Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, Virgin

What were the people doing in Noah’s time when the flood came?

On March 31, 1889, a small woman in a black habit stepped off a ship in New York harbor with six sisters and almost no English. The archbishop suggested they go home. Mother Cabrini answered that the Pope had sent her, and she was staying.

Where did Mother Cabrini want to go, and where did the Pope send her?

At dinner, say where our family came from and pray one Hail Mary for immigrants, offering tonight’s meatless meal for a deceased relative by name.

The Church’s official declaration that a person is in Heaven and may be honored as a saint everywhere. It comes after a long study of the person’s life and usually two miracles worked through their prayers.

Watch ye therefore, because you know not the day nor the hour.

Why does the Church care so much about immigrants? Aren’t there rules about who can come?

Lord Jesus, you were a refugee in Egypt when you were a baby. Bless everyone who has left their home to find a safe place for their family. Thank you for the people who brought our family here. Help us welcome the stranger the way St. Frances Cabrini did. Amen.

St. Kateri was born in Auriesville, New York. Her father was a Mohawk chief and her mother was an Algonquin Christian. Her parents named her Ioragode, meaning sunshine. Around the age of four she received the name Tekakwitha, which means she will “move all that is before her.”

If the Sacred Heart would give me the means I would construct a boat called “The House of Cristoforo” (“Bearer of Christ”) to traverse with one Community, little or big, so as to carry the Name of Christ to all people, to those who as yet do not know Him, and also to those who have forgotten Him. So writes Mother Cabrini, the tenacious saint whose great zeal for souls led her across oceans and continents to spread the Word of God. The scale at which Mother alleviated human suffering is unmatched. Throughout her lifetime, her Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus established sixty-seven institutions dedicated to serving schoolchildren, orphans, and the poor. The scope of these missions made her order one of the farthest reaching and impactful of its day.

Tomorrow, November 14, is a Saturday: check the parish Confession time and plan to go as a family, since the plan has Saturday Confession and a Rosary decade for the Holy Souls; you will also start a “persistent prayer” list on the fridge, so have paper and a magnet ready. Sunday, November 15, is the Thirty-third Sunday and the parable of the talents, with a home talent show; give the kids a heads-up tonight so they can think about what to show.