Mother Cabrini

Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini, M.S.C. 1850 - 1867                 Like Fr. Arnold Damen, the name Cabrini is one that any Chicagoan cannot go very far without coming across, be it a street, former hospital, organization, church, shrine or even Chicago neighborhood.                Maria Francesca Cabrini was born in what was then the Lombardy region of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1850. She received a degree in teaching but after her parents death followed the call of God in her heart and became a nun and seeing the desperate plight of the poor, the dying and especially the orphaned children, founded a congregation of women religious to serve them. Sr. (now called Mother) Frances Xavier Cabrini called them the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (M.S.C,).               Mother Cabrini’s initial intention was to serve with her sisters in China but at an audience with Pope Leo XIII in Rome was told not to go east, but west, and serve the Italian immigrants who were suffering great