The Life of Katharine Drexel

 

THE GOLDEN DOOR

by Katherine Burton, 

1957, P.J. Kennedy and Sons, New York

The hope which motivates me to review the books I read has always been that of encouraging others to read them and draw joy or inspiration from them. One presupposition, then, is that a book be accessible. Most of the books I read are easily obtained on Kindle, although I do occasionaly buy actual printed books. On the rare occasion, when I buy out of print books, it is usually because I have become enthused enough by someone else's review to go hunting for the book. Actually finding these rarer books and at a manageable price, however, is not a foregone conclusion.  

In the case of St. Katharine Drexel, I have had this particular book on my wish list for a long time, not because of any rave reviews I had read, but because the saint herself is mine as a South Dakotan. This so also because of one of our priests whom I knew from my youth, a former chancellor of the Diocese of Sioux Falls originating from Boston, who had found his way to South Dakota and to the priesthood through the encouragement of Mother Katharine, to spend his summers from Boston College out here on the reservations.

As the price had come way down and in celebration of retirement, I bought the book and now have read it. The author, Katherine Burton has done an incomparable job. 1957, just two years after the foundress' death, was thirty years distant from Mother's beatification in 1988 and a scarce half century before her canonization. Nevertheless, her masterful biography of this great American woman makes for enjoyable reading and the best sort of hagiography. 

Beneficence and social justice certainly mark the life and work of St. Katharine Drexel, but with absolute finesse, the author makes clear that at the center of her life and mission was her love for and attentiveness to Christ in the Most Blessed Sacrament.

"The Golden Door" is the door of the Tabernacle, the image and the inspiration in part for Katharine's vocation coming from a dream of her stepmother Emma Drexel, so binding her to her patron saint: "Go before the Golden Door-The Tabernacle-and say, 'In Thee I place my trust.'" St. Catherine of Siena.

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