Saint Frances Cabrini Parish

Our Patron: Saint Frances Cabrini
Saint Frances Cabrini photo The life of Mother Cabrini reflects her devotion to God's will and her love and care for the uneducated, the sick, the poor, and the vulnerable. The youngest of thirteen children of Augustine Cabrini, a farmer, and Stella Oldini, she was born on July 15, 1850, at Sant' Angelo Lodigiano, Italy, and christened Maria Francesca. She was destined to be a schoolteacher but when orphaned at eighteen, she decided to follow a religious life. Because of frail health she was refused by two communities, but in 1874 she was invited by Msgr. Serrati to take over a badly managed orphanage, House of Providence, at Codogno. Fierce opposition by its foundress, Antonia Tondini, eventually led to its closing by the bishop of Todi, who then invited Frances to found an institution. With seven followers, she moved into an abandoned Franciscan friary at Codogno and founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, devoted to the education of girls. The institute received the approval of the bishop in 1880 and soon spread to Grumello, Milan, and Rome.
Mother Cabrini might be called the "Mother Teresa" of the nineteenth century. She desired for her missionaries to go to China, but Pope Leo XIII prevailed upon her to go to the Unites States to serve the needs of Italian immigrants there. Mother Cabrini undertook this mission with a loving passion, founding schools, hospitals, and orphanages for the immigrants. (New York, Chicago, New Orleans) These were all staffed by sisters from her religious community, which flourished. Not satisfied with limiting her outreach to the United States, she also established and visited her order in South America and Europe. Despite a fear of water, she sailed across the ocean thirty times to advance the work of her community. She always strove to minister to people with the love of Christ.
Mother Cabrini was a leading educator who advocated holistic education and bilingual education and promoted an "education of the heart" through love, along with the intellect. She died in 1917 in one of her order's hospitals, Columbus Hospital in Chicago. Because she had become a naturalized United States citizen in 1909, she became the first U.S. citizen to be canonized in 1946. Pope Pius XII also declared her the patron saint of immigrants in 1950.
By the time of her death in Chicago on December 22, 1917, there were more than fifty hospitals, schools, orphanages, convents, and other foundations in existence.
"Holiness," Mother Cabrini once said, "does not consist in doing great things, but in doing well all that Jesus desires of us."

St. Frances Cabrini Dates to Remember

July 15, 1850 Birth in St. Angelo, Italy

July 1, 1857 Confirmation

April 1857 First Holy Communion

November 14, 1880 Founded the Institute

July 12, 1907 Approval of Institute

March 31, 1889 Arrival in the United States

August 1902 Comes to Denver by invitation of Bishop Nicholas Matz

December 22, 1917 Death in Chicago

November 13, 1938 Beatification by Pope Pius XI

July 7, 1946 Proclaimed a Saint by Pope Pius XII

September 17, 1950 Proclaimed Patroness of Immigrants

A Pennsylvania Charitable Trust

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