Katharine Drexel was born into a very wealthy family in Philadelphia. Her father was a banker. From a young age, Katharine’s father gave her the gift of role modeling his faith in action. Each day he prayed for half an hour before dinner and he generously shared his material possessions with those in need. He opened their family mansion three afternoons a week to help the poor.

In 1885 when Katharine was 26 years old, her father died and she inherited a large fortune along with her two sisters. Having been interested in Indigenous American communities since childhood, Katharine began using her fortune to help the evangelization of these communities. Around this time, Katharine began experiencing health problems and went on a trip to Europe to help improve her health.

Her trip ended in Rome, where she had an audience with Pope Leo XIII. She asked the Holy Father to send an order of priests to carry out missionary work among the Indigenous American communities in the diocese of a bishop friend of hers. The Holy Father replied: "Why not, my child, yourself become a missionary?" These words bewildered her. She would understand later that Pope Leo made tangible the Lord's invitation to a religious life that Katharine had felt since her youth.

A couple of years later, Katharine began her life as a religious sister, dedicating her life and fortune to serving the Indigenous American and African American missions. She helped found churches and schools in the diocese of Raleigh and came to visit them. Katharine Drexel is a saint of the Church. Her feast day is March 3.

Today's Gospel reading tells us of an occasion when the apostles found themselves in a situation like Katharine Drexel and the Pope. It was the end of the day when a crowd had listened to the Lord’s teaching. The apostles, aware of the great need for food for so many people in a deserted place, asked the Lord to send the people away so they could find food. The Lord's response was, "Give them some food yourselves." These words astonish the apostles. They are bewildered and don't understand what Jesus meant.

The Lord was inviting the apostles to carry out a true conversion. He invites them to convert from the mindset of "everyone for themselves" to that of sharing, beginning with the little that Providence puts at their disposal. Five loaves of bread and two fish are donated. The Lord receives them and multiplies them to feed the crowd. Everyone eats until they are satisfied, and in the end, there is still food left over! This stunning miracle, the only one recounted by all four gospel writers, foreshadows the Eucharist.

A year later, at the Last Supper, the Lord celebrates the first Eucharist, where he offers his own body and blood as food and drink to his disciples. The Eucharist is the perfect act of generosity. The Eucharist is the perfect act of the Lord's love for his heavenly Father and his disciples.

The Lord astonishes us with his words and example at each Eucharist. The Lord always invites, challenges us to carry out a true conversion from the mindset of selfishness to that of love and generosity. Our participation in the Eucharist should always be an experience that leaves us astonished and baffled, like the apostles and St. Katharine Drexel. St. Katharine Drexel founded the religious community of the Missionary Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament. We do not need to wonder why the Blesed Sacrament play such a central role in her community. 

On the feast of Corpus Christi, let us humbly ask the Lord to move us to always be generous, beginning with the little that Providence has made available to us.