Resources about Mother Cabrini
Mother Cabrini was a passionate writer and a woman, informed, organized and who cared deeply about her own and her daughters' correspondence.
Indeed, there are many sources about and about St. Frances Xavier Cabrini. Among the most valuable are certainly her manuscripts. To date only a few have been published.
Mother Cabrini was constantly seeking closeness to and the formation of her daughters, but due to the circumstances of her travels and the distances that required days, months and even years of separation, she corresponded personally with them. The stories of her journeys, the annual strennas and even the details and advice for each duty or office that the sisters were to perform (called Avvisi), all came from her pen.
Autograph writing of St. Frances Cabrini to her sister (Codogno, December 22, 1896).
It is not for nothing that the recommendation and obedience she expressed in almost all her letters were that they should not fail to write to her, at least every 15 days... that they should be detailed, clear and precise, indispensable conditions for communication to be frank and fluid, which would satisfy her constant desire to ‘feel as if she were among them’.
On a personal level, Mother Cabrini was an informed woman, organized and demanding of her own correspondence and that of her daughters. Giuseppe dell'Ongaro, in his extraordinary biography of Mother Cabrini, in the chapter where he speaks of an ordinary day in her life, says that once the morning's pious acts were over, which for her began at 4 a.m., ‘...at about 7 a.m. breakfast, reading of the morning papers in her own study. Opening the correspondence. A small magnifying glass was used to decipher the calligraphy, the smallest and most complex handwriting. She received letters of all kinds - confidences, requests, administrative matters or proposals. She responded personally. Sometimes it took her hours’ (Ch. IX, The parenthesis in Europe, pp. 224 ff).
She was so interested in being so well informed about things in the outside world that she asked the sisters abroad to take out a subscription for her to the newspapers and to send them to her wherever she was.
The Institute of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart continues today to be blessed by the enormous quantity of Mother Cabrini's writings, its orientation and its identity.
The Writings of Mother Cabrini
Among her writings, we highlight:
- The Epistolary, that is, the collection of letters written and dictated by Mother Cabrini from 1868 to 1917.
- Journal of a Trusting Heart (Pensieri e Propositi), the retreat notes, written from 1876 to 1911.
- To the Ends of the Earth, the diary of St. Frances Cabrini's travels.
- The Morning Star (La Stella del Mattino), the collection of Strennas prepared at the end of each year by Frances Cabrini to her Missionary Daughters.
- The Exhortations, from 1954.
- The Reformations for the Days of Holy Retreat.
“Be peaceful in difficulties, fear nothing, that the good Jesus thinks of everything and will defend us in everything.”
~ Chicago, Dec. 11, 1917
Writings on Mother Cabrini and the Institute of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
- Suor Maria Barbagallo msc, Buoni Cristiani e Buoni Cittadini - l’opera, la missione educativa e la pedagogia di Santa Francesca Cabrini
- Suor Maria Barbagallo msc, Il cristallo della fede. Il «Credo» di Santa Francesca Saverio Cabrini
- Suor Maria Barbagallo msc, Le missionarie di S. Francesca Cabrini in Cina (1926-1951)
- Suor Maria Barbagallo msc, Madre Cabrini: l'educazione del cuore, il cammino dell'interiorità
- Suor Maria Barbagallo msc, Missionaria. Avventure, fede e passioni di una storia del nostro tempo
- Suor Maria Barbagallo msc, Scioglietevi e mettete le ali, itinerario di spiritualità cabriniana
- Suor Maria Regina Canale msc, La Gloria del Cuore di Gesù nella spiritualità di S.ta Francesca Saverio Cabrini
- Crippa Lica, Santa Francesca Saverio Cabrini. Una donna in cerca di tutti i suoi fratelli
- Dall'Ongaro Giuseppe, Francesca Cabrini, la suora che conquistò l'America
- De Bortoli Maurizio, Francesca Cabrini. Una donna due continenti
- Don Giuseppe De Luca, Parole sparse della Beata Cabrini
- Madre Saverio De Maria msc, Vita e Opere di Santa Francesca Saverio Cabrini
- De Sanctis Rosmini Emilia , La Beata Francesca S. Cabrini
- De Sanctis Rosmini Emilia , Santa Francesca S. Cabrini
- Galilea Segundo, El poder y la fragilidad. Vita de santa Francisca Xavier Cabrini
- Galilea Segundo, La potenza e la fragilitàVita di Santa Francesca Saverio Cabrini
- Grossi Adriano, La Madre Cabrini
- La Cecla Franco - M. Louise Sullivan - A Perotti, La dignità del migrante. L'esperienza di madre Cabrini e i problemi dell'emigrazione. Atti
- Lubich Gino, LA CABRINI: Dal Cuore di Dio al cuore dell’Umanità, 1992
- Maria Dominica Roberto, Santa Francesca S. Cabrini – La Santa degli Emigranti
- Martignoni Angela, MADRE CABRINI la Santa delle Americhe
- Mascheroni Achille, Francesca degli Emigranti. Pagine sparse, sconosciute o dimenticate
- Mascheroni Achille, MADRE CABRINI: La Santa che scoprì l’America
- Mascheroni Achille, Quando Cecchina tornò dall’America: “La vicenda di una Canonizzazione attraverso documenti dell’epoca"
- Maynard Theodore, Il mondo è troppo piccolo - Vita della Beata Francesca Cabrini
- Sartori Barbara, Una santa tra gli emigranti
- Scaraffia Lucetta, Tra terra e cielo: Vita di Francesca Cabrini
- Scavino Renato, Santa Francesca Cabrini e l'emigrazione italiana in America
- Taroni Massimiliano, La missione del cuore. S. Francesca Saverio Cabrini e la spiritualità del Sacro Cuore
- Vaghi Chiara, Vite donate. Il messaggio di Madre Cabrini nelle opere delle Missionarie del Sacro Cuore di Gesù
BOOKS IN ENGLISH:
- Cheney Glenn Alan, Amore e morte nel Regno dello Swaziland
- Mary Louise Sullivan MSC, Mother Cabrini: Italian Immigrant of the Century
- Mark Davis, St Frances Cabrini A Passionate Life
- Theodore Maynard , Too small a world. The life of Francesca Cabrini
