Happy Feast Day to Mother Cabrini, a Modern Day Saint

Today is the feast day of the first American saint, Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, who was canonized in 1946. As I reflect upon her life as a modern-day saint whose legacy impacts my own life and the lives of countless others who hail from what is now known as Carroll Gardens, I really don’t know how she did it. Maria Francesca Cabrini was born prematurely in the Lombardy region of Italy in 1850 and was known to be diminutive, delicate and sickly when she was a child. Those adjectives, however, would never be used to describe the courageous woman of resolve that she became.

When Francesca was a teenager, she attended a local school run by the Daughters of the Sacred Heart and graduated with a teaching certificate. It was her dream to join the Daughters of the Sacred Heart religious community and to eventually become a missionary but she was discouraged by the sisters who thought she was not strong enough for that kind of life. Francesca was not one to be put off. She persevered, took religious vows in 1877 and in 1880, along with six other sisters, founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart.

The good sisters started locally, opening seven orphanages, a school and a nursery in the first five years of their order’s existence. This got the attention of many including Pope Leo XIII. Mother Cabrini’s ambition to help people was boundless and she petitioned Pope Leo to allow her to establish missions in China but the Pope thought it would be a better idea for her to go not east, but rather west, to America to aid the plight of the Italian immigrants who were flocking there.

In March 1889, Mother Cabrini arrived in New York City along with the same sisters with whom she had founded her order. Her reception by New York’s Archbishop Corrigan was not entirely a welcome one and he suggested they return to Italy but, once again, Mother Cabrini was not one to be discouraged. Just like those they came to help, the sisters may have been immigrants themselves but they quickly overcame the obstacles of having little resources, not being able to speak English, and having no place to stay and got down to work!

They first established an orphanage in West Park, NY and then they proceeded to spread out and zigzag all over the United States, down to Central and South America, and back and forth to Europe. It is said that Mother Cabrini crossed the Atlantic 25 times and it’s important to remember that this was before airplanes! Under the direction of Mother Cabrini, the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart opened schools, hospitals, and orphanages all over the U.S., including in New York, Philadelphia, Scranton, Newark, Chicago, New Orleans, Seattle, Denver and Los Angeles. It was in Seattle, in 1909, that Mother Cabrini got her wish of becoming a U.S. citizen. By the time of her death in 1917 in Chicago, Mother Cabrini had established 67 institutions to represent the 67 years of her life.

And along the way, Mother Cabrini walked the very streets we walk. In 1892, while working at Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary Church, originally located on President Street, Mother Cabrini with the assistance of Brooklyn’s Bishop McDonnell, established St. Charles School to serve the children of the newly arrived Italian immigrants. The school was located on Van Brunt Street, around the corner from the church. By 1900, with the concentration of Italian immigrants in our area believed to be the highest in the U.S., SHJM parish began plans to build a bigger church on the corner of DeGraw and Hicks Streets. And by 1922, the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, opened the much larger Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary School across from the church. That was the school I attended, along with most of my extended family. In the late 1960‘s Sacred Hearts/St. Stephen Parish refurbished and dedicated a former Protestant Church on the corner of DeGraw Street and Strong Place, in honor of Mother Cabrini. My family started attending Mass there and my mother became a member of the Cabrini Society which once organized a visit to the Mother Cabrini Shrine in Washington Heights. It was on that trip that my mother bought me a little biography of Mother Cabrini which I have to this day.

Alas, SHJM School, Cabrini Chapel and even the original Sacred Hearts Church (thank you, Robert Moses) do not exist anymore but that, in no way, diminishes the profound influence Mother Cabrini and the Missionary Sisters had on this community, my family included. They made life better for my great-grandparents by providing social services and educating their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The education we all received, which was rooted in the young-girl dreams of Mother Cabrini, has undoubtedly served us well, and enabled us to enjoy and live the American dream that prompted our ancestors to leave Italy in the first place. So maybe many of their descendants don’t live here in the neighborhood anymore but I hope they never forget a small, brave Italian woman of great fortitude who became the first American saint and who believed, through God, all things were possible. Thank you, Mother Cabrini, for accomplishing your mission!