When Katharine was twenty-one, her mother was diagnosed
with cancer. Katharine nursed her through three years of intense suffering. During this time she frequently thought that Christ
might be calling her to the religious life. After Emma's death,
Katharine wrote to Bishop O'Connor about it. He advised her to
"Think, pray and wait."
In 1887 Katharine and her two sisters went to Rome and had
a private audience with Pope Leo XIII. Kneeling at his feet,
Katharine pleaded for a missionary priest to be sent to the
Indians of the United States. The Pope responded: "Why not,
my child, yourself become a missionary?" Katharine told her
sisters she did not know what the Pope meant and she was very
frightened and sick.
She had thought about becoming a contemplative religious,
devoting her life to prayer and giving her wealth to the support
of the missions. What the Pope said was a new angle; this was
not the contemplative life to which she felt inclined.