FRANCES CABRINI Mother of Immigrants

on March 31st 1889 mother Francis Xavier Cabrini arrived in New York Harbor with six of her missionary sisters one of her companions recalled but upon sighting the Statue of Liberty Cabrini's face became radiant a long voyage was opened the sisters were full of hope anticipating the new beginnings awaiting them if the Heart of Jesus gives me the means to build a ship on the sea I will build the Christopher the Christ bearer and sail all the oceans with either a small or a large community to bring the name of Jesus to all the people who as you do not know him or have forgotten him you Maria Francesca Cabrini was born on July 15th 1850 at Sant Angelo Lodi jonno a small town on the plains of Lombardy some 20 miles south of Milan [Music] she was the tenth of 11 children in the evenings the family would gather around the heart to read the stirring accounts of missionaries evangelizing in the Orient it was at a tender age then that the seed of a missionary vocation was planted in Francesca's heart [Music] [Applause] you Franchesca Cabrini grew to maturity in Tampa Jewess times the revolutions which swept over Europe in mid-century aroused nationalist aspirations in Italy the flamboyant Garibaldi marched on Sicily in Naples the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed in 1861 the occupation of Rome in 1870 ended the temporal power of the Pope the Risorgimento heightened patriotic emotions reflected in a stunning revival in literature in the arts at the same time economic reforms led to material progress and there were advances in education and transportation [Music] Franchesca who yearned to consecrate herself to the Lord as a sister had been rejected by at least two religious communities at the house of Providence in cadonia Francesca found a group of women struggling to form a new religious community and she joined them but there were problems of all kinds so finally in 1880 Bishop JAL Nene disbanded the group telling Francesca you have always wanted to be a missionary why not establish your own community Francesca seized the opportunity she became the founders of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus you the new community who rapidly new houses were opened in northern Italy in 1882 84 85 and 87 all the time while mother Cabrini encouraged the foundation schools and orphanages she held in her heart the desire to bring her new religious family to China in 1887 mother Cabrini met Bishop Scalabrine of Piacenza who was to become the single most important individual to direct her steps towards a new mission which she had never considered work among the immigrants from Italy to the Americans bishop Scalabrine saw in mother Cabrini and her growing sisterhood the potential for a dynamic response to the immigrants needs confiding his hopes to pope leo xiii he was instrumental in the Holy Fathers counsel to mother Cabrini in 1889 that she must go not to the east but to the west [Music] the united states beckoned to newcomers as a land of opportunity many of the dispossessed masses of Europe sought refuge here Italians alone accounted for approximately 4 million immigrants to the United States in the last decades of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century the arrival of the Italians in the United States was like a shocking experience for the receiving church they were the first Latin group coming into an anglo-saxon culture and they had a way of living their faith that was quite different rooted in completely different traditions then the Northern Europeans especially the Irish well when the Italians came they were up against the original American natives but also many of their own co-religionists many of the Irish fewer of the Germans but many of the Irish especially who had begun to make it and the Irish very soon began to be prosperous they made their way and through the police department the fire department's civil service and into politics the Irish were very good at politics but they really then they posed a barrier to the Italians 64th Street there were all Irish people and we were the first attacking there and the Irish didn't like the Italian in fact in it in any neighborhood I remember another a contractor Orlando he moved out 1519 well sure because he was Italian everybody try to get him out but he says I'm American citizen I'm gonna stay here you get into Church it was five cents eat one he had to pay if I simply said they didn't have five cents to drop it into action basket and also they found the Irish type of religion very cold it wasn't the emotional religion that they had known at home now that is precisely the situation into which one of the Cabrini brought her sisters [Music] [Music] the sister soon felt the brunt of discrimination leveled against the Italians who were called guineas lacking much themselves the sisters were happy to share the poverty of their immigrants the people will all the talents all immigrants who had very little education and the men usually worked in the docks they were longshoremen and the women worked in the sweatshops the factory sewing on machines and since the father the mother both worked to keep some food on the table and clothes on their back the children were left in the street and mother Cabrini went there and went around from house to house speaking to the parents got their children in the school open the organised sudah ladies in the parish and this taught growing that way Cabrini and her Missionary Sisters began begging for food and clothing to help the needy they sought out the wealthy of New York for donations but had to depend for their livelihood on the pennies nickels and dimes given by the poorest of the poor Italians ironically it was to be the same all across America a network of schools hospitals and orphanages would be built for the Italian immigrants from the pennies nickels and dimes which the Italian immigrants themselves were to contribute to the Missionary Sisters [Music] what a great time it was to be an American as the 20th century dawned the robust Teddy Roosevelt entered the White House George M Cohen draped in the American flag trenched across the New York stage at the market eggs sold for 12 cents a dozen and sirloin steak for 24 cents a pound during that first exciting decade telephones were entering our homes and our lives forever the Wright brothers launched us onward and upward and Henry Ford gave the common man access to the open road with his Model T Henry James wrote the will to grow was everywhere written large and to grow no matter what [Music] New York City was mother Cabrini's first destination and she always returned to enlarge her missions moving to Upper Manhattan and Dobbs Ferry in New York Parish schools would be served and religious instruction given to children youth and adults in Manhattan Brooklyn and upstate where an orphanage would flourish in West Park on the banks of the Hudson River soon health care would become a ministry for the immigrants with the establishment of Columbus Hospital and dispensary in Manhattan responding to the pleas of New Orleans frightened Italians following the lynchings in 1891 of eleven Italian immigrants mother Cabrini brought her sisters to this port city where education and social service outreach programs were greatly needed [Music] orphanages were founded in New Orleans Long Beach Mississippi Denver Arlington New Jersey Los Angeles Seattle Bouldin Colorado in Philadelphia mining camps were visited in Pennsylvania and throughout the western United States nursing schools would soon flourish in New York and Chicago an academy for well-off Italians would be set up in New York City industrial schools which taught embroidery and other handwork would take shape in parishes and orphanages then we have the awesome a copy of naturalization papers the state's education became a citizen of the United States and Seattle in 1909 and it gives a rage in the color of eyes and hair but when it came to a school boarding school she wanted the best for the students she wanted healthful environments she say to the sisters plant eucalyptus plants they fresh in the air this extraordinary woman was by nature extreme timid and shy and I think she also recognized that the natural timidity and the shyness had no place in a new world that was bustling with people aiming to get ahead she wanted her sisters to get ahead and she wanted the immigrants to get ahead too mother Cabrini was a strong woman she was like a rather tiny woman physically I knew a priest who knew her he had been he had been involved in some business negotiations with her he actually spent most of his life down at Nativity church on 2nd Avenue here in New York I knew him he was 89 years old an old old man and he would tell us he we bathe him we used to go and see him he was in the kind of nursing home we go and see him and and there were certain questions we knew we could ask and get a reaction and one of them was well now for the walls what do you think of mother Cabrini and the standard response was she was a fine businesswoman but she was no saint I think a lot of the priests were simply not used to a woman who would stand up to them she wanted contracts fulfilled I think that increasingly as she as she traveled across the country founding hospitals opening houses of refuge things like that people found her a hard bargainer but I think she also built up an enormous respect for herself and they realized that she was indeed a great woman is there some chauvinism in here I'm sure there was it was around then it's around now but they weren't quite used to having this little you know sister you know not bow and scrape to them I think that's largely where I was mother Cabrini had been given only two years to live when she came to America in 1889 she would make 23 ocean crossings despite her fear of water to spread the works inspired by her missionary zeal to Nicaragua Panama Argentina Brazil England France Spain and Italy poor health would be endured and arduous journeys would be undertaken by railroad and you'll back as she Criss crossed the Andes while intending primarily to serve the Italian immigrants mother Cabrini was never narrowly nationalistic all of her institutions were incorporated to receive those of every nationality missionary sisters came from Italy where the community was numerous Italian Americans Irish Germans Slovak French Spanish and Latin American women joined Cabrini's religious Institute [Music] you [Music] returning to Chicago in the fall 1917 the sisters saw a weaker mother Cabrini since World War one was raging she was worried about the children in Assumption school which the sisters staffed in Chicago would they have any sweets for Christmas the sisters went out and bought the candy and were told to fill them in and one sister that I knew said she was very young at the time and they were filling these little boxes of candy and mother Cabrini said don't be stingy fill it all the way up to the top this may be all they get this Christmas on the morning of December 22nd mother Cabrini felt a spell coming on so she had dressed gone to the door unlatched it and then fallen back in her rocking chair but she had already gone home and word spread throughout the world and condolences began to come from people who had heard of her work who've heard of this missionary whose heart had gone out to immigrants throughout the world and immediately after World War Two in 1946 mother Frances Xavier Cabrini was raised to the altars as the first American citizen to be canonized a saint [Music] we see this fine as being Center of hospitality and of welcome for people really on a pilgrim journey to God and for many of those people mother Cabrini is a way to do that that's really no longer an Italian immigrant population so now we we feel like we're continuing to do her work in welcoming immigrants whatever the newest immigrant group is I don't know that Cabrini ever envisioned what she left as a legacy but I think her belief that God was with her and and impelled by that spirit to be God present to bring God's presence into the world and to the people that she met that was primary that was there was a real focus and yes she did it as a religious woman and we do it as religious women but I think her message is that any woman can do it nothing needs to hold us back I think it's easy to get caught up in well I'm sick so I don't you know I can't you know or I don't have the money therefore I can't I don't have the power therefore I can't i'm a woman therefore I can't but none of those things stopped Cabrini [Music] and I think that's part of who we are today is that none of those things needs to stop us and so we continue to open new missions you know to move into areas where we weren't ten years ago and not because we have a lot of money and therefore we can do it but because the Lord is calling us into those areas because the need is there [Music] you

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Length: 25min 10sec (1510 seconds)

Published: Thu May 28 2020