Resurrection of the Lord Parish
Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini
(1850-1917)
November 13
Burly longshoremen glared at the woman in widow’s dress who interrupted their drinking to beg money, in broken Engish, for her orphanage. The bar exploded in laughter as one man responded by spitting in her face. “That was for me,” the woman smiled. “Do you have anything for the children?” Given today’s national debate, could it be as much God’s sense of humor as God’s will for our sanctification that our first “American” saint should be an immigrant and naturalized citizen? Frances Cabrini, adopting the name “Xavier,” confided to Pope Leo XIII her longing to follow her Jesuit patron to Asia. But the Pope replied, “Not East—West!” So she and her Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart exchanged exotic dreams of China for the impoverished reality of Italian ghettos across the United States and Central and South America. Before her death, Frances had founded seventy educational, health care, child, and family service institutions. Today, from Siberia to Ethiopia, in sixteen countries, Mother Cabrini’s sisters and lay associates embody her practical spirituality: “Let’s get to work! We’ll have eternity to rest!”
— Peter Scagnelli