MEMORIAL: NOVEMBER 13
St. Frances Cabrini was born in Lombardy, Italy in 1850. At the age of 18, she desired to become a religious sister, but was rejected because of her poor health. Instead, she became a teacher at an orphanage, joining with other women teachers to live a religious way of life. She eventually was allowed to make vows and started the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart to care for poor and sick children.
After she had opened up several homes, a school, and a nursery, Frances desired to go to China to continue her missionary work. Instead, the Pope sent her to the United States which had an influx of Italian immigrants. After arriving in New York with six other sisters, Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini began her mission of founding orphanages, hospitals, and schools for the poor, sick and abandoned. She founded nearly 70 institutions all over the United States and became a naturalized citizen after 20 years of missionary service in the country. In 1917, she died of dysentery in her own hospital in Chicago, and was canonized in 1946. She was the first American citizen to be canonized a saint and is the patron saint of immigrants and hospital administrators.
