Women’s History Month

Frances Xavier Cabrini founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart in Codogno, Italy. She came to the United States in 1889 and eventually became a citizen. She established schools, hospitals, and orphanages. She wrote in one of her letters: “‘The soul learns that there is no necessity to look for her Beloved outside her own being, and that she can find Him within herself, as in His own throne and in His tabernacle.’ In this we hear the voice of the authentic mystic, though hers was a mysticism of a very practical sort. She preceded immediately from prayer to action.” She died in Chicago on December 22, 1917, and became the first citizen of the United States to be canonized.