SAINTS OF THE DAY
SUNDAY, 3 MARCH, 2024
1) SAINT CUNEGUNDES
2) SAINT KATHARINE DREXEL
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1) SAINT CUNEGUNDES
EMPRESS
(975 – 3rd March, 1040)
Saint Cunegundes was the daughter of Siegfried, the first Count of Luxemburg, and Hadeswige, his pious wife. They instilled into her from her cradle the most tender sentiments of piety, and married her to St. Henry, Duke of Bavaria, who, upon the death of the Emperor Otho III, was chosen king of the Romans, and crowned on the 6th of June, 1002. She was crowned at Paderborn on St. Laurence's day. In the year 1014 she went with her husband to Rome, and received the imperial crown with him from the hands of Pope Benedict VIII. She had, by St. Henry's consent, before her marriage made a vow of virginity. Calumniators afterwards made vile accusations against her, and the holy empress, to remove the scandal of such a slander, trusting in God to prove her innocence, walked over red-hot ploughshares without being hurt. The emperor condemned his too scrupulous fears and credulity, and from that time they lived in the strictest union of hearts, conspiring to promote in everything God's honor and the advancement of piety. She visited the poor and the sick in the hospitals and also cared for lepers.
Going once to make a retreat in Hesse, she fell dangerously ill, and made a vow to found a monastery, if she recovered, at Kaffungen, near Cassel, in the diocese of Paderborn, which she executed in a stately manner, and gave it to nuns of the Order of St. Benedict. Before it was finished St. Henry died, in 1024. She earnestly recommended his soul to the prayers of others, especially to her blear nuns, and expressed her longing desire of joining them. She had already exhausted her treasures in founding bishoprics and monasteries, and in relieving the poor, and she had therefore little left now to give. But still thirsting to embrace perfect evangelical poverty, and to renounce all to serve God without obstacle, she assembled a great number of prelates to the dedication of her church of Kaffungen on the anniversary day of her husband's death, 1025; and after the gospel was sung at Mass she offered on the altar a piece of the true cross, and then, putting off her imperial robes, clothed herself with a poor habit; her hair was cut off, and the bishop put on her a veil, and a ring as a pledge of her fidelity to her heavenly Spouse.
After she was consecrated to God in religion, she seemed entirely to forget that she had been empress, and behaved as the last in the house, being persuaded that she was 30 before God. She prayed and read much, worked with her hands, and took a singular pleasure in visiting and comforting the sick.
Thus she passed the last fifteen years of her life. Her mortifications at length reduced her to a very weak condition, and brought on her last sickness. Perceiving that they were preparing a cloth fringed with gold to cover her corpse after her death, she changed color and ordered it to be taken away; nor could she be at rest till she was promised she should be buried as a poor religious in her habit. She died on the 3rd of March, 1040. Her body was carried to Bamberg and buried near that of her husband. She was solemnly canonized by Innocent III. in 1200.
St. Cunigunde was canonised by Pope Innocent III on 29 March 1200, 53 years after the canonization of her husband St. Henry II in July 1147.
- From Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
PATRON: Patroness of Luxembourg, Lithuania, Poland, and the Archdiocese of Bamberg, Germany.
REFLECTION: Detachment of the mind, at least, is needful to those who cannot venture on an effectual renunciation.
PRAYER: God, You inspired St. Cunegundes to strive for perfect charity and so attain Your Kingdom at the end of her pilgrimage on earth. Strengthen us through her intercession that we may advance rejoicing in the way of love. Amen.
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2) SAINT KATHARINE DREXEL
ROMAN CATHOLIC NUN
(November 26, 1858 – March 3, 1955)
St. Katharine Drexel,was born born November 26, 1858, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. St. Katharine Drexel was the founder of the Blessed Sacrament Sisters for Indians and Colored People (now Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament), a congregation of missionary nuns dedicated to the welfare of American Indians and African Americans. She is the patron saint of racial justice and of philanthropists.
Katharine was the daughter of the American financier and philanthropist Francis Anthony Drexel. Her mother, Hannah Langstroth, died five weeks after Katharine was born, and Katharine and her sister were cared for by their aunt and uncle until their father remarried in 1860. The family was active in charitable works and distributed food, clothing, and money from their home twice a week. As a young adult, Katharine was deeply impacted by her stepmother's long and painful battle with terminal cancer and marked that as a pivotal time in her life. In 1884 she traveled with her father and sisters to the western states, where they witnessed the poverty and destitution of Native Americans on reservation lands.
When her father died in 1885, she and her sisters inherited a vast fortune. Believing that all people should have access to education, she continued the work earlier undertaken by the family of founding and endowing schools and churches for African Americans and Native Americans in the South and West. She later visited these establishments, touring by burro and stagecoach. While in Rome (January 1887), she had a private audience with Pope Leo XIII to indicate a need for nuns to staff her mission schools. The pope challenged her to devote her life as well as her fortune to the missions.
In 1889 she became a novice with the Sisters of Mercy in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In February 1891 she took her final vows and, with a few companions, founded the Blessed Sacrament Sisters for Indians and Colored People, of which she was superior general. The community moved from the Drexel summer home in Torresdale, Pennsylvania, to the new St. Elizabeth's Convent in Cornwells Heights, Pennsylvania, the next year. The community received final papal approval in May 1913.
Mother Drexel began a vast building campaign with the founding of St. Catherine's Boarding School for Pueblo Indians in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1894, followed by another school, for African American girls at Rock Castle, Virginia, in 1899. She opened more schools in Arizona and Tennessee (1903) and in 1915 founded a school for African Americans that would in 1925 become Xavier University in New Orleans, Louisiana. By 1927 she had established convents for her congregation at Columbus (Ohio), Chicago, Boston, and New York City. She received high commendation from Pope Pius XII on her golden jubilee in 1941.
At the time of her death, in March 3, 1955 at the age of 96 years she had used more than $12 million of her inheritance for her charitable and apostolic missions, working in conjunction with the U.S. Indian Office, through which she helped found the Society for the Preservation of the Faith Among Indian Children. By that time as well, the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament had grown to some 500 members in 51 convents, and they had established 49 elementary schools, 12 high schools, and Xavier University.
Drexel was beatified in 1988 after the Vatican confirmed her first miracle, restoring a boy's hearing. A second miracle was attributed to her in January 2000 after a young girl was cured of her deafness following prayers to Drexel and having her ears touched by some of Drexel's possessions. In March Pope John Paul II approved Drexel for sainthood, and she was canonized in October 2000, becoming the second U.S-born saint; the first was St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, canonized in 1975. She remains an ardent intercessor and inspiration for the Black Catholic community in the United States.
PATRON: Racial justice and Philanthropists.
PRAYER: Ever loving God, you called Saint Katharine Drexel to teach the message of the Gospel and to bring the life of the Eucharist to the Black and Native American peoples. By her prayers and example, enable us to work for justice among the poor and oppressed. Draw us all into the Eucharistic community of your Church, that we may be one in you. Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.