I Can Do All Things in Him

“I can do all things in Him”. Today is the feast of Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini. Although born in 1850 in Italy, she became the first US citizen to become a saint. At the age 13, she heard a missionary speak of the Chinese missions. And ever since, she longed to be a missionary to China.

Although she would become a missionary, it would be in the United

States not China.

During a meeting she had with a bishop, he told her to found a religious order of sisters. She obeyed and founded the Missionary

Sisters of the Sacred Heart.

In her first convent, her sisters carried clean piles of hay from the fields, which were used as beds. After opening multiple religious houses, she decided to open a house in Rome. She sought permission from a Cardinal in Rome, who denied her request because of her lack of funds. He told her to come back in a couple of years. Trusting in the Lord, believing she could do all things in Him, she hurried to a nearby church, where she poured out her grief to Jesus in prayer. A few days later the cardinal received her again and asked her if she was ready to obey. “Of course, “she answered. He smiled and said, “You will not open one house in Rome--- but two.” In 1889 Pope Leo XIII ordered Mother Cabrini to go to the

United States. She and six sisters came to New York, where a house was to be waiting for her. But when she arrived, the sisters spent their first night near Chinatown in a boarding house. Exhausted from seasickness, they slept in hard chairs because the beds were filthy and crawling with bugs.

The bishop of New York told her to go back to Italy, but she refused because the Pope himself and ordered her to come to the

United States. She began to open orphanages, schools, hospitals, and other charitable organizations. While serving the poor, she saw Jesus in the sick and the poor in the slums.

Every time she crossed the ocean, she would get seasick.

Despite her seasickness, she crossed the ocean 25 times. She traveled to Latin America, South America and all over the United

States, from Louisiana to Seattle Washington to open religious houses, schools, and orphanages where ever she went. In 27 years, there were over 1000 sisters of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. During her life, there were reported miracles. One miracle was reported by one of her-- own religious sisters, who put on a sock-- worn by Mother Cabrini, and was immediately healed of varicose veins.

Mother Cabrini preserved in prayer throughout her life overcoming many obstacles. Her motto was, “I can do all things, in

HIM”. She lived a life in total submission to God. In her retreat notes, she wrote, “O Jesus, I love you very much… Give me a heart as big as the universe… Tell me what you wish that I do, and with me as You will.”

As a religious mother, she modeled her life in imitation of the perfect Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary. Mother Cabrini’s submission to God echoed the Blessed Mother’s fiat, “be it done unto me according to thy Word”.

Today, we pray, that Mother Cabrini, a missionary to the United

States, will help us to totally submit ourselves to God, in imitation of

Our Blessed Mother, and to persevere in prayer, so that we will “do all things, in Him”, who loves us, with His Eucharistic Heart.”