Write for God

"St. Katherine Drexel: Friend of the Oppressed" by Ellen Tarry

When I was in parochial school, there were two young-adult series that I loved reading. One was Andrew Lang’s series of fairy tales that were coded by colors; for example, there was the Blue Fairy Book, which was my favorite, and 11 other fairy tale collections with different colors on the covers.

I didn’t realize as I read them that they were Victorian tales from a time when children actually used to read for entertainment, although the woodcut illustrations of pining princesses and evil dwarves might have been a clue that they were from another time. I remember entering the public library with such joy at knowing there would be another fairy-tale collection book in a new color just waiting for me to check it out.

The other series I loved were the Vision books published in the 1950s by Farrar Straus & Cudahy. These were biographies of saints and martyrs designed to enlighten Catholic kids who might have immersed themselves a little too deeply in fairy tales. (Who, me?) I may still have one or two of them on my shelves, although several floods in basements and Florida homes might have put an end to them.

I learned about St. Isaac Jogues, who converted North America, and about my patron saint, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. Each book began with the saint’s or martyr’s childhood so that we young readers could realize that they had once been kids, too. I met St. Therese of Lisieux and St. John Bosco there, too.

My favorite book in the series was about St. Katherine Drexel, who had been raised amid wealth and who had given up all of it to enter religious life serving Native Americans and African Americans during a time when they were the targets of discrimination. She was canonized in 2000, so my favorite biography told her story long before she was declared a saint. I loved reading about her work founding Indian missions in the West and about her struggles serving the poor.

By coincidence, the very same book I loved when I was a child was written by Ellen Tarry, an African-American author whose autobiography I’m going to read next. I only heard about Ellen Tarry’s role in the Harlem Renaissance and in the Friendship Houses founded by Catherine de Hueck Doherty very recently when I was researching another topic. (Ellen Tarry was a fascinating woman who had converted to Catholicism at 16 and whose career included several books for young readers. She died three days before her 102nd birthday last September.)

I never forgot the subtitle of Tarry’s book on St. Katherine Drexel:  Friend of the Neglected. To this day, any mention of St. Katherine Drexel is always coupled with that phrase.

I was gratified to see some of those wonderful Vision books in a Catholic catalog we received at home recently. Ignatius Press has several of these books in new editions for today’s kids. They would make wonderful First Communion presents for children learning about their faith.

The Vision books allowed us to lose ourselves in fascinating stories of holy people who had sacrificed for our faith. Unlike the series of fairy books I used to devour, they made a positive change in my life. By learning more about the people who built our church, I learned that those who served the poor like St. Katherine Drexel or who had the courage to face savagery like St. Isaac Joques had been real people with struggles tempered by prayer.

Finding this series in a new catalog was like meeting an old friend. The outside may have changed, but the bond I shared with these narratives back then is stil there. Now, more than ever, St. Katherine remains a friend of the oppressed. I learned that during a time when my reading choices were more simple, but their effects were more permanent.