Description of new work
Excerpt from Chapter Two: The Early Years
What is most striking about Katharine's large extended family is not its wealth, though surely that had an effect on her. Money could and did provide security, excellent education, and opportunities available only to the privileged. However, most important was the love and warmth they freely shared with one another.
As we have seen, Katharine's family tree was peopled with engaging characters: an excitable French grandfather who made fine furniture; his wife, an aristocratic Philadelphian of unflappable personality; an Austrian grandfather who was an itinerate portrait painter turned banker; a grandmother who must have been patient to raise her family so often alone; an Anabaptist grandmother who provided her grandchildren with a well-stocked playroom in which to spend their winer visits; and rafts of cousins, aunts, and uncles. The overall picture is one of loving nurture and support. Anyone who had had the experience of spending days romping with cousins or talking with a favorite aunt or uncle can imagine the experience of Katharine's childhood days.
Family is the first "sacrament." In it one experiences God through flesh-and-blood faces, arms, and hearts. When a mother holds a crying infant close, the child experiences God's loving embrace. When a father reassures a young one who is afraid of a storm, the child knows the safety of God's love. Such experiences give human beings some way to understand the love of God with us.
Katharine once related one of her earliest memories that illustrates this truth. One day when she was very young, her family went to the beach. The little girl was petrified by the waves pounding at the shore. The rest of the family plunged into the water, but Katharine stayed back.
Suddenly her father returned to her and swung her up onto his shoulders. He walked into the surf, and Katharine clung to him for dear life:
"There I was pick-a-back, my little arms hugged tight around my father's neck. The salt spray splashed into my face. Papa ducked, and I was under the water, he met a great wave which dashed against and then over us--frightened beyond words I held on like grim death feeling my only safety was in my father's arms. He brought me back to the shore, my fear gone. Many times in life that incident has given me courage for I felt my Heavenly Father's arms were protectingly around me as had been dear papa's."
Katherine was blessed with a family whose faith, love, and joy in their children provided many human metaphors for the divine love she responded to in adult life. The Drexel family was not perfect, as no human family can be. But is was indeed rich soil. It is not surprising that God's call to holiness, sown in each one of us, found fertile ground in Katharine Drexel's soul.
