Saint frances xavier cabrini biography for kids
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America’s first saint was an immigrant — who didn’t want to go to the United States.
Dec. 22, , marked the th anniversary of the death of Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini (), the Italian-born nun who longed to be a missionary to China. Instead, she crossed the Atlantic to minister to Italian immigrants in America.
No doubt she arrived with the same determination that gave her the courage — the faith — to found her own congregation in the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. This after being turned away by two other congregations because of her frail health.
Why New York City and not Peking? Because when she shared her plans with Pope Leo XIII, he told her to head West, not East. To America, not China. And so Mother Cabrini arrived in , to a land where native-born citizens, political leaders and bishops were concerned with the number of immigrants who had come during the previous decade. A number, a torrent, that showed every sign of growing.
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Francesca Cabrini&#;s Early Life
The Beginning
Frances Cabrini was born two months premature in S’ant Angelo Lodigiano in the province of Lombardy, northern Italy, on July 15,
Her father, Agostino, was a farmer and her mother, Stella, stayed at home with the children. Frances was the tenth of eleven siblings only four of whom survived beyond adolescence. Small and weak as a child, these characteristics influenced her entire life.
Her Education and Spirituality
Her parents’ strong faith was transmitted to her by word and example. Her father would read to the family from the Annals of the Propagation of the Faith, telling stories of the great missionaries. The stories of the missions in China made a particularly strong impression on Frances and at an early age, she desired to travel there as a missionary.
At the time of her youth, devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus was at its peak and provided a spiritual foundation to the work of the missions.
When she was old enough she
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Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini
Image: Statue of Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini in the portico of the skyddad plats of the Blessed Virgin of the Rosary in Pompei | photo by Dario Crespi
Saint of the Day for November 13
(July 15, – månad 22, )
Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini’s Story
Frances Xavier Cabrini was the first United States citizen to be canonized. Her deep trust in the loving care of her God gave her the strength to be a valiant woman doing the work of Christ.
Refused admission to the religious order which had educated her to be a teacher, she began charitable work at the House of Providence Orphanage in Cadogno, Italy. In September , she made her vows there and took the religious habit.
When the bishop closed the orphanage in , he named Frances prioress of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart. Seven ung women from the orphanage joined her.
Since her early childhood in Italy, Frances had wanted to be a missionär in China but, at the urging of Po