Father Kleppner - November 16, 2008This week we celebrate the feast of our parish patroness, St. Frances Cabrini. To help everyone know a little bit more about this saint, and her work, I share with you the following information. St. Frances Xavier Cabrini was born in Lombardy, Italy, in 1850. At Codogno, Italy, in the diocese of Lodi, she founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart in 1880. In 1887 she established many schools, hospitals and orphanages. With the encouragement of Pope Leo XIII, she set out for the United States in 1889, where, for the next twenty-eight years, she established many schools, hospitals and orphanages. Her missionary zeal also led her to South America where she founded schools in Argentina, Brazil and Nicaragua. Mother Cabrini died in Chicago on December 22, 1917, and on July 7, 1946 she became the first United States citizen to be canonized.
Inspired by the grace of God, we join the saints in honoring the holy virgin Frances Xavier Cabrini. She was a humble woman who became outstanding not because she was famous, or rich or powerful, but because she lived a virtuous life. From the tender years of her youth, she kept her innocence as white as a lily and preserved it carefully with the thorns of penitence. As the years progressed, she was moved by a certain instinct and a supernatural zeal to dedicate her whole life to the service and greater glory of God. She welcomed delinquent youths into safe homes and taught them to live upright and holy lives. She consoled those who were in prison and recalled to them the hope of eternal life. She encouraged prisoners to reform themselves and to live honest lives. She comforted the sick and the infirm in the hospitals and diligently cared for them. She extended a friendly and helping hand especially to immigrants and offered them necessary shelter and relief, for having left their homeland behind, they were wandering about in a foreign land with no place to turn for help. Because of their condition she saw that they were in danger of deserting the practice of Christian virtues and their Catholic faith. Where did she acquire all that strength and the inexhaustible energy by which she was able to perform so many good works and to surmount so many difficulties involving material things, travel and people? Undoubtedly she accomplished all this through the faith which was always so vibrant and alive in her heart; through the divine love which burned within her; and, finally, through constant prayer by which she was so closely united with God from whom she humbly asked and obtained whatever her human weakness could not obtain. In the face of the endless cares and anxieties of life, she never let anything turn her aside from striving and aiming to please God and to work for his glory for which nothing, aided by God’s grace, seemed too laborious, or difficult, or beyond human strength.
Dates to Remember
July 15, 1850 Birth in St. Angelo, Italy
Almighty and Eternal Father, giver of all gifts, show us your mercy and grant, we beseech you, through the merits of your faithful servant, Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, that all who invoke her intercession may obtain what they desire according to the good pleasure of your holy will. (Request) Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, beloved spouse of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, intercede that the favor we now ask may be granted. Amen |
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