ST FRANCES XAVIER CABRINI (1850-1917)
St Frances Xavier Cabrini was born in 1850 in the Lombardy region of Italy.
She was a humble woman who led a virtuous life. At the age of twenty-seven she took private religious vows and she added Xavier to her name in honor of St Francis Xavier, a great Jesuit missionary known as the "Apostle of the East". Her desire was to go to China and work for God. She dedicated her whole life to the service and greater glory of God.
In 1880 she founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to evangelize in China, but Pope Leo XIII advised her to go West, not East. She founded orphanages for children of Italian immigrants. She welcomed delinquent youths into safe homes, had a prison ministry, comforted the sick and patients in the hospital.
Her faith was alive and vibrant and she through constant prayer was able to do many things in the service of God. She travelled overseas many times and visited many states. She established sixty-seven institutes in the United States.
She became a naturalized citizen in 1909. An interesting detail is that she became an American citizen in Seattle, Washington, on October 13, 1909, at the age of 59. Mother Cabrini became the first United States citizen to be canonized a saint, when Pope Pius XII canonized her on July 7, 1946.
This is why she is often called America's first saint, even though she was born in Italy.
In 1950, Pope Pius XII also proclaimed her the Universal Patron Saint of Immigrants.
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