Saint Katharine Drexel

I was born in Pennsylvania, USA, in 1858. My father was a banker. Both parents taught me and my sister that wealth was to be shared with others. The beginning of my mission and support to others was marked by a family trip to the Western part of the United States. There I saw the conditions of the Native Americans. I established the "St. Catherine Indian School" in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1887. I visited Pope Leo XIII in Rome and asked him for missionaries for the Indian missions, that I was financing. The Pope said  I should become a missionary myself. Later, I decided to give myself totally to God. In 1891, I professed my first vows as a religious and founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament. I also helped to change racial attitudes in the USA. During my lifetime, I opened and staffed many schools. Because of my witness, the Church became more aware of the needs of the Native Americans. For the last 18 years of my life, I was completely immobile because of an illness. I died in 1955.