Family Fully Alive

Building the Domestic Church

The family unit is designed to guard, reveal and communicate love

The Family Fully Alive booklet available in the SKD Church Narthex

Our Family Fully Alive Theme for October is Together on Mission. Pope Saint John Paul II exclaimed: “Family become what you are!” In past months during the Family Fully Alive Program we have practiced the virtues of Charity, Hospitality, Hope, Mercy and Forgiveness.  By way of this practice we are fulfilling the mission of what the family is intended to be: to guard, reveal and communicate love. Attending Sunday Mass together, engaging in family prayer, thinking of and caring of others outside of our family, praying for peace and the healing of family wounds are but a few ways in which we can fulfill the mission of our families. To learn more please go to page 41 of the Family Fully Alive Booklet located in the church narthex.

The Knights of Columbus support the Family Fully Alive Initiative.

In the Spring of 1988, Bishop William D. Keeler formed a new parish to accommodate the rapid growth in Silver Spring Township and named Reverend James R. O’Brien as the founding pastor. That same year, Mother Katharine Drexel was beatified by Pope John Paul, II. At Bishop Keeler’s request, the Holy Father gave his permission to name the Parish in Silver Spring Township as the first parish in the world to be named in her honor. Eighteen years later, on October 1, 2000, Blessed Katharine Drexel was canonized and the church’s name changed to Saint Katharine Drexel.

The Saint Katharine Drexel Parish Family, guided by the Holy Spirit, commits itself to reaching out and sharing with all people the love and service modeled by our patroness, with the Eucharist as our source of strength. Through prayer and action, we will serve God, our Lord and Savior, and our community, exhibiting a special concern for the poor, oppressed and marginalized of our society, especially those among the African-American & Native-American peoples.