Mother Cabrini’s Secret to Sainthood
There’s a sort of paradox when discussing the secret to sanctity. Saints are so timeless and unique that we assume that there must be some hidden motivation that makes them radiate with love and holiness. However, when we learn about the saints’s lives and works, we quickly see that their path to sainthood is anything but hidden.
God wants us all to be saints. He desires us to know Him and live with Him in loving friendship, taking that love to every person in our hurting world. And God is so good that He has already given us what we need to become saints. In examining the life of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, we can especially see that what often separates us from the great saints is simply loving obedience. The saints asked God what He wanted them to do and then set about doing it when they got the answer.
Francesca Cabrini was born the last of thirteen children in a devout family in Lombardy. From a young age, she dreamed of becoming a missionary to China. She would fill paper boats with violets, pretending they were boats full of missionaries going to faraway lands. However, God had other plans for her.
The young Francesca knew early on that obedience to God was the most important aspect of a missionary. Even when she would receive work that was closer to home, she went about it in loving obedience. For her, everything from administrating a hospital to sweeping the halls was done out of love with a firm belief that she was fulfilling God’s will. So, no challenge ever seemed too big or small.
However, she still had missionary ambitions and especially desired to go to China. Out of obedience to her spiritual advisor and the Pope, she established several charitable houses in Italy before setting off to New York City. As history will show, this small act of obedience would change our nation and continent.
When Mother Cabrini arrived in New York on March 31, 1889, she and her nuns had little in the way of money or material possessions. As it would turn out, they didn’t even know where they were staying in the city. Like the immigrants she was now called to serve, Mother Cabrini and her Missionary Sisters left Italy with nothing but ideas and an uncertain future. Still, she set to work among her fellow immigrants in New York City.
Mother Cabrini faced all her difficulties with the loving determination that comes from knowing you are doing what God wants you to do. She would often write about how difficulties were God’s way of showing His will and that made her all the more certain of her mission. Even some of the miracles in her life resulted from obedience and in furtherance of her mission after facing a challenge.
