Katharine Drexel

March 3, 1955, Katharine Drexel died. In 2000 she became the second American-born woman to be canonized. She was born into a very wealthy Philadelphia family. Katharine had an excellent education and traveled extensively with her family. (This photo I took with my camera is out of my book of saints. All other photos are her as a nun.)

She started over 60 schools throughout the United States including Xavier University in 1925 in New Orleans, the first university for blacks. The first school she started was in Sante Fe, New Mexico, for Indian kids. I googled her and usually wikipedia and a catholic site about her would be on the first page, but four pages are full of schools and libraries and foundations named after her.

So what occurred in her life that seems to have influenced so much good? First, her mother opened their home three days a week to the poor. And too, her father spent a half hour in prayer every evening. She visited Pope Leo XIII in Rome and asked for missionaries to the US West's Indians. He looked at her and asked, "Why don't you become a missionary?"

In 1891 Katharine founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored. Attuned to the Holy Spirit she joyously facilitated advances for social justice. Traveling and speaking, United Stated churches became aware of the grave domestic need among Native Americans and Afro-Americans. She hoped to change racial attitudes in the United States.

At the age of 77 she had a heart attack. Her activity shifted, spending the last almost 20 years of her life in intensive prayer.

BLT Soup

We just had a wonderful soup and Monte wants me to post the recipe (this is his way of making me write it down so I-don't-forget-it type of deal!).

Costco has some great natural thick-sliced bacon, but it's too salty for us to just eat as is. So I might keep getting it and divide it up for a black bean pizza (did I post that recipe?) and this soup.

BLT Soup
4-5 thick slices of bacon
Cook these till done, and crumble them.
Now some of you might not like this, but I cook the bacon in my soup pot and proceed to saute the veggies in the bacon fat. If you prefer not then saute the following ingredients in the order listed here, in oil, in your soup pot-
1 chopped onion
1 chopped bell pepper
2 chopped celery ribs
3 garlic cloves, minced
1-2 diced tomatoes (and since I'm supposed to be writing out exactly what I did ... I had some cherry tomatoes that were on the counter just starting to wrinkle and no one was wanting to eat them fresh anymore, so I cut them in half. So with these I had probably 2 tomatoes worth or maybe even more. But I figure since Monte loves stewed tomatoes, it wouldn't hurt anything.)
Chopped or shredded romaine (I used kale- and probably about 1-1 1/2 cups thin sliced)
1 quart chicken broth
1/2 cup cream
(pinch of chipotle pepper flakes)
pepper (and salt - hardly use)

I cut my home-made baguette bread down the middle and in 1-2 inch pieces, drizzled them with virgin olive oil and sprinkled them from a hand grinder mixture of pepper, garlic and salt. Bake (I have a convection oven) them till crispy. This is one of my versions of 'croutons'.

And just for your information, it's snowing. It's been blizzarding all day and we didn't go to church. There were probably only a handful of people there since the highway was a parking lot, no one going anywhere! Yesterday, March 1st, was in the 70's! The snow has never left the ground this winter like it often does, since we've been getting bits of snow here and there. We're so anxious for Spring, yet March can be our snowiest month!

Christianity Roots

I was just reading. So many names from Christianities roots I know: Augustine, Athanasius, Clement, Desert Fathers, Origen, and Tertullian - and many of them I've blogged about, I just thought them what? Middle Eastern? Greek?

We just think (without really thinking) most of our roots as European. But in reality a lot of the early church roots are African! There's a great article about a book and a call to reclaim Christianities roots.