St. Frances Xavier Cabrini

Life

St. Cabrini was born the youngest of 13 children in a small village in northern Italy. From an early age, she grew up hearing stories of missionaries, and she especially dreamed of missionary work in China. She wanted to become a religious sister and offer herself wholly to God, but she was refused entry by several religious orders on the grounds that her health was frail.

Instead of giving up, she found her calling while caring for children at an orphanage. In 1880 she founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and eventually obtained an audience with Pope Leo XIII. She asked to be sent to China, but the pope said: "Not to the east, but to the west." That "west" meant America.

At that time, America was overflowing with Italian immigrants living in great hardship amid poverty and discrimination. St. Cabrini chose the path God wanted rather than the one she had wanted. Arriving in New York in 1889, she did not retreat in the face of a cold reality and a lack of funds. She built homes for children, established schools, and opened hospitals for the sick.

Patron Saint of Immigrants

People called her "Mother Cabrini." In a strange land, she was like a mother to those who were lonely and abandoned. Despite her frail body, the saint crossed the Atlantic dozens of times, traveling tirelessly not only throughout the United States but also across South America and Europe. The institutions she founded in her lifetime numbered as many as 67. Schools and orphanages, hospitals and mission centers were built through her hands.

On December 22, 1917, the saint returned to God in Chicago, USA, at the age of 67. After her beatification in 1938, she was canonized in 1946, and in 1950 she was officially proclaimed within the Catholic Church as the "Patron Saint of Immigrants." St. Cabrini stands beside us as a special protector of those who feel anxious in a foreign land, those who are lonely because they have not been welcomed, and those whose place in life has been shaken.

Fear nothing. If you place everything in the
hands of God, no one will fail.