St. Frances Xavier Cabrini

Biography

St. Frances Xavier Cabrini (1850–1917) was born Maria Francesca Cabrini on July 15, 1850, in Sant'Angelo Lodigiano, in Lombardy, Italy, the youngest of thirteen children. She trained as a teacher and was twice refused admission to religious communities because of her frail health. After working at an orphanage in Codogno, she founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in 1880. She dreamed of serving in China, but Pope Leo XIII told her, 'Not to the East, but to the West,' and sent her to help the Italian immigrants in the United States, many of whom lived in great poverty. She arrived in New York on March 31, 1889. Despite poor health and a fear of water, she crossed the ocean many times and founded schools, orphanages, and hospitals in New York, Chicago, Seattle, Denver, New Orleans, and other cities, as well as in Central and South America and Europe; some sixty-seven institutions are credited to her. She became a U.S. citizen in 1909. She died in Chicago on December 22, 1917. Pope Pius XII beatified her on November 13, 1938, and canonized her on July 7, 1946, making her the first American citizen to be declared a saint. In 1950 he named her patroness of immigrants. Her shrine is in upper Manhattan. Her memorial is kept on this day in the United States.

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