Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini

2004

Thesis- While Sister Cabrini's work with the Italian immigrants in the U.S. was primarily to minister to their social, cultural, educational, and health needs, the result was a deepening connection of the Italian immigrants to the Catholic church and a strengthening of the their faith.  

            On July 15, 1850 in Sant'Angelo Lodigiano in the Lombardy region of Italy, Maria Francesca Cabrini was born prematurely and baptized the next day, since she was a small and sickly child and not expected to live. Her parents were immensely devout Catholics and she was also influenced by her parish church, which was a center of missionary spirit.

            Maria Francesca followed her older sister’s footsteps and became a school teacher. Rosa and Frances both were devoted to prayer and charitable works. When Rosa entered religious life, Frances also wanted to be a sister and applied for admission to two religious communities. Due to poor health that was to plague her throughout her live, she was turned down. Mother Cabrini is usually referred to as, “a. small, frail, modest woman.” Though she did not realize it at the time, her pastor also opposed her admission because he valued her work in the local parish. (http://cabrinifoundation.org/history/)

            At the age of 24, toward the end of 1873, her pastor and bishop, asked her to help run a poorly administered orphanage for a few weeks in Codogno. After three years, Cabrini and seven orphans, who wished to follow her, took vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. With these seven young women she founded the Institute of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

            At that time, Frances Cabrini took the name Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini - Xavier, because of her admiration and devotion to the patron saint of missions, Saint Francis Xavier. The local bishop encouraged her to begin an order devoted to missions. “You always wanted to be a missionary,” he said to her. “I know of no such order of women. Why not found one yourself.” “I'll look for a house right away,” she answered. The house turned out to be an abandoned Franciscan monastery in Codogno. On November 14, 1880 the Sacred Heart of Jesus was born. Mother Cabrini was 30 years old.

            As a young child Francis often dreamed of sailing to China while floating paper boats down a stream. She also gave up candy in hopes that the children in China would somehow stumble upon it. While her missions took place all over the world she never reached China. Pope Leo XIII knew of Mother Cabrini’s desire to become a missionary in China, but he told her, “Not to the East, but to the West.” The major factor that contributed to the Pope’s request was the terrible conditions of the Italian immigrants in America, who had no Italian priests or sisters who spoke their language or understood their culture. The Pope directed Mother Cabrini to go to the United States of America and work with Italian immigrants. (http://cabrinifoundation.org/history/)

            Upon her arrival to New York, Cabrini and the sisters that accompanied her were placed in a home by the Scalabrinian Fathers that was located in the slums of New York. The women didn’t even sleep in the beds because they were so infested with bugs (http://cabrinifoundation.org/history/). Following their arrival in America, Cabrini was told by Archbishop Corrigan to go home because there was no convent in the Italian district. She stood up to him and told him she was there “by order of the Holy See” and that she would stay. This demonstrates the steadfastness and strong resolve that was to guide her work with Italian immigrants throughout the United States. Almost immediately she plunged into parish work with the Italian immigrants who had been “cut off from the practice of their faith” due to the language barrier and the lack of Italian priests and sisters. (Galilea, 65-66)

            One of the first things she did was to begin an orphanage for Italian children. Here again she ran into a lack of support from the archbishop, who decreed that money could only be collected from Italians. This posed a significant problem because many of the Italian immigrants were too poor to contribute the sums of money that were needed. Once again, she won over the archbishop, who relented and eventually allowed funds to be collected from all Catholics and eventually he became a strong supporter of the orphanage. (Galilea, 67)

            After a trip back to Italy, she returned to New York with seven sisters. Upon arrival she learned that the Jesuits were willing to sell at a low price a mansion in West Park on the Hudson River. Mother Cabrini felt that this would be an ideal place for the orphanage, but knew that the dilemma in acquiring it would be to convince the archbishop of its value. To gain his support she innocently asked the archbishop where he felt the orphanage should be located without mentioning the Jesuits’ mansion. Mother Cabrini was a clever woman and was well aware that if it was the archbishop’s idea, then the location of the orphanage would be secure. Finally, with attainment of the property, the success of the orphanage was assured.

            In 1892 she traveled to New Orleans, where poverty among the Italian immigrants was even worse than it was in New York. She attended an Italian mass where "the immigrants were elated and joyfully surrounded the sisters on their way out." The immigrants were spiritually starved, since before Sister Cabrini's arrival, there had been no one with the Catholic Church who "...shared the same language, the same sentiments and emotions and the same roots." This all changed, as Sister Cabrini threw herself into the life of the Italian immigrants. Again, while the primary purpose of Sister Cabrini was to cater to the worldly needs of the extremely impoverished immigrants, under her ministry evangelization began to take place. “The people feel God has not forgotten them and the Church is really 'their' Church and their home.” (Galilea, 85)

            Many Italian immigrants from New Orleans came to the sisters for their spiritual guidance and sacramental needs and Archbishop Janssens, a good friend and supporter of Sister Cabrini, moved the Italian parish from the seminary to the sisters' chapel. Unlike New York, the sisters had the strong support of even the wealthy Italians in New Orleans. (Galilea, 86-87)                                                                                   

            In 1892 she traveled back to New York. The Scalabrinian priests wanted her to take over their nearly bankrupt hospital. Not wanting to associate with them, who she considered bad administrators, she declined. She was also wary of not having complete control, since the priests wanted to continue to be ultimately responsible for the hospital. She also had doubts about whether the “apostolate of the sick” was truly her mission. Mother Cabrini had a dream in which she saw the Virgin Mary with a patient and Mary said to her, “I am doing what you don't want to do...” This dream helped convince her that she should become involved in medical missions. In her typical fashion, with help from friends and benefactors, her hospital ministry was begun with creation on 12th Street in Lower Manhattan of a new hospital, now known as Cabrini Medical Center.            Later she established hospitals in Chicago and Seattle. Again, while the primary purpose of Sister Cabrini's medical ministry was to minister to the health care needs of the Italian immigrants, Father Rinaldi, a Scalabrinian priest, “could attest to the growing number of conversions” due to the Sister's new hospital ministry. (Galilea, 88)

            From her medical ministry, Sister Cabrini turned her attention to the educational needs of the Italian immigrants. Archbishop Corrigan, in response to Protestant evangelizing, asked her to begin a new school. This school was to become enormously successful, even while the Protestant school eventually failed. Once again the spiritual and religious ministry was second to the educational needs of the Italian immigrants, but the result of this school was some of the first vocations and the West Park novitiate was nearly full. This would later help to strengthen the shortage of priests and nuns. (Galilea, 91)

            By 1892 the missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus numbered 200 members in 14 houses, a testament to the tremendous success of Sister Cabrini's New York ministry.  (Galilea, 97)

            In 1894 Sister Cabrini was told by the Archbishop that the missionaries of Sacred Heart were no longer needed in New York. Again she stood up to the Archbishop and convinced him that the work of her ministry was not finished.

            Sister Cabrini also created the first bilingual school in 1899 which was, “to offer an integrated Christian formation...” for the children of Italian immigrants. Once again the Archbishop of New York threw up a roadblock, decreeing that the Sisters must purchase their own property for the school with money they obviously did not have. Eventually he relented, agreeing to rent them property for the Sisters’ school. (Galilea, 111)

            In 1899 in Chicago, the Servite Fathers offered the Sisters their parochial school and Sister Cabrini accepted. From there she went to Scranton, where the immigrants there were asking for schools. There Sister Cabrini gathered the necessary resources and founded a bilingual school. From Scranton, she founded a school in Newark, New Jersey. Financially the schools were a burden, since everything, even school materials, were provided free to the immigrant children. To help fund the schools, Sister Cabrini founded a school for wealthy Italians where tuition was charged and this school produced many religious vocations, once again proving that though a secondary goal, Sister Cabrini’s educational ministries produced more than just better educated children of Italian immigrants. This school exists today as the Mother Cabrini High School and her remains lie in the chapel under the altar, having been transferred from West Park, where she was first buried. (Galilea, 113) Her remains are unique because her entire body is on display, but her head is in another location in Italy (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/medny/mccabe.html).

            Beginning in 1902, Sister Cabrini spent four years in the U.S., with the goal of consolidating her many missions. (Galilea, 121) Almost immediately she traveled to Colorado, where she worked with Italian immigrants who primarily worked in the mines under very harsh conditions. (Galilea, 122) Once again she founded a parish school and an orphanage for the many children left fatherless by the dangerous mines.

            From Denver she went to New York, where the hospital she founded was proving to be too small. She addressed this problem by purchasing three adjacent lots. Having at least temporarily solved the hospital’s problem, she traveled to Passaic, New Jersey, where she set up another orphanage.  Then in Chicago she was asked to build a hospital by Bishop Quigley and converted a hotel that is today Columbus Hospital of Chicago.

            In 1903 she traveled to Seattle where there already existed a parochial school that she worked closely with the Jesuits to make a success. (Galilea, 124) After a short visit to Denver, Sister Cabrini traveled to New Orleans, where the orphanage had become too small. Despite pressure from various groups who opposed the Sisters’ efforts, on February 4, 1907 the new orphanage was inaugurated. From Denver, Sister Cabrini traveled to Chicago, where she had to work to annul the contract to remodel the hotel into a hospital, due to crooked contractors. In this, as in almost all of her works, she was successful. Even in the rebuilding of the hospital, she was responsible for the conversion to Catholicism of Protestant workers. (Galilea, 127)

            Exhausted, Sister Cabrini returned to Chicago in 1917, worried about the World War and the effects it would have on human life. Concerned about possible wartime shortages, she bought a farm and personally selected the livestock. (Sullivan, 243) Unexpectedly at midday on December 22nd, 1917 she died while sitting in a chair in her room at Chicago’s Columbus Hospital. She rang her bell to summon the sister who was taking care of her, but by the time she arrived in the room Francis was already gone, the result of a cerebral hemorrhage. (http://cabrinifoundation.org/history/) 

            A novice, Sister Anna Lawrence Infante, summed up Sister Cabrini’s life when she wrote: “Hers was a life lived for God alone…No task was too great, no labor too hard, no journey too long and fatiguing, no sufferings were unbearable when the saving souls and succoring of suffering humanity were in question. (Sullivan, 245)        

            Mother Cabrini founded over 70 hospitals, schools and orphanages in the United States, Spain, France, England, and South America, more than one for every year of her life. Today, the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart continue to oversee missions in 16 countries. Whether the missions are social, educational, or medical they continue to be centers of evangelization. (Provenzano, 303)

             The canonization process is extremely difficult and expensive. It generally takes fifty years and two miracles, are required by the Church. One miracle offered was the restoration of sight to a new born baby who had been blinded and was believed to be incurable. The sisters prayed to Mother Cabrini for his cure and the child regained his sight. In the second miracle a sister who was only given a day or two to live was cured and after praying to Mother Cabrini, she recovered and lived another twenty years.

(http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/medny/mccabe.html)

            Frances Xavier Cabrini was canonized a saint by Pope Pius XII in 1946, the first United States citizen Saint. Above the chair in which she died in was placed a plaque with the words: “From this chair the soul of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini took flight to Heaven.”  (http://www.graveyards.com/holysepulchre/cabrini.html). St. Frances Cabrini is remembered not only for what she accomplished or how far she traveled. She is remembered for trusting in God to assist her in her many endeavors. Her love of God enabled her to “reach out to... the tired, the poor, the broken-hearted, the needy, and the immigrant” while at the same time deepen the faith of the immigrants and help strengthen their ties to the Catholic Church.

(http://cabrinifoundation.org/history/)