Saint of the day November 13, 2024

On November 13, the Universal Church honors St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, an Italian missionary who spent much of her life working with Italian immigrants in the United States. Mother Cabrini, who had a deathly fear of water and drowning, crossed the Atlantic Ocean more than 30 times in service of the Church and the people she was serving.

The first American citizen to be canonized, Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, was born in a small town in Lombardy, Italy, on July 15, 1850. Two months premature, she remained in delicate health throughout her 67 years.

From a young age, Frances was dedicated to a life of religious work and received a convent education. She graduated with high honors and a teaching certificate. Frances Cabrini first joined the order of the Sisters of Providence

in 1874 where she taught at an orphanage in Cadagono, Italy. Six years later, she began to pursue her ardent interest in serving the poor and needy by founding

the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart. In 1877, she became Mother Cabrini and added Xavier to her name in honor of St. Francis Xavier. She was sent to America by Pope Leo XIII in 1889 to provide for what was then a flood of indigent Italian immigrants.

Soon after arriving in New York City, she created an orphanage for Italian children. Shortly thereafter in 1890, she moved the orphanage out of the city to a beautiful country location at a former Jesuit novitiate in West Park, New York.

Originally named the Sacred Heart Orphan Asylum – and known today as St. Cabrini Home – it has provided a home-like atmosphere, education, and caring guidance to abandoned and wayward children from that year to now.

After establishing her first institution – St. Cabrini Home in 1890 – she embarked upon a ceaseless crisscrossing of the nation, establishing a network of educational, health care, and social service institutions for needy immigrants. Frances was known for her deep prayer life and her resourcefulness. She was always able to find people willing to donate their time, money, and support to her institutions. She became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1909.

In her lifetime, Mother Cabrini established 67 missions – schools, hospitals, orphanages, and convents from Denver to Chicago and from Los Angeles to Philadelphia - in the United States and at sites in thirteen other countries around the world!

In 1917, Mother Cabrini’s frail health finally took her life, and her body was placed at the Saint Cabrini Home. As part of her canonization process, her body was exhumed in 1931. Her head is now preserved in Rome at the chapel of the congregation’s international motherhouse. One of her arms is at the national shrine in Chicago, and the rest of her body rests at a shrine in New York. She was canonized as the First American Saint in 1946. She is the patron saint of immigrants.

Reflection

Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini knew from an early age that God was calling her to serve Him as a religious sister, but she had no idea what abundant fruit her life would produce. She worked one day at a time, fulfilling the will of God each moment, continually entering into the humility, suffering, compassion, and mercy of Jesus’ Sacred Heart. In His Heart she discovered His love for the poor, sick, abandoned, and destitute, and she ministered to them from His Heart, being His mercy for all.
Honor this holy foundress by honoring the Sacred Heart of Jesus. This devotion is especially relevant for those who suffer. Ponder Jesus’ wounded Heart and the love that pours forth from that wound, and you will become a recipient of the mercy Mother Cabrini discovered and shared.