St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, Virgin (Feast day November 13) St. Frances was born in
Lombardi, Italy in 1850, one of thirteen children. At eighteen, she desired to become a
Nun, but poor health stood in her way. She helped her parents until their death, and
then worked on a farm with her brothers and sisters.
One day a priest asked her to teach in a girls' school and she stayed for six years. At the
request of her Bishop, she founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart to care for
poor children in schools and hospitals. Then at the urging of Pope Leo XIII she came to
the United States with six nuns in 1889 to work among the Italian immigrants.
Filled with a deep trust in God and endowed with a wonderful administrative ability,
this remarkable woman soon founded schools, hospitals, and orphanages in this strange
land and saw them flourish in the aid of Italian immigrants and children. At the time of
her death, at Chicago, Illinois on December 22, 1917, her institute numbered houses in
England, France, Spain, the United States, and South America. In 1946, she became the
first American citizen to be canonized when she was elevated to sainthood by Pope Pius
XII. St. Frances is the patroness of immigrants.
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