St. Frances Xavier Cabrini

We honor today a heroine who is honored both in Italy and all over the USA for her help to immigrants over 100 years ago.  St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, was born in Lombardia, Italy in 1850, the youngest of thirteen children. Two months premature, she remained in delicate health throughout her 67 years. As a young girl, Francesca was taken care of by her older sister Rosa, because her mother was 52 when Maria Francesca was born. At 13, she was sent to Arluno to study under the Daughters of the Sacred Heart at the Normal School, and in 1868, at 18 she was certified as a teacher. Four years later she contracted smallpox. When she tried to enter into the Daughters of the Sacred Heart, Mother Superior refused admission, even though they saw potential in her, because of her frail health. She helped her parents until their death, and then worked on a farm with her siblings. One day a priest asked her to teach in a girls' school and she stayed for six years. At the request of her Bishop, she founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart to care for poor children in schools and hospitals. Although her lifelong dream was to be a missionary in China, Pope Leo XIII sent her to New York City on March 31, 1889 with six other nuns. There, she obtained the permission of Archbishop Michael Corrigan to found an orphanage, which is located in West Park, Ulster County, NY today known as Saint Cabrini Home, the first of 67 institutions she founded in New York, Chicago, Seattle, New Orleans, Denver, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and in countries throughout South America and Europe, especially Italy, England, France, Spain.  

Mother Cabrini welcoming Italian immigrants to New York.

When she arrived in New York City, the place was an urban jungle of chaos and poverty, teeming with Italian immigrants coming to terms with their new home which still felt foreign and alienating. These immigrants had come to the United States looking for opportunities to improve their lives, but a new life could only be gained in the cities of America through back-breaking work and struggle. The city was full of orphans who needed basic care and education. Mother Cabrini was resolved to assist these children. Along with her religious sisters, she gave herself over to the poor, eventually establishing schools, hospitals, and orphanages all over the world. When Mother Cabrini was declared a saint in 1946, Pope Pius XII commented that she had become world-famous not because she had wealth or prestige, but rather because of the way she lived her life. She took heavy responsibilities, often by engaging in unenviable and thankless tasks. Her joy was in personal interactions with individuals in need. She probably didn’t even know she was on the path to sainthood, but her influence was so much larger than she ever could have dreamed. St. John Paul II in one of his speeches commented that she drew her strength from prayer, especially from long periods before the tabernacle, and her deep devotion to the Sacred Heart.