Frances Xavier Cabrini

          Frances Xavier Cabrini was the first United States citizen to be canonized a saint.  Born in Sant’Angelo Lodigiano, Italy, as Maria Francesca Cabrini, she was the youngest of thirteen children.  It is said she had frail health in her youth and once almost drowned, leading to her having a fear of water the rest of her life, a fear she routinely overcame to complete her missionary work.  At an early age she showed signs of the missionary and religious life she would later live.  She loved stories of missionaries and their adventures to Asia.  When visiting her uncle, a priest, she would fill paper boats she made with flowers - her “missionaries” - sailing them down a canal to their assignments in China and India.  She studied at a school run by the Daughters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  After her parents’ death in 1870, Cabrini sought to join the Daughters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and other religious communities, but was denied admission by each because of her health.  Instead, she used the teaching certificate she had earned in school and became a teacher in a nearby village.

          Cabrini’s vocation to religious life would not be stopped.  The town priest noticed her faith and welcoming ways, recommending her to the local bishop who, in turn, asked Cabrini to become the administrator of the House of Providence, an orphanage run by a new religious community called the Sisters of Providence.  Frances entered the order in 1877, adding Xavier to her religious name in honor of the great missionary saint, Francis Xavier.  She was happy to finally be living a religious vocation, but not all was well.  Frances was bullied and harassed, enduring those sufferings with humility and out of love for Jesus.  Under Cabrini, the orphanage added a school and various adult religious education activities, but because of difficulties with the leadership of her religious order, the diocese ultimately dissolved the House of Providence.  

          In 1880, with the encouragement of her bishop, and a desire to live that missionary life she long sought, Frances Xavier Cabrini founded a new religious community: the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (MSSH). She started with 7 sisters in Lodi, Italy. She served as Superior General of the order until her death. In those early years, Mother Cabrini worked to expand the order in Italy, opening up schools and orphanages. The works of Cabrini and her sisters soon caught the attention of Pope Leo XIII. Anticipating an opportunity to finally go to China as missionaries, Mother Cabrini met with Pope Leo XIII but he told her that her desire to be a missionary was to be fulfilled by going West, not East. Many poor Italians had emigrated to the United States. At that time, there were few priests in the United States that spoke Italian. Pope Leo XIII asked Mother Cabrini and her sisters to travel to New York City and care for them. She accepted. In 1889, she and 6 of her sisters boarded a ship named Bourgogne, beginning the journey across the Atlantic.

          The voyage to the United States was difficult and rough. Life in New York City was no different. Mother Cabrini and her sisters didn’t speak English and did not receive a hospitable welcome. Their promised accommodations were not available when they arrived. Neither was the stipend that they expected for support. But they endured. The sisters established catechism programs, orphanages, and hospitals. They would beg for food and supplies, and sought benefactors who might fund their efforts. Soon, Mother Cabrini began to receive requests for help from across the United States and other countries. Cabrini traveled to Chicago in 1899, where Italian immigrants faced a similar plight as in New York. The sisters established schools and, at the request of Bishop Quigley, in 1905, founded Columbus Hospital near Chicago’s Lincoln Park. Her resourcefulness was extraordinary, including purchasing a 32-acre farm so that patients at the hospital could have fresh food. Over time, Mother Cabrini would travel to many other locations, becoming a United States citizen while in Seattle in 1909. In 1917, Mother Cabrini died in Chicago. She was 67. During her life, she established 67 institutions – such as schools, orphanages, and hospitals – that helped shape America’s social and healthcare system. Nine years after her death, the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus finally began to serve in China.

          Mother Cabrini is considered the Universal Patron of Immigrants.  Because of her industriousness, there are many locations in the United States that were touched by Frances Xavier Cabrini.  Pilgrims will likely want to visit her New York City shrine, built on property purchased by Mother Cabrini and which served as the United States novitiate for the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  Her remains are entombed in the chapel.  The National Shrine of Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini is located In Chicago on the grounds near where the Columbus Hospital she founded once operated.  The National Shrine has relics of Mother Cabrini and preserves the room in which she died.