In response to the man who excitedly asks Jesus, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus “loved him, and said to him, “Sell what you have, and give to the poor; and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”
Katherine Drexel, whose feast we celebrate today, did just that, in a literal way. With the substantial inheritance her parents left her, Katherine joined the Sisters of Mercy and then founded her own order, the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, which continues to work in schools and missions serving Black and Native American communities in the United States, and with the rural poor in Haiti.
On this day, what can I sell—literally or figuratively, large or small? On this day, how can I follow Jesus—in however great or humble a way?
—Fr. David Mastrangelo, S.J. serves as Director of Jesuit Mission and Identity at Christ the King Jesuit High School, Chicago.