(Short Version)
November 13: Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, Virgin—USA Memorial
1850–1917
Patron Saint of immigrants, emigrants, hospital administrators, and orphans
Invoked against malaria
Canonized by Pope Pius XII on July 7, 1946
Maria Francesca Cabrini (Frances) was born in Sant’Angelo Lodigiano, Lombardy, modern-day Italy. As a child, she listened attentively to her father’s inspiring stories about foreign missionaries. Her mother and older sister Rosa taught her to pray and devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Of her Confirmation at age eight, Frances said, “from that moment I was no longer of the earth.”
Frances’ convent education inspired her to become a sister, but she was rejected because of poor health. Earning a teaching certificate, she taught in parish schools. After her parents’ deaths and her own recovery from smallpox, yet another convent turned her away. While Frances was assisting at a girls’ orphanage in Codogno, she saw that some of the girls were interested in religious life. She and five of the girls professed vows in 1877. Frances added Xavier to her name to honor the Jesuit missionary Saint Francis Xavier, and she became mother superior. In 1880, the bishop invited Mother Cabrini to form a convent in Codogno that would become the Institute of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, where she would serve as mother superior for thirty-seven years.
With very little means, Mother Cabrini quickly arranged the new convent. An altar with an image of the Sacred Heart became the source of meditation and prayer for the young sisters. The order experienced rapid growth, supported by the sisters’ needlework and embroidery. Within a year, an orphanage and day school were added. Within five years there were seven convents.
While on a visit to Rome where Pope Leo XIII approved her rule and constitutions in March 1888, Mother Cabrini told the pope of her desire to establish a mission in China. The Holy Father quickly replied, “You will go not to the East, but to the West!” Mother Cabrini and her sisters soon sailed to the United States. Facing the unexpected challenge of serving destitute Italian immigrants, she would remind herself, “I can do all things in Christ Who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).
When Mother Cabrini and six sisters arrived in New York on March 31, 1889, the convent wasn’t ready, and Archbishop Corrigan urged them to return to Italy temporarily. Mother Cabrini refused, saying that she must obey the pope. Eventually, the archbishop permitted the sisters to move into the convent in the poor Italian section of Manhattan. They started a free school, taught in the local parish, founded an orphanage for hundreds of children, begged for alms, and attracted more sisters.
Over the next twenty-seven years, Mother Cabrini sailed across the ocean about twenty-five times, founding over sixty hospitals, orphanages, schools, and convents in the United States, South American, and Europe. While at sea, she wro
