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Views from the Choir Loft

Women’s Liberation

Fr. David Friel · March 4, 2012

She was a woman born into wealth and prestige. She bore a family name of tremendous local power. She had the benefit of a very fine education.

An encounter with the pope at age 29 changed her life forever. It gave her the courage to divest herself of the family fortune into which she had been born. She began a new life as a religious sister, founding missions and schools to serve African & Native Americans. She lived for years in what is now the hospital I visit every week, and she now is buried three miles from the rectory in which I live.

Saint Katharine Drexel was a liberated woman before the term “women’s liberation” was coined. She was truly liberated—free to love God and neighbor, without fear. The movement of women’s so-called “liberation,” on the other hand, seeks freedom in very misguided ways. It defines liberation in terms of voting rights, equal education, and opportunities to pursue professional careers. These are all good things, in themselves, but none of them is the secret to true freedom.

Mother Katharine always looked up to the Blessed Mother, who is the only truly liberated woman (or man, for that matter) in human history. Taking Mary as her model taught Mother Katharine that authentic liberation is found only in one place.

It is not in the voting booth. It will never be found in contraceptives. Nor is it sitting behind an executive desk.

The only source of true liberation for all people (men & women) is the only thing that will ultimately matter. It was the center of Mother Katharine’s life: the Most Blessed Sacrament.

May the Heart of Jesus, in the Most Blessed Sacrament, be praised, adored, and loved with grateful affection at every moment, in all the tabernacles of the world! Amen.

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

Filed Under: Articles Last Updated: January 1, 2020

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About Fr. David Friel

Ordained in 2011, Father Friel served as Parochial Vicar at Saint Anselm Church in Northeast Philly before earning a doctorate in liturgical theology at The Catholic University of America. He presently serves as Vocation Director for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.—(Read full biography).

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Quick Thoughts

14 May 2022 • “Pure” Vatican Edition

As readers know, my choir has been singing from the “pure” Editio Vaticana. That is to say, the official rhythm which—technically—is the only rhythm allowed by the Church. I haven’t figured out how I want the scores to look, so in the meantime we’ve been using temporary scores that look like this. Stay tuned!

—Jeff Ostrowski
14 May 2022 • Gorgeous Book

If there is a more beautiful book than Abbat Pothier’s 1888 Processionale Monasticum, I don’t know what it might be. This gorgeous tome was today added to the Saint John Lalande Online Library. I wish I owned a physical copy.

—Jeff Ostrowski
Sound Familiar?

1 June 1579: “The chapter passes a rule that anyone ascending to the new organ without official permission shall be fined a month’s pay.”

26 October 1579: “The altar boys remain always separate and distinct from choirboys—the one group learning only plainchant and assisting at the altar, the other living with the chapel-master and studying counterpoint and polyphony as well. Father Francisco Guerrero postpones his departure for Rome and instead spends the entire year in Seville making ready for the trip. In the meantime he neglects his choirboys. On 16 November, after considerable complaint against their unruliness and ignorance, he engages an assistant, Bartolomé Farfán.”

—Jeff Ostrowski

Random Quote

“From six in the evening, his martyrdom had continued through the ghastly night until nine o’clock in the morning. After fifteen hours of torture rarely if ever surpassed in the bloody annals of the Iroquois, the soul of Gabriel Lalemant was freed from its charred and mutilated prison and summoned to join his comrade Jean de Brébeuf in the radiant splendor of God. March 17th, 1649, was the date; for Brébeuf it had been the sixteenth.”

— ‘Fr. John A. O’Brien, speaking of St. Gabriel Lalemant’

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