Image 1 of 1: Shrine to Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini in Saint George’s Cathedral
Saints and feasts
St. Frances Xavier Cabrini
Frances Cabrini's life in December stands out because her work was immense. She crossed oceans, opened schools and hospitals, fought through confusion and opposition, and stayed fixed on the poor immigrants she had come to serve.
The reading
ⓘ Butler source
Butler's Lives of the Saints, Volume IV (October-November-December), December 22, St Frances Xavier Cabrini, Christian Classics 1990, pp. 593-596.
Frances Cabrini's story runs from her youthful desire for mission life, through the failure of the first house she tried to steady, to the simple instruction that she should found a missionary institute herself. From Codogno she built the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, first for girls in Italy and then, by Pope Leo XIII's direction, for Italian immigrants in the Americas. The full account includes the rough arrival in New York, her refusal to go back when local plans collapsed, the founding of orphanages, schools, and hospitals, and the rapid spread of houses across North and South America and Europe.
She was small in body but immense in will, strict in government, fearless in action, and practical in charity. By her sudden death in Chicago in 1917, the little band had become an international missionary family.
Historical note
This life uses St. Frances Xavier Cabrini because Butler gives her the fullest substantial life on the date by far.
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Novena to St. Frances Xavier Cabrini (Mother Cabrini)
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