August 20,2023 - "Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini"

When I went on a pilgrimage to France in 2008, one of the places we visited was the Basilica of Sainte-Thérèse in Lisieux, France.  One of the surprises of that visit to Lisieux was to see the statue there that had been donated by the Bishops of the United States.  It was of Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini with the inscription on the statue as our first citizen saint.  Here is the remarkable story of that valiant woman of God, Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini.
 
Frances was born in a town south of Milan in 1850.  Although she thought that she had a vocation to religious life, she was rejected as a candidate by two congregations because they thought she was too frail for the rigors for convent life.  She then became involved in charitable work at the House of Providence Orphanage in Cadogno, Italy.  Because of problems in the administration of the orphanage, the diocesan bishop closed the orphanage in 1880.  He recognized that Frances had a vocation to religious life and that she would be a good leader for a new institute called the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart.
 
Frances longed to do missionary work in China, but a number of Italian bishops thought that the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart would be better suited to work in the United States where so many Italian immigrants were settling and finding life there to be very difficult.  She went to see Pope Leo XIII about this matter who counseled her thus, “My daughter, your field awaits you not in the East but in the West.” So, in 1889 she and six other sisters sailed for the United States.
 
Upon her arrival Mother Cabrini found disappointment and difficulties everywhere she turned.  The house intended to be their first orphanage in the United States was withdrawn.  The Archbishop of New York encouraged her to sail back to Italy.  She asked for three months.  She told the archbishop that if they had not found suitable arrangements, the seven Missionaries of the Sacred Heart would return to Italy.  Since Pope Leo had encouraged them to take up this work, she was not going to give up easily.  The archbishop granted her the three months and was very pleasantly surprised when she succeeded in establishing the orphanage within the next three months.
 
In the next thirty-five years Mother Cabrini founded sixty-seven institutions dedicated to caring for the poor, the abandoned, the uneducated, and the sick.  Because she saw great need among Italian immigrants who were losing their faith, she organized schools and adult education classes.
 
Because of an experience in childhood, Mother Cabrini was always frightened of drowning—a fear she never quite overcame.  In light of that it is remarkable that she made over thirty ocean voyages as part of her work as the General Superior of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart.  She died of malaria in Columbus Hospital in 1917—an institution that she herself had established.
 
Let me finish this column with a quotation from Pope Pius XII from the homily of her canonization on July 7, 1946: “Although her constitution was very frail, her spirit was endowed with such singular strength that, knowing the will of God in her regard, she permitted nothing to impede her from accomplishing what seemed beyond the strength of a woman.”
 
To the Pope’s comment, I would add and beyond the strength of a man as well.
 
Until next week,
Fr. John