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On November 13, we celebrated the feast of a woman who left a comfortable life in Lombardy, the most prosperous area of Italy, in order to help others on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. I’m talking about Francis Xavier Cabrini, the youngest of 13 children in her family who became a religious sister and, in fact, founded an order of nuns known as the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart. Mother Cabrini, as she was known, weathered the rough waters of the North Atlantic to minister to the needs of migrants and immigrants in the United States and South America. Over the course of 28 years, she established almost 70 institutions — including many schools, hospitals and orphanages. She died in Chicago, a naturalized citizen of the United States in December 1917. Almost 30 years later, Mother Cabrini became the first naturalized citizen of the U.S. to be canonized a saint with a capital “S.”
What would Mother Cabrini think about the recent busloads of immigrants who crossed the Rio Grande into Texas from Nicaragua, Venezuela and Guatemala, all of which are countries where political oppression and poverty run rampant? Many of these individuals had to leave behind everything they knew and loved, including family and culture. Many had to traverse jungles, the heat of the Sonoran desert, disease, bad water and wild animals. Some had to pay exorbitant amounts of money to “Coyotes,” Mexicans who assure safe passage across the Rio Grande into the United States for a hefty fee. She would feel happy that they arrived in a country where freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and freedom of religion make for a melting pot of many cultures. She would be grateful that these immigrants escaped political oppression in their quest for asylum. Like immigrants before them, they ventured to this land of opportunity for the same reason as did our ancestors: to realize the American dream. In a word, they wanted to build a better life for themselves and for you, their children and grandchildren.
In this month in which the feast of St. Francis Xavier Cabrini, Patron Saint of Migrants and Immigrants is observed, let us pledge to welcome the strangers among us, those migrants and immigrants who, like us, are made in the image and likeness of God. Like Mother Cabrini, let us pray for the grace to see in each of them, the face of Jesus. If the words at the base of the Statue of Liberty are no longer what we, as a nation, believe, why does Lady Liberty still stand in the waters of New York Harbor?
For Mother Cabrini, these words were a prescription for her impending mission in America. For countless other`` immigrants, including my own grandparents and great-grandparents, these words were the welcome they needed to see and feel, the pledge given by all Americans, that our country was not restricted to the wealthy, to peoples of any one nation, but the home of all who desire to live and pursue a new life of freedom and the prospect of a better life in the United States of America. For many, their first language was not English, but maybe Polish, Greek, German, Russian, French or Spanish. Like immigrants before them, they ventured to this land of opportunity for the same reason as did our ancestors: to realize the American dream. In a word, they wanted to build a better life for themselves and for you, their children and grandchildren.
Mother Cabrini ministered to immigrants primarily of Italian descent, not just in New York City but also in Chicago and Denver, teaching catechism, opening schools and orphanages. Had she still been alive today, I am convinced that she would be fluent in Spanish and would be ministering to migrants and immigrants in the border towns of Texas, Arizona and California.
Father Comandini is managing editor of “The Catholic Spirit.”
