Therese enjoyed the recent film about St. Francis Cabrini, who has been a life-long friend, a remarkable healer and a companion through Cabrini’s diaries. Therese has also been inspired during dozens of pilgrimages to Cabrini’s shrine in New York City. Here are some of Therese’s favorite stories, that provide an essential background for a budding relationship with this 
Saint.
For example, the story of Mother Cabrini’s overwhelming fear of water (which was hinted at through underwater scenes). This began with a near drowning at the age of seven, which left Cabrini with a severe and persistent dread of water. When she realized her call to be a traveling missionary, St. Frances took her fears before God in prayer. Jesus responded with a promise, “I (will) protect and guide you with my hands from one sea to the other.” So, she put her faith in God during twenty-three missionary ocean voyages. During one such crossing Mother Cabrini was even given the nickname, “sea-lion” by passengers who noticed her immunity to most bouts of seasickness and her practice of sitting on the deck to pray and to add to her diary, “written between one wave and another.”
God’s protection In 1912 St. Frances Cabrini, had a ticket for an ocean voyage from Europe to New York, but because of administrative problems at Columbus Hospital in New York City, she canceled her trip and took another ship a month earlier. The ship she would have traveled on was the Titanic. And knowing her zeal for service to others, she would have stayed in steerage to pray with her beloved immigrants.
Her missions beyond New York included offering religion lessons for underground coal miners, visiting yellow fever infested neighborhoods, riding a donkey down the side of a steep precipice, and surviving decades of poor health. But none of these things mattered. She trusted God and would often remind her sisters of St. Paul’s words. “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13
Finally, the driving force behind every scene in Cabrini’s life is only hinted at, or perhaps portrayed symbolically, when Mother Cabrini put on her veil. This Saint’s every action was grounded in faith. Behind every act of charity, every attempt to bring justice, is Cabrini’s greatest motive, in her own words: “To love Jesus, to seek Jesus, to speak of Jesus, to make Jesus known… This will be my main interest, the purpose of my steps, my comings and goings, all my preoccupations, of all that comes my way as work.” And finally, how can we imitate her? She encourages us to rely on “the [Holy] Spirit working within us, and comforting us with abundant light, and granting the Spirit’s promptings for every small and large holy action.” So, let us pray… Jesus, help us “devote ourselves to the Holy Spirit with our whole hearts,” like Mother Cabrini… “that we too might see the face of the earth renewed”. Amen.
