Letters From the Voyages of St. Frances Cabrini
By St. Frances Xavier Cabrini. Edited by Michael A. LaMorte.
Catholic Treehouse, 2024.
Paperback, 380 pages, $19.99.
Reviewed by Isaiah Flair.
“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us,” reflected J.R.R. Tolkien. That wise counsel was lived beautifully by Frances Cabrini, an Italian woman born a farmer’s daughter who emigrated to America on March 31, 1889.
Cabrini, the nun who would become a saint, dedicated her life to helping good people in practical ways. Her deeds demonstrated that kindness is a lifelong series of actions, combining the spiritual and the corporeal. Her letters, carefully collected in Letters From the Voyages of St. Frances Cabrini, showed the love that motivated her kindness. To this day, her life and her good works inspire millions of faithful Christians around the world, and will continue to for generations to come.
While diminutive in stature, Cabrini had the courage of a lion. She had faith that the good things that she wanted to do would be actualized as long as she stayed true to her mission. This courage and faith was epitomized by an iconic exchange in the recent movie version of her story from Angel Studios.
As the movie begins, she has already started a school in Italy. Yet, she wants to do more, and writes many letters to the Vatican about her proposal in hopes of securing approval. To her surprise, she is invited to the Vatican, and presumes that she will have an opportunity to talk about the proposal.
However, officials brought her there just to tell her no, and to tell her to stay in the area where her school is. Cabrini responds by saying that she wants to speak with Pope Leo XIII himself. Her boldness is rewarded, and when she speaks with the Pope, she tells him, “The world is too small for what I plan to do.” He rejects her idea of a mission to Asia, but he gives her a new mission: Pope Leo XIII sends Mother Frances Cabrini to America.
The reason that the Pope chose this mission for her was heartbreaking: Italian immigrants in America were having a hard time. Many were poor, spoke very little English, and were treated unkindly. Cabrini was simultaneously nervous and excited about her mission to help the Italian immigrants. As her journey to America by boat began, she found beauty and the glory of God in nature, as shown by how she viewed the sea in an early letter: “We see in it the happiness of a soul that lives in the tranquility of the grace of God. In such a fortunate soul all is calm, with peace undisturbed, and the capacity of raising itself to the sublimity of the Divine mysteries.”
At sea, Cabrini also managed to find gentle humor in the foibles of her companions:
Sister Eletta is our amusement with her geographical difficulties. She does not understand how the pilot of the ship is so ignorant as to keep us mid-ocean, while other boats, from time to time in the distance always sail on the horizon, and therefore she believes that those boats are nearer to the land and thus more secure than we are.
She also wrestled with the challenges of learning English: “I fear the day of judgment will arrive before I learn English. Notwithstanding, I trust in Christ, and if He wants me to bring His heart to any souls, He will also give me the grace to speak the language of the country I visit.” That came to pass, as Cabrini and her companions arrived in America, and began their mission. She became better and better at speaking and writing in English, becoming an ever-more prodigious writer of letters. It is fair to say that she loved to write, and each letter offers insight into her mind.
Cabrini was, of course, human and sometimes felt down, openly addressing how she felt: “I want you to pray very much for me, in order that I may learn to more faithfully serve my beloved Savior, who is so generous in granting His graces and blessings to his unworthy and miserable servant.” She had the same struggles and self-doubt that many people do, and turned to her faith for help.
Over time, she grew very close to the nuns of her order, referring to them as her beloved daughters, and feeling sad at being parted from them for even short periods. During one such period, she wrote,
No matter how great the distance that separates us, we are always near to each other, because we are ever found in the little space of the world… Yes, my daughters, even a small ray of faith clearly shows us the littleness of the world when compared to God. Why should we confer importance on the transitory things of life, and allow ourselves to be governed by that which we despise?
Cabrini’s sense of humor also continued to permeate her letters. On a later voyage, she wrote about a nun who had been feeling unwell: “After a great effort, she felt that she would like to dress, but put her habit on the wrong way and then came to deck. We felt so sorry for her that we took her back to her cabin.” Yet, she always kept her faith at the forefront:
How promptly Mary answered the Divine call, and we? How have we corresponded with the call of God? What is our virtue, our conduct? What are our efforts, our generosity? Mary knew her mission, and accomplished it. What do we do? We understand what our mission is, but do we always follow it faithfully?
Cabrini believed in matching her faith with good works. She did that, helping immigrants in both practical and spiritual ways.
Her mission to America was a success. She demonstrated her understanding of enduring values by living them, and that is why her story still matters to this day. For there are things in life that transcend time, things that are meant to last, things that should last, as St. Paul admonishes in his letter to the Corinthians: “And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love… Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” By letting faith, hope, and love govern her values and her actions, Cabrini did good that lasted. Her works transcended the time in which she walked the Earth, echoing through subsequent eras like a bell ringing merrily in a pastoral Italian village.
Everyone seeks to recreate what they are spiritually in the world around them: for better or for worse. For Cabrini, it was for the better. Her accomplishments included founding an orphanage for Italian children, after buying the property from owners whose well had run dry and who believed that no other water would be available on the property. Cabrini envisioned successfully finding the right place on the property to dig for a spring and get enough water for all of the orphanage’s needs. Water from that spring continues to flow over a century later.
On July 7, 1946, Frances Xavier Cabrini became Saint Cabrini, the patron saint of immigrants. A saint, indeed.
Isaiah Flair is a content creator and marketing strategist who lives in the Pacific Northwest, between the evergreen forests and the sea.
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