Saint Joseph's Shrine of St. Katharine Drexel - Columbia, Virginia

140th Anniversary Mass information - March 17, 2024

Saint Joseph's Shrine of St. Katharine Drexel Columbia VA

Name: Saint Joseph's Shrine of St. Katharine Drexel
Address: 28 Cameron St, Columbia, Virginia, 23038, United States
Telephone: (434) 842-3970

23038

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Who we are

Saint Joseph was founded in 1884 and is one of the oldest parishes in the Commonwealth. We are located in Columbia, Virginia. St. Joseph is also one of only two national shrines to Saint Katharine Drexel. Sunday Mass is at 9am. Come visit us!

In March 2024, our parish will be celebrating 140 years of the Eucharist! During the year leading up to this wonderful occasion, we are having monthly events to celebrate our history and the people who have made our parish great.

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Saint Joseph's Shrine of St. Katharine Drexel

28 Cameron St

Columbia, VA 23038

United States

Phone: (434) 842-3970

Fax: (434) 589-4463

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Fr. David M. Ssentamu

Pastor

28 Cameron St

Columbia, VA 23038

United States

Phone: (434) 842-3970

Fax: (434) 589-4463

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St. Joseph’s is located at the corner of Washington & Cameron Street, Columbia, VA 23038

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Saint Joseph's Shrine of St. Katharine Drexel Mass Times

Join us for daily Mass on Thursdays at 5pm, and Sunday Mass at 9am

In March 2024, our parish will be celebrating 140 years of the Eucharist! During the year leading up to this wonderful occasion, we are having monthly events to celebrate our history and the people who have made our parish great.

140TH ANNIVERSARY INFORMATION:

https://www.saintjosephcolumbia.org/140-years/

Saint Joseph's Shrine of St. Katharine Drexel mass times last updated on the 28th of February, 2024

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Saint Joseph's Shrine of St. Katharine Drexel - Columbia, Virginia

St. Katharine Drexel Show comments

St. Katharine Drexel

Feastday: March 3
Patron: of racial justice and philanthropists
Birth: November 26, 1858
Death: March 3, 1955
Beatified: November 20, 1988 by Pope John Paul II
Canonized: October 1, 2000 by Pope John Paul II

St. Katharine Drexel is the second American-born saint to be canonized by the Catholic Church. This amazing woman was an heiress to a large bequest who became a religious sister and a brilliant educator.

Katherine was born in Philadelphia on November 26, 1858, the second child of a prominent and wealthy banker, Francis Anthony Drexel and his wife, Hannah Langstroth. He mother passed away just five weeks after Katharine was born. Her father remarried to Emma Bouvier in 1860 and together they had another daughter in 1863, Louisa Drexel.

The girls received a wonderful education from private tutors and traveled throughout the United States and Europe. The Drexels were financially and spiritually well endowed. They were devout in the practice of their faith, setting an excellent example of true Christian living for their three daughters. They not only prayed but practiced what the Church calls the spiritual and corporal works of mercy.

Katharine grew up seeing her father pray for 30 minutes each evening. And every week, her stepmother opened their doors to house and care for the poor. The couple distributed food, clothing and provided rent assistance to those in need. The Drexels would seek out and visit women who were too afraid or too proud to approach the home in order to care for their needs in Christian charity.

Though Katharine made her social debut in 1879, she never let her family's money adversely affect the way she lived her life and faith. She was an example of a Christian with a proper understanding that the goods of this earth are given for the common good.

After watching her stepmother suffer with terminal cancer for three straight years, Katharine also learned that no amount of money could shelter them from pain or suffering. From this moment, Katharine's life took a turn. She became imbued with a passionate love for God and neighbor, and she took an avid interest in the material and spiritual well-being of black and native Americans.

In 1884, while her family was visiting the Western states, Katharine saw first-hand the troubling and poor situation of the Native Americans. She desperately wanted to help them.

Katharine spent much of her time with Father James O' Connor, a Philadelphia priest. He provided her with wonderful spiritual direction.

When her father passed away a year later, he donated part of his $15.5 million estate to a few charities and then left the remainder to be equally split amongst his three daughters.

He set up his will in a way to protect his daughters from men who were only seeking their money. If his daughters should die, the money was then to go on to his would-be grandchildren. If there were no grandchildren, the Drexel estate would be distributed to several different religious orders and charities, including the Society of Jesus, the Religious of the Sacred Heart, a Lutheran hospital and the Christian Brothers.

As one of their first acts following their father's death, Katharine and her sisters contributed money to assist the St. Francis Mission of South Dakota's Rosebud Reservation.

Katherine soon concluded that more was needed to help the Native Americans and the lacking ingredient was people.

In 1887, while touring Europe, the Drexel sisters were given a private audience with Pope Leo XIII. They were seeking missionaries to help with the Indian missions they were financing. The Pope looked to Katharine and suggested she, herself, become a missionary.

After speaking with Father O' Connor, Katharine decided she would give herself and her inheritance to God through service to both Native Americans and African Americans. She wrote, 'The feast of St. Joseph brought me the grace to give the remainder of my life to the Indians and the Colored.'

Katharine began her six-month postulancy at the Sisters of Mercy Convent in Pittsburgh in 1889.

On February 12, 1891, Katharine made her first vows as a religious and dedicated herself to working for the American Indians and African-Americans in the Western United States.

Taking the name Mother Katharine, she established a religious congregation called the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored, whose members would work for the betterment of those they were called to serve.

From the age of 33 until her death in 1955, she dedicated her life and her fortune to this work. In 1894, Mother Katharine took part in opening the first mission boarding school called St. Catherine's Indian School, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Other schools quickly followed - for Native Americans west of the Mississippi River, and for the blacks in the southern part of the United States.

In 1897, Katharine asked the friars of St. John the Baptist Province of the Order of Friars Minor to help staff a mission for the Navajos in Arizona and New Mexico, and she would help finance their work with the Pueblo Native Americans.

In 1910, Katharine also financed the printing of 500 copies of A Navaho-English Catechism of Christian Doctrine for the Use of Navaho Children.

In 1915, Katherine founded Xavier University in New Orleans, the first Catholic University in the United States for African-Americans.

By the time of her death, she had more than 500 Sisters teaching in 63 schools throughout the country and she established 50 missions for Native Americans in 16 different states.

Katharine suffered a heart attack at 77-years-old and was forced to retire. She spent the remainder of her life in quiet and intense prayer. She recorded her prates and aspirations in small notebooks.

Mother Katharine died on March 3, 1955 at the age of 96. She is buried at her order's motherhouse. Neither of Katharine's sisters had any children, so after her death, the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament lost the Drexel fortune that supported their ministries. However, the order continues to pursue Katharine's mission with the African-Americans and Native Americans in 21 states and in Haiti.

Katharine was remembered for her love of the Eucharist and a desire for unity of all peoples. She was courageous and took the initiative to address social inequality within minorities. She believed all should have access to a quality education and her selfless service, including the donation of her inheritance, helped many reach that goal.

St. Katharine was beatified on November 20, 1988 and canonized on October 1, 2000 by Pope John Paul II.

Relics of St. Katharine can be found at St. Raphael the Archangel Catholic Church in Raleigh, North Carolina, and in the Day Chapel of Saint Katharine Drexel Parish in Sugar Grove, Illinois.

Katharine is the patron saint of racial justice and philanthropists. Her feast day is celebrated on March 3.

From: https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=193

Saint Joseph's Shrine of St. Katharine Drexel - Columbia, Virginia

140th Anniversary Mass information - March 17, 2024 Show comments

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Saint Joseph's Shrine of St. Katharine Drexel History

The following four paragraphs were taken from Chapter 11 entitled “The River Flows South and West”, in the biography of St. Mary Katharine Drexel, The Golden Door, published in 1957, two years after her death:

In 1901, Mother Katharine had made this trip not only to inspect the school (St. Francis de Sales), but also to discuss setting up small catechetical centers in nearby places in Virginia. This necessitated a considerable amount of train travel. Once in a coach between Richmond and Lynchburg, the train stopped at a small station marked Columbia. She noticed a gilt cross gleaming through the trees and said to her companion, Mother Mercedes, “Do you think that is a Catholic Chapel?” Mother Mercedes replied that she did not think so, as she had been told there was no Mass celebrated between Richmond and Lynchburg.

On their return to St. Francis de Sales they learned from one of the students that there was such a chapel in a little town nearby. The two Sisters went to see this chapel and found it fairly large and in excellent condition; to their surprise they also found it in perfect order, swept and dusted; on the altar clean linen and fresh flowers. There was no sign of life, but even as they were still staring about they heard shuffling steps behind them and turned to see an old Negro looking at them with keen interest. He told them he was Uncle Zeke, and that he was a convert of Father Wakeham and had been with the Wakehams for years. His daughter, Rebecca, was the student who had told them about the Wakeham Chapel.

“Ever since the death of Mrs. Wakeham in 1891, I come here to clean the Chapel every morning and say a prayer there’ll be Mass again some day”, he told them. Then taking them to the carefully tended family cemetery, he showed some headstones weathered by the years, others very new.

Mother Katharine, much touched by the old man’s loyalty and devotion, told him that she could not promise that Mass would be said in the Chapel, but she could send a few of her Sisters from St. Francis de Sales there each week to teach Catechism (Her Sisters remained a part of St. Joseph’s until 1971) and perhaps later she would open a small school. As soon as Mother Katharine returned to St. Francis de Sales, she made arrangements to carry out that part of her promise.

*** In [the] early 1900[s], when Mother Katharine Drexel made arrangement for the Josephite Fathers to say Mass, the Wakeham Chapel unofficially became a Public Chapel, known as St. Joseph’s.

*** Note: At a special Mass on October 15, 2000, honoring the canonization of St. Katharine Drexel, at St. Joseph’s, Bishop Walter Sullivan, Bishop of Richmond, VA, added to the name of St. Joseph’s/”Shrine of St Katharine Drexel”.

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"Prayer strikes the winning blow; service is simply picking up the pieces."
S.D. Gordon

Saint Joseph's Shrine of St. Katharine Drexel listing was last updated on the 28th of February, 2024

Saint Joseph's Shrine of St. Katharine Drexel Columbia VA

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Who we are

Street Address

Download Saint Joseph's Shrine of St. Katharine Drexel vCard with Mass Times

Church Pastor

Download Pastor Fr. David M. Ssentamu vCard

Denomination

Roman Catholic

Affiliations

Church Website

Saint Joseph's Shrine of St. Katharine Drexel on Social Media

Facebook Video: Sunday Mass 5 April 2020

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Parking

Saint Joseph's Shrine of St. Katharine Drexel Mass Times

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Sunday School / Children and Youth Activities

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Saint Joseph's Shrine of St. Katharine Drexel Church Columbia Photos

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Saint Joseph's Shrine of St. Katharine Drexel Historical Photos

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