03/13/2022
Francis Xavier Cabrini (1850-1917), known as Mother Cabrini, the first American saint for .
Born Maria Francesca Saverio Cabrini on July 15, 1850, in a small village called Sant'Angelo Lodigiano (Province of Lodi), Mother Cabrini was the youngest of 13 children.
She grew up enthralled by the stories of missionaries and joined the religious order in 1877. After co-founding the Institute of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in 1880 with seven sisters, Pope Leo XIII asked her to travel to America (not to China as she thought) to help the thousands of already in the United States.
In 1889, Mother Cabrini arrived in and immediately organized catechism and education classes for the Italian immigrants and provided for the needs of the many orphans. She never stopped helping others.
Mother Cabrini’s work became known and requests for her to open schools came in from all over the world. She traveled to Europe, Central and South America and throughout the United States. She made 23 trans-Atlantic crossings and founded 14 American colleges, 98 schools, 28 orphanages, eight hospitals, three training schools, and a score of other institutions with the help of more than 4,000 sisters she recruited for the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
She became a naturalized American citizen in 1909 and at age 67, Mother Cabrini died of complications from malaria on December 22, 1917, while preparing Christmas candy for the local children in Chicago.
In 1946, Mother Cabrini was canonized as the first American saint by Pope Pius XII and was named Patroness of Immigrants in 1950.
In 2020, the state of Colorado declared the first Monday of October "Mother Cabrini Day", making it the first state holiday named after a woman.