A Holy Encounter

This article reflects upon the meeting between two great American saints, Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini and Mother Katharine Drexel. Their 1907 encounter was unexpected: As Mother Cabrini was passing through Philadelphia, she stopped to thank Mother Drexel for the kindness and hospitality shown to one of her Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus by the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament. In that act of charity extended by Mother Drexel and the show of appreciation by Mother Cabrini, the two religious leaders sat down and spoke about their religious orders and led Mother Drexel to ask Mother Cabrini’s advice on how to have her rule approved by Rome. From this extraordinary meeting of two foundresses, we gain a sense of the similarities of their two religious orders—founded, respectively, on the love of God in the Sacred Heart of Jesus and in the Eucharist—and the spiritual kinship of two women who were propelled by charity to help the less fortunate in the United States and in the world.