This week marks 175 years since the birth of a Roman Catholic saint who once lived and worked in New Orleans – Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini.
Born in a small village near the city of Milan, Italy, on July 15, 1850, Maria Francesca Cabrini grew up hearing stories of Catholic missionaries and devoted herself at an early age to following in their footsteps. When she was 30 years old, she and seven other young women formed the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Their mission became to care for poor children in schools and hospitals.
She and her colleagues wanted to become missionaries in China, but Pope Leo XIII urged her to go west instead to care for the thousands of Italians, like herself, who had come to the U.S. In 1889, Mother Cabrini and six other sisters arrived in New York to begin their work. She came to New Orleans three years later…