Commemorating the Centennial of Mother Cabrini’s Death

Abstract

Commemorating the Centennial of Mother Cabrini’s Death Nicholas Rademacher (bio) Pope Francis was among the first to commemorate the centenary of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini’s death by acknowledging her legacy as the patron saint of migrants. After the Angelus on January 15, 2017, the World Day of Migrants and Refugees, the pope extolled her legacy. “This courageous Sister,” he said, “dedicated her life to bringing the love of Christ to those who were far from their homelands and families.” He lauded those “who work with migrants to welcome and support them in their difficulties” just as he encouraged them to persevere in the work after her example. “May her witness help us to take care of our foreign brothers and sisters, in whom Jesus is present, often suffering, rejected and humiliated.” In his remarks, Pope Francis also addressed those people who find themselves in a new land. “Dear friends,” he said, “I hope that you may live peacefully in the places that receive you, respecting their laws and traditions, and at the same time, safeguarding the values of your culture of origin. Encountering different cultures is always an enrichment for all!” Indeed, St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, known more familiarly as “Mother Cabrini,” courageously traveled throughout Europe and the Americas to spread the gospel and to promote the well-being of the immigrant communities that she encountered.1 The human suffering and root causes of that suffering that Mother Cabrini confronted at the turn of the twentieth century appear all too contemporary, one hundred years after her passing. Yet Cabrini’s legacy is enduring in the Institute of the Missionary Sisters of the [End Page 111] Sacred Heart of Jesus and their ministries around the world through which women religious and their lay associates carry on her work. From the perspective of the twenty-first century, her approach demonstrated at times a profound sensitivity and openness to people of different ethnic and religious backgrounds while, at other times, her approach reflected culturally conditioned biases.2 Ultimately, rooted as she was in a profound spirituality, Mother Cabrini’s vision and activism were expansive and encompassed the entire world. Her successors continue to respond to the needs of human suffering, creatively adapting their approaches to the contemporary context. This essay draws on the accounts of her life to provide a brief biographical sketch of the saint for those readers who may be unfamiliar with her story. This biographical sketch highlights the ways in which Cabrini astutely balanced independence and obedience in her relationship with her counterparts in the Catholic Church, that is, other women religious, priests, bishops, and the pope; her and her sisters’ willingness to confront their own biases, opting for lived solidarity rather than segregation; and her universalizing vision, one that transcended the United States to encompass all of the Americas and beyond. The conclusion comes full circle to consider her contemporary legacy, especially in light of Pope Francis’s commendation of the saint as a model to address the contemporary global migration crisis. Biographical Resources on the Life of Mother Cabrini Mother Cabrini’s story is readily accessible to a general audience. The Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (MSC), the Institute of women religious founded by Cabrini, have published letters from her missionary travels and selections from her retreat notes.3 A [End Page 112] number of book-length biographies have been published.4 Among the biographies available in English, two stand out: Theodore Maynard’s Too Small a World: The Life of Mother Cabrini, published in 1945, and Mary Louise Sullivan’s Mother Cabrini: “Italian Immigrant of the Century,” published in 1992. Until Sullivan’s biography was published, Maynard’s work was considered the standard treatment of Cabrini’s life even though it remained on the level of popular history. Of Maynard’s biography, historian Henry J. Browne wrote, “The author shows himself a good hagiographer in his treatment of the unusual phenomena in the life of this unusual woman.”5 Given the lack of the “apparatus of critical historical writing,” Browne speculates whether Maynard’s work is evidence of an emerging form of history, “a new hybrid which lies somewhere between biography and...