Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini
Virgin
- Feast Day
- November 13
- Life
- 1850–1917
- Canonized
- 1946
- Order
- Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (foundress)
- Born
- Sant'Angelo Lodigiano, Lombardy, Italy
Maria Francesca Cabrini was born on July 15, 1850, near Lodi in Lombardy, the youngest of thirteen children in a farming family. Refused entry to two religious congregations because of fragile health, she instead, at the request of the Bishop of Lodi, took charge of a small orphanage and there in 1880 founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, with herself as superior. She had hoped to be sent as a missionary to China; in 1888 she traveled to Rome to seek papal approval for her institute, and Pope Leo XIII redirected her: not to the East, but to the West - to the millions of Italian immigrants pouring into the United States in conditions of poverty, disease, and exploitation.
She arrived in New York City in 1889 and over the next twenty-eight years made some twenty-three Atlantic crossings, founding sixty-seven institutions across the Americas: schools, orphanages, hospitals, and houses of formation in New York, Chicago, New Orleans, Denver, Los Angeles, Seattle, and in Argentina, Brazil, Nicaragua, and Italy. She became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1909. She died at Columbus Hospital in Chicago, an institution she had founded, on December 22, 1917. Pope Pius XI beatified her in 1938, and Pope Pius XII canonized her on July 7, 1946 - the first United States citizen to be canonized. In 1950 Pius XII designated her the Patroness of Immigrants.
Mother Cabrini's mission was directed by obedience to the Pope rather than her own preference. Her labor among nineteenth-century Italian immigrants - then a despised and exploited population - is a paradigm of the Church's mission of charity to the migrant, and her patronage extends to immigrants of every nation today.
Patronages
immigrants · hospital administrators
From Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini
"I will go anywhere and do anything in order to communicate the love of Jesus to those who do not know Him or have forgotten Him."
Catholic Churches Named After Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini
13 parishes on Catholic Church Times share Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini's name. Find their Mass times, confession schedules, and adoration hours:
- St. Frances Xavier Cabrini — Springfield, IL
- St. Frances Xavier Cabrini — Crestline, CA
- St. Frances Xavier Cabrini — Spring Hill, FL
- Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini Catholic Church — Livonia, LA
- Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini Mission Chapel — Kaplan, LA
- St. Frances Xavier Cabrini — Vassar, MI
- St. Frances Xavier Cabrini — Benton City, WA
- Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini Church — Hoxie, KS
- National Shrine of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini — Chicago, IL
- Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini Catholic Church — El Paso, TX
- St. Frances Xavier Cabrini — Saint Cloud, FL
- St. Frances Xavier Cabrini — Yucaipa, CA
- St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Parish. St. Michael — Rochester, NY
Sources