November 26, 2025

By Father William Muench
NCC columnist

Thanksgiving – I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for taking the time to read “my stuff.” I want you to know that you are special to me. I think of you each time I begin to write. I promise to remember you all each time I celebrate Mass.

Recently, I joined a parish group on a trip to New York City. We visited the usual sights – even went to see the Rockettes this time. However, I was truly impressed when we visited the shrine honoring St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, remembered as Mother Cabrini. Just this week, the bishops of New York State including our Bishop LaValley, published an important letter of concern about the treatment of immigrants. I hope you had the opportunity to read this letter in last week’s issue of the North Country Catholic. The bishops dedicated this effort to the work and ministry of Mother Cabrini among the immigrants of New York City.

Today, I want to share with you some of the stories of Mother Cabrini that I learned when I visited that shrine on Washington Heights. Mother Cabrini was born in Lombardy, Italy, in 1850. Even as a child, she felt called to be a missionary. She had a special devotion to St. Francis Xavier, who was a missionary to China. Mother Cabrini was the foundress of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus – formed to serve he poor and to proclaim the Gospel.

It was a pope, Pope Leo XIII, who redirected her and her sisters to go to the United States. There was a large number of Italian immigrants there – the pope believed the sisters would make a difference in the life of those immigrants. So, Mother Cabrini arrived in New York City in 1889. She spoke little English and she ran into much resistance from clergy and officials. But she persevered and became a profound influence on the life of that immigrant community.

Mother Cabrini founded school and orphanages for immigrant children – vulnerable, uneducated, and abandoned. She established a hospital in New York City, as immigrants were frequently denied care in public institutions. Mother Cabrini was a champion of the marginalized, especially the Italian laborers who faced harsh prejudice. She also traveled through this country as well as South America continuing her ministry and building schools and orphanages.

For Mother Cabrini, caring for these immigrants was not merely social service; this was an act of reparation, mercy and evangelization. She believed that God opens door when human beings close them. Mother Cabrini founded 67 institutions (schools, hospitals and orphanages). She became a naturalized citizen in 1909. She is the first American citizen to be canonized a saint – declared such by Pope Pius XII in 1946.

Now the bishops of New York State have chosen Mother Cabrini to their model of all that the Catholic Church must be willing to do caring and accepting immigrants and helping them and their needs.

Our bishops wrote this: “When our nation considers again the plight of the immigrant, we recall the Christian charity, as lived so powerfully by Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, Mother Cabrini – demanding us to welcome the stranger and treat every individual with respect and dignity.”

I hope you will take the time to go back to last week’s paper to read the New York State Bishop’s statement.