Feastday: November 13
Patron: of immigrants, hospital administrators, Lincoln
Birth: 1850
Death: 1917
Beatified: November 13, 1938, by Pope Pius XI
Canonized: July 7, 1946, by Pope Pius XII
St. Frances Xavier Cabrini was born as Maria Francesca Cabrini on July 15, 1850 in Sant' Angelo Lodigiano, Lombardy, Italy. She was born two months premature and the youngest of thirteen children. Unfortunately, only three of her siblings survived past adolescence and Frances would live most of her life in a fragile and delicate state of health.
Frances became dedicated to living a life for religious work from a young age and received a convent education at a school ran by the Daughters of the Sacred Heart. She graduated with high honors and a teaching certificate.
When Frances was 18, she applied for admission to the religious congregation of the Daughters of the Sacred Heart, but was turned down because of her poor health. Instead, a priest asked her to teach at the House of Providence Orphanage in Cadagono, Italy. She taught at the girls' school for six years and drew a community of women in to live the religious way of life.
In 1877, she became Mother Cabrini after she finally made her vows and took the religious habit, also adding Xavier to her name in honor of St. Francis Xavier.
When the House of Providence Orphanage closed, her bishop asked her, along with six other women from her orphanage in Cadagono, to found the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart to care for the poor children in both schools and hospitals. Frances composed the Rule and Constitution for the religious institute.
In its first five years, the institute established seven homes and a free school and nursery. Frances wanted to continue her mission in China, but Pope Leo XIII urged her to go to the United States, a nation that was becoming flooded with Italian immigrants who needed her help. "Not to the East, but the West," was his advice to her.
On March 31, 1889, Frances arrived in New York City along with six other sisters ready to begin her new journey. However, right from the beginning she encountered many disappointments and hardships. The house originally attended for her new orphanage was no longer available, but Frances did not gve up, even though the archbishop insisted she return to Italy.
After she refused, Archbishop Michael Corrigan found them housing with the convent of the Sisters of Charity. Frances then received permission to found an orphanage in what is now West Park, New York and now known as Saint Cabrini Home.
Filled with a deep trust in God and endowed with a wonderful administrative ability, Frances founded 67 institutions, including orphanages, schools, and hospitals, within 35 years dedicated to caring for the poor, uneducated, sick, abandoned, and especially for the Italian immigrants. Her institutions were spread out in places all over the United States, including New York, Colorado, and Illinois.
Frances was known for being as resourceful as she was prayerful. She was always able to find people to donate their money, time, and support for her institutions.
In 1909, Frances became a naturalized citizen of the United States.
Eight years later, on December 22, 1917, Frances passed at the age of 67, due to complications from dysentery at the Columbus Hospital, one of her own hospitals, in Chicago, Illinois.
Frances' body was originally placed at the Saint Cabrini Home, but was exhumed in 1931 as part of her canonization process. Her head is preserved in Rome at the chapel of the congregation's international motherhouse. One of her arms is at the national shrine in Chicago, and the rest of her body rests at a shrine in New York.
Frances has two miracles attributed to her. She restored sight to a child who was believed to have been blinded by excess silver nitrate, and she healed a terminally ill member of her congregation.
St. Frances Xavier Cabrini was beatified on November 13, 1938, by Pope Pius XI and canonized by Pope Pius XII on July 7, 1946, making her the first United States citizen to be canonized. Her feast day is celebrated on November 13 and she is the patron saint of immigrants.
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Italian-American Roman Catholic nun and saint
Frances Xavier Cabrini M.S.C. (Italian: Francesca Saverio Cabrini; July 15, 1850 – December 22, 1917), also called Mother Cabrini, was an Italian-American Roman Catholic nun. She founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a Catholic religious institute that was a major support to her fellow Italian immigrants to the United States. She was the first U.S. citizen to be canonized as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church, on July 7, 1946. (Elizabeth Ann Seton in 1975 became the first canonized saint who was born in what is now the United States.)
Early life
She was born Maria Francesca Cabrini on July 15, 1850, in Sant'Angelo Lodigiano, in the Lombard Province of Lodi, then part of the Austrian Empire. She was the youngest of the thirteen children of farmers Agostino Cabrini and Stella Oldini. Only four of the thirteen survived beyond adolescence.
Born two months early, she was small and weak as a child and remained in delicate health throughout her life. During her childhood, she visited an uncle, Don Luigi Oldini of Livagra, a priest who lived beside a swift canal. While there, she made little boats of paper, dropped violets in them, called the flowers "missionaries", and launched them to sail off to India and China. At thirteen, Francesca attended a school run by the Daughters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Five years later she graduated cum laude, with a teaching certificate.
After her parents died in 1870, she applied for admission to the Daughters of the Sacred Heart at Arluno. These sisters were her former teachers, but reluctantly, they told her she was too frail for their life. She became the headmistress of the House of Providence orphanage in Codogno, where she taught and drew a small community of women to live a religious way of life. Cabrini took religious vows in 1877 and added Xavier (Saverio) to her name to honor the Jesuit saint, Francis Xavier, the patron saint of missionary service.
Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
In November 1880, she and seven other women who had taken religious vows with her founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (M.S.C.). Cabrini composed the Rule and Constitutions of the religious institute, and she continued as its superior general until her death. The sisters took in orphans and foundlings, opened a day school to help pay expenses, started classes in needlework and sold their fine embroidery to earn a little more money. The institute established seven homes and a free school and nursery in its first five years. Its good works brought Cabrini to the attention of Giovanni Scalabrini, Bishop of Piacenza, and of Pope Leo XIII.
Mission to United States
Stained glass window in Chesapeake, Virginia, depicting Mother Cabrini
In September 1887, Cabrini went to seek the pope's approval to establish missions in China. Instead, he urged that she go to the United States to help the Italian immigrants who were flooding to that nation, mostly in great poverty. "Not to the East, but to the West" was his advice.
Cabrini left for the United States, arriving in New York City on March 31, 1889, along with six other sisters. In New York she encountered disappointment and difficulties. Archbishop Michael Corrigan, who was not immediately supportive, found them housing at the convent of the Sisters of Charity. She obtained the archbishop's permission to found the Sacred Heart Orphan Asylum in West Park, New York, later renamed Saint Cabrini Home.
Cabrini organized catechism and education classes for the Italian immigrants and provided for many orphans' needs. She established schools and orphanages despite tremendous odds. She was as resourceful as she was prayerful, finding people who would donate what she needed in money, time, labor, and support. In New York City, she founded Columbus Hospital, which merged with Italian Hospital to become Cabrini Medical Center from 1973 until its closure in 2008.
In Chicago, the sisters opened Columbus Hospital in Lincoln Park and Columbus Extension Hospital (later renamed Saint Cabrini Hospital) in the heart of the city's Italian neighborhood on the Near West Side. Both hospitals eventually closed in 2001–2002. Their foundress's name lives on in Chicago's Cabrini Street.
She founded 67 missionary institutions to serve the sick and poor, long before government agencies provided extensive social services – in New York; Chicago and Des Plaines, Illinois; Seattle; New Orleans; Denver and Golden, Colorado; Los Angeles; Philadelphia; and in countries throughout Latin America and Europe. Long after her death, the Missionary Sisters would achieve Cabrini's goal of being missionaries to China. In only a short time, after much social and religious upheaval there, the Sisters left China and, subsequently, a Siberian placement.
Cabrini was naturalized as a United States citizen in 1909.
Death
Cabrini died of complications from malaria at age 67 in Columbus Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, on December 22, 1917, while preparing Christmas candy for the local children. Her body was initially interred at what became Saint Cabrini Home, the orphanage she founded in West Park, Ulster County, New York.
Veneration
In 1933, her body was exhumed and divided as part of the process toward sainthood. At that time, her head was removed and is preserved in the chapel of the congregation's international motherhouse in Rome. Her heart is preserved in Codogno, where she founded her missionary order. An arm bone is at her national shrine in Chicago. Most of the rest of her body is at her shrine in New York.
Cabrini was beatified on November 13, 1938, by Pope Pius XI, and canonized on July 7, 1946, by Pope Pius XII. Her beatification miracle involved restoring the sight of a day-old baby who had been blinded by a 50% silver nitrate solution instead of the normal 1% solution in the child's eyes. The child, named Peter Smith (1921–2002), would later be present at her beatification and become a priest. Her canonization miracle involved the healing of a terminally ill member of her congregation. When she was canonized, an estimated 120,000 people filled Chicago's Soldier Field for a Mass of thanksgiving.
In the Roman Martyrology, her feast day is December 22, the anniversary of her death, the day ordinarily chosen as a saint's feast day. Following the reforms in Pope John XXIII's Code of Rubrics, the United States since 1961 has celebrated Cabrini's feast on November 13, the anniversary of her beatification, to avoid conflicting with the greater ferias of Advent.
In 1950, Pope Pius XII named Frances Xavier Cabrini as the patron saint of immigrants, recognizing her efforts on their behalf across the Americas in schools, orphanages, hospitals, and prisons.
Cabrini is also informally recognized as an effective intercessor for finding a parking space. As one priest explained: "She lived in New York City. She understands traffic."
Shrines
Chicago, Illinois (National Shrine)
National Shrine in Chicago
Main article: National Shrine of Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini
After Cabrini's death, her convent room at Columbus Hospital, in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood, became a popular destination for the faithful seeking personal healing and spiritual comfort. Due to the overwhelming number of pilgrims after her canonization in 1946, the Archbishop of Chicago, Cardinal Samuel Stritch, commissioned a large National Shrine in her honor within the hospital complex. He dedicated the shrine in 1955.
The hospital and shrine closed in 2002 to be replaced by a high-rise development on North Lakeview Avenue. Still, the shrine and Cabrini's room were preserved and refurbished during the long demolition and construction period. They were solemnly blessed and re-dedicated by Cardinal Francis George on September 30, 2012, and reopened to the public the next day. The shrine is an architectural gem of gold mosaics, Carrara marble, frescoes, and Florentine stained glass, functioning as a stand-alone center for prayer, worship, spiritual care, and pilgrimage.
Golden, Colorado
Stone House in Golden, Colorado
Main article: Mother Cabrini Shrine
In 1904, Cabrini established Denver's Queen of Heaven Orphanage for girls, including many orphans of local Italian miners. In 1910, she purchased a rural property from the town of Golden, on the east slope of Lookout Mountain, as a summer camp for the girls. A small farming operation was established and maintained by three of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart. The camp dormitory, built of native rock and named the Stone House, was completed in 1914 and later listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Where Cabrini had once located an underground spring on the mountainside, a replica of the Lourdes Grotto was built in 1929, later replaced by a simpler sandstone structure. After Cabrini's canonization, the campsite officially became a shrine. Extensive additions in 1954 included a long Stairway of Prayer for pilgrims following her footpath up the mountain, marked with the Stations of the Cross, leading to a 22-foot (7 m) Statue of Jesus at the highest point of the site.
Queen of Heaven Orphanage closed in 1967, replaced by a system of foster care. The summer campsite became a year-round facility for retreats and small prayer gatherings. A new convent building, completed in 1970, includes housing for the resident Sisters, overnight accommodations for visitors, a chapel dedicated to the Sacred Heart, and an exhibit of artifacts and clothing once used by Cabrini. The statues and stained-glass windows of the chapel came from Villa Cabrini Academy in Burbank, California, a former school founded by the Missionary Sisters.
Upper Manhattan, New York
Cabrini Shrine in Manhattan
Main article: St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Shrine
The St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Shrine in the Hudson Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan overlooks the Hudson River, the George Washington Bridge, and the New Jersey Palisades. As Cabrini's cause for sainthood accelerated in 1933, the Missionary Sisters moved her remains from the Sacred Heart Orphanage she had founded in rural West Park, New York, to the chapel of a Catholic school she had founded in Manhattan, freshly renamed Mother Cabrini High School. When it became a popular pilgrimage site with her beatification in 1938, the Sisters enshrined the major portion of her body in a glass-enclosed coffin under the altar of the school chapel. Her 1946 canonization brought a further sustained level of public interest, so in 1957–1960 a larger shrine was built adjoining the school. When the new shrine was near completion in 1959, her remains were transferred to a large bronze-and-glass reliquary casket in the shrine's altar. She still rests in perpetual display for veneration, covered with her religious habit and a sculpted face mask and hands for more-lifelike viewing. In addition to accommodating the public, the new shrine also served Cabrini High School students as a place for their liturgies and prayer services until the school closed in 2014. "Today, the shrine continues as a center of welcome for new immigrants and pilgrims of many nationalities who come to pray and reflect."
Other shrines
Shrine in St George's Cathedral, Southwark
Southwark, London, England: In St George's Cathedral, Southwark, which Cabrini regularly attended during her time in London, a shrine was dedicated to her in 2009, designed by brothers Theodore, James, and Gabriel Gillick. The bronze sculpture depicts the saint watching over a group of migrants standing on a pile of suitcases.
Burbank, California, U.S.: Near the site of Villa Cabrini Academy (1937–1970), Burbank's Cabrini shrine consists of a chapel founded by Cabrini in 1916, relocated to St. Francis Xavier Church and renovated during 1973–1975, and joined by a library wing in 1993. The Italian Catholic Federation sponsors the shrine.
Lewiston, New York, U.S.: Near Niagara Falls, the Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima includes a shrine to Cabrini along the Avenues of Saints.
Lower Manhattan, New York, U.S.: Our Lady of Pompeii Church was founded in 1892 as a national parish to serve the Italian-American immigrants of Greenwich Village. Cabrini and her Missionary Sisters taught religious education there for a time, and the church now honors her with a shrine, a statue, and a stained-glass window.
Peru, New York, U.S.: In 1947, one year after Cabrini's canonization, a shrine was dedicated to her in Peru, New York. The shrine is a stone grotto located on the grounds of St. Patrick's, a mission church built in 1841 for Irish immigrants.
Scranton, Pennsylvania, U.S.: In 1899–1900, Cabrini helped to found St. Lucy parish and school for Scranton's Italian immigrants. A century later, the church dedicated a shrine in honor of St. Cabrini.
Legacy
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Churches and parishes
Italy
- St. Frances Cabrini Parish (parrocchia Santa Francesca Cabrini), Codogno
- St. Frances Cabrini Parish (parrocchia Santa Francesca Cabrini), Lodi
- St. Frances Cabrini Parish (parrocchia Santa Francesca Cabrini), Rome
- St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City, 18-foot (5.5 m) statue of "S. Francisca Xaveria Cabrini", included among 39 saints who founded religious congregations
United States
- St. Frances Cabrini Church in Camp Verde, Arizona
- St. Frances Cabrini Church in Tucson, Arizona
- St. Frances Cabrini Parish in San Jose, California
- St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Catholic Church in Yucaipa, California
- St. Frances Cabrini Catholic Church in Littleton, Colorado
- St. Frances Cabrini Church in North Haven, Connecticut
- St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Catholic Church, Parrish, Florida
- St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Catholic Parish in Spring Hill, Florida
- St. Frances Cabrini Church in Savannah, Georgia
- St. Frances Cabrini Parish, Springfield, Illinois
- St. Frances Cabrini Church in New Orleans, Louisiana, built in 1953 and destroyed in Hurricane Katrina in 2005
- The former St. Frances X. Cabrini Church in Scituate, Massachusetts, officially closed in 2004 but kept open by parishioners until 2016
- St. Frances Cabrini Parish in Allen Park, Michigan
- St. Frances Cabrini Catholic Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota
- St. Frances Cabrini Catholic Church in Paris, Missouri
- St. Frances Cabrini Church in Omaha, Nebraska
- St. Frances Cabrini Church, Brooklyn, New York
- St. Frances Cabrini Church, Roosevelt Island, New York
- St. Frances Cabrini Catholic Church in Conneaut, Ohio
- St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Parish in Lorain, Ohio
- St. Frances Cabrini Catholic Church in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania
- St. Frances Cabrini Catholic Church in Lebanon, Tennessee
- St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Catholic Church in El Paso, Texas
- St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Catholic Church in Benton City, Washington
- St. Frances Cabrini Parish, West Bend, Wisconsin
Other countries
- St Francesca Cabrini Italian Church in Bedford, England
Educational institutions
Mother Cabrini High School, New York City
Italy
- Istituto Comprensivo "F.S. Cabrini" in Milan
United States
- The former Villa Cabrini Academy (1937–1970) in Burbank, California
- St. Frances Cabrini School in Savannah, Georgia
- Cabrini High School in New Orleans, Louisiana
- Cabrini High School in Allen Park, Michigan
- St. Frances Cabrini Academy elementary school in St. Louis, Missouri
- Saint Frances Cabrini Catholic Academy in Brooklyn, New York
- The former Mother Cabrini High School (1899–2014) in Manhattan, New York
- St. Frances Cabrini Catholic School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Cabrini University in Radnor, Pennsylvania
- The former St. Frances Cabrini School (now the Cabrini Apartments) on St. Frances Cabrini Avenue in Scranton, Pennsylvania
- Mother Cabrini School in Caparra Heights, Puerto Rico
Other countries
- Instituto Cabrini in Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Ensemble Scolaire Françoise Cabrini in Noisy-le-Grand, France (former orphanage)
- LPU-St. Cabrini College of Allied Medicine in Calamba City, Laguna, Philippines
- Colegio Santa Francisca Javier Cabrini in Madrid, Spain
Hospitals
- St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Hospital, in Malvern and Brighton, Melbourne, Australia
- Santa Cabrini Hospital, founded in 1958 in Montreal, Canada, honoring her popularity among the Italian community
- St. Frances Cabrini Medical Center and Cancer Institute in Santo Tomas City, Batangas, Philippines
- The former St. Cabrini Hospital (c.1946–c.2002) in Chicago, Illinois, which she founded in 1905 as Columbus Hospital, now the site of her National Shrine
- Christus St. Frances Cabrini Hospital in Alexandria, Louisiana, founded shortly after her canonization, and named because Bishop Charles Greco had met her in his childhood, CHRISTUS St. Frances Cabrini Hospital
- The former Cabrini Medical Center (1973–2008) in Manhattan, New York, whose predecessor Columbus Hospital was co-founded by Mother Cabrini in 1892
Other tributes
- St. Cabrini Home, West Park, New York, was Mother Cabrini's early orphanage, headquarters, and burial place.
- The Cabrini Mission Foundation, founded in 1998, is a non-profit organization that raises funds to support Cabrini programs and institutions focused on health care, education, and social services.
- The Cabrini Sisters operate Cabrini Eldercare, a pair of non-profit residential facilities in Manhattan and Dobbs Ferry, New York.
- Cabrini was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1996.
- Milan Central railway station was dedicated to Cabrini in 2010.
- Chicago's Cabrini–Green housing project, which has since been mostly torn down, was named after her due to her work with Italian immigrants in the location. It has since become a haven for underprivileged and poor people, and the Cabrini Sisters still work there.
- Cabrini Boulevard and "Cabrini Woods Nature Sanctuary" are adjacent to the Cabrini shrine in Manhattan, New York.
- Mother Cabrini Park was created in Brooklyn, New York, in 1992.
- Mother Cabrini Park in Newark, New Jersey, includes a 1958 statue of the saint on the former site of one of her schools.
- Pope Francis's religious vocation was partly inspired by Mother Cabrini's ministry to his family's Italian immigrant community in Argentina.
- In a 2019 New York City survey, Mother Cabrini was "the leading vote-getter by far" among more than 300 nominees for the "She Built NYC" municipal statue program. On Columbus Day 2020, her public memorial was unveiled in Manhattan's Battery Park City, looking out at the immigration landmarks of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.
- Colorado renamed its Columbus Day state holiday as Cabrini Day, starting in 2020.
