St. Kathryn Drexel (1858-1955)
(Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year C; This homily was given on September 22, 2019 in Rome, Italy; See Amos 8:4-7 and Luke 16: 1-13)
There is a chilling scene in the movie The Godfather, when Michael Corleone makes the fatal decision to become committed and involved in the family “business.” The move is somewhat unexpected, as Michael is a college graduate and decorated Marine Corps vet that seemed to be moving in a path that was legitimate and even noble.
The context is that another crime boss and a corrupt police officer have put the pressure on “The Family” and the Corleone clan are gathered together to figure out what they should do next. Michael calmly explains that he will arrange a meeting and shoot them both. There is complete silence in the room until one of the members of the family begins to laugh; for a moment, they had almost taken him seriously. The others soon join in. Sonny, Michael’s older brother, shrugs off the idea and condescendingly suggests that Michael has taken things too personally, and that the young college grad is not capable of such a bold move. At that point, Michael methodically explains—step by step—how he will go about the crime. Again, there is silence, and at that point Michael takes the opportunity to correct his brother. With a ruthless lack of emotion, he coldly states, “It’s not personal, Sonny. It’s strictly business.”
While that calculated line from Michael Corleone is thematic in that fiction film, and the modus operandi of the Godfather, it actually comes from a real-life figure in organised crime. Otto Berman was a brilliant accountant for a crime family in Newark, New Jersey back in the 1930s, and he is credited with coining the phrase, “Nothing personal, it’s just business.” Like so many people involved in that way of life, on screen and off, Berman died young and violently.
How sad, then, that the pithy expression lives on and is often used as an excuse for putting profit over people. When a large corporation has to recover from a bad fiscal year, they reduce the workforce without any concern for the future of their former employees. It nothing personal, strictly business.
Perhaps some high-level investor sees an opportunity to purchase a competing company and eliminate it, along with the ideals that the company was founded on. Just business, nothing personal.
In the political world, we also see the same mentality. Elected officials often say things like, “I am personally opposed to . . . , but . . .” They choose to advance an immoral agenda by subscribing to the split between what is personal and what is “business.”
Our readings for this weekend come out strongly against this separation of one’s personal life from everyday business, in Amos the Prophet and in the Gospel. Amos presents the injustice and corruption taking place in Israel during a very vulnerable period of the nation’s history. He sums the mentality of some:
We will diminish the ephah, add to the shekel, and fix our scales for cheating! We will buy the lowly for silver, and the poor for a pair of sandals.
—Amos 8:5-6
Nothing personal here; they are just conducting a little business. But this very separation between the two automatically objectifies the human person. People are not property, to be purchased for silver or the price of footwear. God responds through the Prophet Amos:
The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob: never will I forget a thing they have done!
—Amos 8:7
In the Gospel, as well, the dishonest steward has been conducting business without any concern for the impact it will have on others. He benignly cheats his own master, being mindful only of himself. It’s strictly business, nothing personal. But suddenly his deception is discovered and his “business” is about to come to an end. At that point, he becomes deeply involved on a very personal level! He works overtime to build relationships that will earn him dividends when the stewardship runs out.
Jesus commends the man, not for his dishonesty, but for the way that he became fully committed and personally involved in every dimension of his work, so that every possibility for gain will be fulfilled. “For the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light (Luke 16:8),” Jesus comments. Would that all God’s people were fully committed, personally involved and able to make prudent choices in spreading the light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
In the early 20th century, as Otto Berman’s life was coming to a close in Newark, a young woman named Kathryn Drexel was coming into her own in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Born into one of the wealthiest banking and finance families in the United States, Kathryn and her two sisters inherited millions of dollars after the untimely death of their father and stepmother. Of the three, Kathryn was the most business savvy. As her sisters were being introduced into the highest circles of society and beginning families, she began to invest her money and administrative resources into schools and missions for the nation’s poor and disenfranchised. The two main communities that she advocated for were the Native Americans and African Americans.
In 1886, Kathryn and her sisters made a tour of Europe. Like she had done with previous trips, young Kathryn used every opportunity to raise funds and advocate for her missions and schools. Then in January she had the opportunity of a lifetime, a private audience with Pope Leo XIII at the Vatican. Never lacking in courage, she knelt before the Holy Father and begged him to help her with the work she was doing back in the U.S. Would His Holiness consider sending missionaries to spiritually feed these hungry souls? Would he send good priests, holy sisters to work diligently in the missions. His response was a resounding, “Yes!” Fixing his gaze on the young millionaire, he said, “I am sending YOU!”
It is told that when Kathryn left the audience she was physically sick and completely overwhelmed. She, a millionaire, to become a nun working each and every day in the schools and missions she had founded? Was she now to take a vow of poverty? Hadn’t she given enough? Perhaps Jesus would have responded, “No. It’s not just business, Kathryn, it’s personal.” Whatever transpired in the depths of Kathryn’s soul, she began to discern a vocation to religious life and in 1889 renounced everything she owned, dedicating all of it to the work of the Gospel.
Kathryn made her first vows in 1891, and not long afterward she founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, dedicated to the service of Native Americans and African Americans. In 1915, she founded Xavier University in New Orleans, the first Catholic University in the U.S. for African Americans. She would go on to found more than 60 schools and some 50 missions dedicated to her vision of equal dignity and equal opportunity for all. On March 3, 1955, Mother Kathryn Drexel died at the age of 96. She was Beatified in 1988 and was Canonized St. Kathryn Drexel on October 1, 2000 by St. John Paul II.
How is God challenging us to become more completely involved in the work of the Gospel, to be prudent and ardent children of light in our own place in this world? May we also conduct our Christian lives and the business of the Gospel in a more deeply personal way as we live out our own vocation in the everyday experiences of life.
