St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, proclaimed a Saint in 1946 and “Heavenly Patroness of Immigrants” in 1950, is best known for her extraordinary apostolic activity in the United States and South America on behalf of Italian emigrants to whom she was sent in 1889 by Pope Leo XIII.

Less is known about her apostolic mystique that matured in the light of two great sources: the spirituality of the Sacred Heart and her missionary life that compelled her to travel continuously crossing the ocean more than 24 times, traveling by train, carriage, on foot and even on horseback through immense regions with the sole purpose of bringing the consolation of God's love to the loneliest, most marginalized and desperate people.

The Christian synthesis that Mother Cabrini was able to achieve between overwhelming apostolic activity and contemplation is the very basis of her spirituality.

Mother Cabrini never theorized about her spiritual experience, which was drawn mainly from the cult of the Sacred Heart, but through her Christian experience, her actions, her gestures, her options and her numerous writings, we can come to deduce some keys to understanding her spirituality as lived and experienced in the missionary life. 

The basic characteristics are those, as mentioned above, of the spirituality of the Sacred Heart, all centered on sharing the feelings of the Heart of Jesus, making His interests, His preferences our own, “learning from Him gentle and humble of heart” (Mt. 11:29), sharing his mission of salvation, offering ourselves in oblation, for humanity and in reparation for sin. Mother Cabrini takes on all the richness and depth of the experience of this spirituality, which, however, she continually adapts to the needs of missionary life, working to overcome those intimate aspects, albeit very valid, in favor of reparation. The Sacred Heart of Jesus was the source of Mother Cabrini's spirituality and her missionary nature was the stream that she fed with her tireless apostolic activity. 

The wandering life and the constant experience of traveling, too, must have had no small influence on St. Frances Cabrini's missionary spirituality. First of all, constant traveling almost seems like a base itself: we have no permanent dwelling on this earth (cf. Heb. 13:14). This sensation makes us feel the impermanence in everything, facilitating, in a certain way, detachment from people, things and our own ideas. At the same time, however, it demands a certain heroism because we are called to live intensely and inwardly our responsibilities in provisional situations, giving to everything the touch of stability by entrusting it to those who remain. In this way, we can link the provisional to the eternal which is represented by God's Love that is permanent, which also sustains our inner balance, and to the love of neighbor that makes us love unconditionally anyone who happens upon our path.

Characteristic of her spirituality is the concreteness of love, a love always open to the needs of others, always willing to “do something,” a love always ready to give life.

“Always remember, O my daughters, that you are the guardian angels of the earth and yet always be ready to fly where obedience leads you over the vast fields of charity. May your life be a perpetual sacrifice of yourselves for the sake of the human family, and may your delights be in working hard, praying much, and always renewing your offering as victims of atonement and reconciliation between heaven and earth.”  Listening to the voice of the Bridegroom who speaks, who suggests, who sustains is, however, closely linked to discernment, to the constant search for the Will of God. This Will requires love, and a heart perfectly free from other interests other than those of God: “...but beware that in order to hear and understand the voice of Jesus there must be no uproar of passions in your soul, otherwise you will really confuse Him with the green grocer or the chimney sweep.”

Cf. Free Yourselves and Put on Wings

To be bearers of Christ's love in the world: this is the gift of the Holy Spirit to God's people. This gift is concretely revealed and expressed through the life and witness of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini and us Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, together with the Cabrinian Lay Missionaries (MLCs) and collaborators in mission.

Together, attracted by this charism, we share a variety of ministries through which we strive to be faithful witnesses of Christ's love in the world.

“No work will be too difficult, no land too far, no person too wounded for the love of the Heart of Jesus and for all those invited to be bearers of Christ's love in the world.”

Thanks to Sr. Maria Barbagallo MSC for this text.