December 22
Saints of the Day...and Events
 

St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, 1850-1917, Virgin, Patron of immigrants
The sickly Italian who founded 67 institutions for the poor and the sick, the first United States citizen to be canonized. Founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart

    Frances Xavier Cabrini was the first United States citizen to be canonized.
    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.

    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 1877, she made her vows there and took the religious habit. When the bishop closed the orphanage in 1880,  at the request of her Bishop, she founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart to care for poor children in schools and hospitals. Seven young women from the orphanage joined with her.

    Since her early childhood in Italy, Frances had wanted to be a missionary in China but, at the urging of Pope Leo XIII, Frances went west instead of east. In 1899 she traveled with six sisters to New York City to work with the thousands of Italian immigrants living there. She found disappointment and difficulties with every step. When she arrived in New York City, the house intended to be her first orphanage in the United States was not available. The archbishop advised her to return to Italy. But Frances, truly a valiant woman, departed from the archbishop’s residence all the more determined to establish that orphanage. And she succeeded.

    As a child, she was always frightened of water, unable to overcome her fear of drowning. Yet, despite this fear, she traveled across the Atlantic Ocean more than 30 times. She died of malaria in her own Columbus Hospital in Chicago.
    At the time of her death, 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.

More Information: http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/saintf07.htm

Born 1850 at Sant'Angelo Lodigiano, Lombardy, Italy

Died 22 December 1917 at Chicago, Illinois, USA of malaria; interred at 701 Fort Washington Avenue, New York, New York, USA

Beatified 13 November 1938; her beatification miracle involved the restoration of sight to a child who had been blinded by excess silver nitrate in the eyes

Canonized 7 July 1946 by Pope Pius XII; her canonization miracle involved the healing of a terminally ill nun

Images Gallery of images of Saint Frances [7 images]

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Readings

We must pray without tiring, for the salvation of mankind does not depend on material success; nor on sciences that cloud the intellect. Neither does it depend on arms and human industries, but on Jesus alone. Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini