Rough Sailing for Mother Cabrini By Frida Merino Avalos Harsh weather on Mother Cabrini’s 1899 voyage from New York to Le Havre made for nights of unrest and uncertainty. On the second night intense fog set in, which Mother described as, “darkness so thick that it can almost be touched.”…
Saving Mother Cabrini’s Bench In April we wrote about the history of Mother Cabrini’s prayer bench, which is memorialized in the mosaic at the Shrine. The effort to restore the bench so that you can use it as St. Cabrini did is now underway. On a drizzly morning in April…
A Feverish Decision In December of 1887, Mother Cabrini arrived in Rome with a high fever. The Missionary Sisters, alarmed by her physical decline, called in Doctor Morini. He predicted that Mother Cabrini only had about two years left to live. Mother Cabrini herself knew her time was probably limited….
The mosaic at the Shrine includes an unusual park bench with gargoyle armrests. It is memorialized on the wall because Mother Cabrini used to sit upon this bench to pray when she visited northern Manhattan. Where did this unique item some from? We don’t know with certainty but have what…
Mother Cabrini had just returned from her first trip to New York in 1899 when a huge fire broke out at the convent in Codogno, Italy. It began in a shed where, Mother Cabrini reported, “I had just finished storing a large quantity of wood.” She may have been the…
The Jubilee of 1900 In the spring of 1900 Mother Cabrini was in Rome. It was a busy time because the pontifical schools under her care were being moved to a new district. She didn’t mind the work, particularly since being in Rome meant she was able to participate in…
Late in 1917 Mother Cabrini arrived in Chicago thin, weak, and exhausted. Part of the problem, the doctors at Columbus Hospital told her, was that she was suffering a relapse of the malaria she’d acquired in Brazil years before. But at 67, after decades of relentless work and ill health,…
“How sweet and good it is to go to sea, tired and drained from the work of the missions!” Mother Cabrini wrote on September 1, 1899. In nine months she had done a staggering amount. Her sixth journey to the United States took her to New York, New Jersey, Chicago,…
In 1872, smallpox raged through the region of Lodi. Francesca Cabrini, then 22, and her older sister Rosa went through the town tending to their sick neighbors. Not surprisingly, Francesca came down with the deadly illness. But Rosa’s attentive nursing helped her make a quick recovery, and the future saint…