The Catholic world is abuzz about the new movie Cabrini from Angel Studios. This year, March 8 – International Women’s Day – will feature a movie about an exceptionally strong, Catholic woman who transformed the way a nation would see immigrants. Alejandro Monteverde, award-winning director of Sound of Freedom, directed this movie as well, so we can expect it to be a first-class experience. Her life remains relevant by highlighting topics such as immigration and the role of women in society and the Church.
Biography of Mother Cabrini
Frances Cabrini was born in 1850 as the youngest of thirteen children to a family that lived near Milan. She died in 1917 in Chicago. What happened in between demonstrates that she was a strong woman, a visionary, and a saint.
After a failed attempt at religious life because of frail health, in 1880, she founded a missionary congregation of sisters with seven young women, the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. She admired St. Francis Xavier, the great Jesuit missionary to the East and added “Xavier” to her own name at profession, expressing her missionary desire. Before she could fulfill her missionary desire, her new congregation focused on taking care of orphans and founded a free school. She yearned to begin a mission in India but Pope Leo XIII encouraged her to follow the mass immigration of Italians to the United States. This caused her particular difficulty, since she had a tremendous fear of traveling over water, which would be necessary to reach the New World. In 1889, she struck out for America and would eventually become the first American citizen to be canonized a saint.
Immigration
It is impossible to understand the life and vocation of Mother Cabrini without recognizing the state of immigration in the world in which she lived. Her first mission was to the Italian immigrant children in New York. She began schools and orphanages for the sons and daughters of the Italian immigrants who were living in poverty. She crossed the Atlantic 23 times in her constant efforts to build 67 institutions over the course of her lifetime, working tirelessly to set up schools, hospitals, and orphanages. Her innumerable good works for the immigrant populations in the United States and Latin America contributed to her canonization by Pope Pius XII in 1946 and her title as Patroness of Immigrants in 1950.
She gathered endangered youth in safe houses and taught them holy and rightful principles. She consoled the spirit of the imprisoned, giving them the comfort of life eternal, and urging them to resume the right path and to remake an honest life. She consoled the sick and the infirm gathered in hospitals and cared for them assiduously. Especially towards immigrants, who had left their own homes… did she extend a friendly hand, a sheltering refuge, relief and help (Pope Pius XII, Homily for her Canonization).
Role of Women in Society
Much ink has been spilled reflecting on the role of women in society and particularly how the Church has helped or hindered the advancement of women’s rights. Mother Cabrini never concerned herself with politics but modeled through her constant efforts and perseverance that women do great things within the Church. Some people like to talk a lot about roles; Mother Cabrini acted and showed by doing so that nothing would stand in her way as she fulfilled the mission God had entrusted to her in a special way.
As Christians, we are all called to be holy and to spread the Gospel to others. Mother Cabrini did this in an extraordinary way, setting the bar for laypeople, religious, priests, and bishops alike and reaching the highest level of the Christian vocation to holiness. Rather than debating the place of women in the Church, she wasted no time and fulfilled her calling by serving the poorest of the poor and imitating Jesus in a way that would be recognized by believers and nonbelievers alike. Here was a woman who believed the Gospel and put it into action. There is no greater thing a Christian can do, no higher station in the Church.
Eucharist
As we draw nearer to the National Eucharistic Congress, it is inspiring to consider Mother Cabrini’s devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. Burdened with a host of seemingly impossible tasks, Mother Cabrini found her strength in the sacrament of the Eucharist. Pope John Paul II recognized this in his address to her missionary congregation in 2000:
Her extraordinary activity – as you well know – drew its strength from prayer, especially from long periods before the tabernacle. Christ was everything to her. (Pope John Paul II, 31 May 2000).
While so many people are drawn to doing good for its own sake, the saints remind us that we are of course called to do good, but for a higher purpose. It is a response we make out of gratitude to God who has given everything to us. Mother Cabrini shows us how much we can learn from Jesus and how letting him take control of our lives is the shortest path to holiness.
“Oh, if only we knew how to always appreciate the benefit of Holy Communion! How much more fervent and recollected we would be, and how many more merits we would gather.” ~ Mother Cabrini
As we celebrate International Women’s Day and reflect on a painful history regarding much of what women have had to endure, Mother Cabrini stands out as a strong woman whose faith led her to do great things in Jesus who strengthened her (cf. Phil. 4:13).
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