This site uses analytics cookies to collect data in aggregate form and third-party cookies to improve user experience.
Read the Privacy Policy

spiritualita_sacro_cuore

St. Frances Cabrini's whole life, formation, inspiration, Spirituality and Mission are pervaded by the Love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of which she becomes the passionate Missionary, bearer of His Merciful Love.

 

Mother Cabrini's journey into the Heart of Jesus begins in her early youth. Her confessor educated her “to go and tell everything to Jesus.” She was born in 1850 in Sant'Angelo Lodigiano where serious liturgical preparation nourished and grew her devotion to the Sacred Heart. It was further enhanced by the beatification of Margaret Mary Alacoque in 1864 by Pope Pius IX for which the Church considered the apparitions of Paray-Le-Monial valid for the holiness of the faithful.

 

The young Frances also studied at the Daughters of the Sacred Heart in Arluno founded by St. Teresa Eustochio Verzeri; here her devotion already begun in their house in Sant'Angelo became stronger, and where from childhood she been fascinated by the painting that, to this day, is kept in the Chapel. 

In St. Teresa Verzeri's “Book of Duties,” Frances had learned, “The adorable Heart of Jesus is the seat of all virtues, the union of all graces, the source of gentleness and sweetness... You must learn from Him meekness and humility; you must burn with His own charity... abandon yourself in this ocean of love and charity.” 

In 1871, Frances was drawn even more to God's Love as the Parish of Sant'Angelo Lodigiano was consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The motto imprinted on a medallion “To Him our heart, His Heart to us” was coined for that occasion.

Photo of the little Chapel at the Sant'Angelo Lodigiano School in Italy where the apparition of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to Margaret Mary Alacoque is portrayed, and where Francesca Cabrini used to go to pray as a child.

 

From 1874 to 1880 Frances Cabrini endured a long period of suffering and perplexity in the House of Providence. In those dark days when everything seemed to clip the wings of her hopes, the Love of the Heart of Jesus revealed itself with His mysterious consolations. Frances wrote speaking in the third person: “While one soul was bursting out with holy affections toward Jesus, He showed her His most lovable Heart, saying to her: 'My beloved, your heart is mine, I want it for myself for ever, and therefore I remove it from your breast so that from now on you may work only with mine. And in so saying, that soul felt it being taken out of her breast with great force and then for more than a year she felt unusual tremors in that part about which even the doctors did not know what to say. From that point also she felt that soul as if it were languishing with love for her beloved, especially whenever she stood before the image of the Sacred Heart who always seemed to be talking to her and tenderly looking at her.”

 

When Mother Cabrini founded the Institute of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, she wanted to put the Sacred Heart of Jesus on the altar of the first Chapel. We recall that Monsignor Antonio Serrati wanted to put Our Lady there but he could not and Mother Cabrini said the famous phrase, I would have a picture of the Sacred Heart here....

The Memoirs recall that the Missionaries began their missionary adventure in Codogno thus: “In this town of Codogno the Lord was assembling a small band of Virgins, gathered around the Rev. Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini, who, full of zeal felt overwhelmed by the strongest desire to establish a Religious Institute, which based on the total denial of self, would draw from the Most Holy Heart of Jesus that impetus of living Faith and holy courage with which her soul was already full.”

 

The “First Rules,” approved in 1883, begin thus, “May the most lovable Heart of Jesus with the fire of His most ardent charity inflame the souls of these Virgins who gather together in Society to devote themselves to the twofold purpose of the Institute of Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus: that is, to perfect their souls in the evangelical virtues and to procure salvation for the greatest possible number of souls, through exact observance of the Rules hereinbefore proposed.” 

Mother Cabrini's missionary dream was about to become a wonderful reality, but there was no lack of contradictions, no lack of suffering, no lack of misunderstandings. So in Rome she was sent back to Codogno by the Cardinal Vicar. Mother Cabrini waited and hoped, “The Sacred Heart will change his heart.” 

 

Missionary plans changed and Mother Cabrini left her dreams behind to follow God's “dreams”. She was about to become the Mother of the Immigrants and she agreed to leave for the United States but soon she felt the same contempt and marginalization as her countrymen did. There was no welcome, no Home, no money.

 

The “Memoirs” say, “Fr. Morelli still had much struggle in overcoming his fears, etc., but Mother tried to persuade him to please H. E. in everything to the best of his ability, the best advice for a good start to the works. Once under way, we again commended our most important business to the Sacred Heart however, with great calm, fully persuaded that all would be obtained from the goodness of the Most Holy Heart of Jesus.”

 

She helped the Missionaries grow in Faith and taught them about the Charity of the Heart of Jesus. She proposed a demanding but exciting Missionary ideal: “Free yourselves and put on wings”: “Go forward with courage, my daughters, learn how to earn the sweet gaze of Jesus, which once it rests on you, you shall have nothing more to fear. Let the wind blow with all its might, let the storm rage, we are safe as long as we take refuge in the Holy Ark, in the Most Holy Heart of Jesus, in the Heart of our sweetest Bridegroom. Enclosed in this Furnace of love, all will be made easy for us, everything will be sweet for us: exact compliance - the most pleasing task, being able to work and sacrifice ourselves for love of the Divine Heart - the most ardent yearning of our soul.” 

She encouraged the Missionaries to the worship of the Eucharist, the source of all grace: “Let us therefore run often to the Tabernacle, O daughters, as the thirsty deer runs to the living fountain of clear waters. Let us always tend to the divine Heart: let us think of Him, let us run to Him, let us sigh for Him solely and always, because the fervor of Jesus' love for us, the wonders of the inventions of His most loving Heart for us are something marvelous.”

 

At this school her Missionaries learned that the Sacred Heart “is the inexhaustible source of all good, in which it is fitting that we lose ourselves with immense confidence; He is an abyss of love where is our true room is located, our repose, where we may take shelter in our most trying circumstances. He is the true oratory of peace and delight, the only one necessary to our heart, our all and every thing.”

 

Everything to the greater glory of the Most Holy Heart of Jesus” and in difficulties, ”Omnia possum in Eo qui me confortat.

 

Thanks to Sister Maria Barbagallo, MSC for these texts.