ‘Jun’ Sescon,” Cordero told EWTN News.The replica was initially offered to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles through Father Rodel Balagtas, priest liaison to the Filipino Ministry. Although another parish had first expressed willingness to host the image, no final arrangements had been made.Months later, Sescon personally contacted Cordero — a former graduate school classmate — to reestablish communication between Quiapo Church and a receiving parish. What seemed at first a closed matter reopened, and Cordero discerned that the parish could accommodate the image by converting a religious goods store in the vestibule into a shrine.“I noticed something that had slipped my attention: We have space,” Cordero said. After consultation with Filipino Ministry leaders, including its president and parishioner Noel Motus, the parish agreed to receive the image. “It is a gift from the national shrine, and our parish was merely chosen to be the caretakers.”Formal reception and MassSescon will celebrate the Mass marking the official arrival and reception of the replica in Los Angeles on Feb. 14. Later this year, the image will also be brought to the annual Religious Education Congress, further expanding its exposure to thousands of catechists and ministry leaders.Bishop Oscar Solis of Salt Lake City — the first Filipino-born bishop to lead a diocese in the United States — is also scheduled to celebrate a Mass in connection with the image’s visit.While there was no prior organized clamor among parishioners for a Nazareno image, Cordero said the parishioners’ response after learning that their parish will be the home of the replica has been one of “sheer joy,” with Filipino and Hispanic faithful alike rallying around the new shrine.“As a pastor explaining this new devotion to my multicultural parish, I would like to point to our mutual interconnectedness with this image,” he said. “This is primarily an image of Jesus, the focal point of our Christian unity.”Historical connectionsThe original image of the Jesús Nazareno, which arrived in Manila from Mexico in 1606, bears deep historical ties to both the Philippines and the Americas. California itself was once part of Mexico, and devotion to Jesús Nazareno has long-standing roots throughout Latin America.“The image, touched by hundreds of millions of pilgrims throughout its four centuries of devotional history, connects us with the everyday faith stories of all who identify with the suffering of Our Lord,” Cordero said.In a gesture underscoring that spiritual continuity, “like the Galileans who were content with touching the tassels of the cloak of Jesus for their healing,” Cordero requested Father Jade Licuanan, the current Quiapo Basilica rector, to have the replica be touched to the original image in Quiapo before being shipped to the United States. Cordero described this as an “intimate act of blessing and sending.”Mass devotion in ManilaThe devotion to the image once known as the “Black Nazarene” is among the largest Catholic expressions of popular piety in the world. Each January, millions of barefoot devotees join the Traslación procession in Manila, accompanying the dark wooden image of Christ carrying the cross through the streets of Quiapo. Manila’s feast of the Black Nazarene draws 9.6 million devotees Cordero, who recently visited the basilica, described the scale of devotion as “mind-boggling,” noting that even hourly Masses draw thousands of worshippers.Now, he believes, the image comes to Los Angeles at a providential moment.“Amid a sociopolitical climate marked by fear and division, this symbol of our connection in the Lord and with one another, embodied in this rustic image of Jesus carrying the cross, offers us consolation and mission,” he said.Citing the U.S. bishops’ pastoral letter “A Treasured Presence,” which describes Filipino Catholics as a vital but often unseen minority in the United States, Cordero said the Nazareno highlights the “prophetic resiliency and joy” they bring to the Church.“The Jesús Nazareno reassures us that we are not alone in bearing our crosses,” he said. “In this strange new world, our Catholic faith has been our familiar refuge of connection, support, and strength.”Revitalizing faithBalagtas said he hopes the popular Filipino icon that has a rich tradition in Latin America will help revitalize the faith of the people of the largest and most ethnically diverse archdiocese in the United States, thanks to the vibrant devotion of Filipino Catholics. Father John Cordero, MMHC, signs the “Memorandum of Agreement” formalizing Holy Family Parish’s reception of the official replica of the Jesús Nazareno on behalf of the Filipino Ministry of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, as Father Jade Licuanan, rector of the Basilica and National Shrine of Jesús Nazareno in Manila, looks on in 2025. | Credit: Holy Family Catholic Church Artesia “The people who are filling the pews of the churches in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, as in other dioceses, are Filipino Catholics.”From Quiapo, Manila’s narrow streets, where millions gather each year for the Traslación, to the sprawling parishes of Southern California, the cross-bearing Christ now stands in a new land — inviting the faithful not only to venerate but also to follow him.

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An official replica of Manila’s centuries-old Jesús Nazareno image has been entrusted to Holy Family Parish in Artesia, California, bringing one of the world’s largest Catholic devotions to the U.S.

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