Monday, November 13, 2017

It's Mother Cabrini's Feast Day; now let us work

The Mass today was for the first American Saint, Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini. The priest mentioned in his homily that Mother Cabrini only lived 67 years, but she founded 67 charitable institutions in her lifetime. I was born in 1967, 50 years after St. Frances died in 1917, so I have a fondness for the number 67. In fact, I picked the number 67 in a sideboard raffle recently. I didn't win—typical.

I used to have a prayer card somewhere with her famous quote on it, which I like and try to use as a motto. It is "We shall have Eternity to rest. Now, let us work." I have tried finding that quote online, and I finally found one result which I found in a Google Books reference to the book Discovering Jesus in the Least by Chris Ramsey. Here's the entire thing.

Mother Cabrini was known for her tireless, pioneering work establishing a variety of charitable organizations. An amazing woman of God, the Chicago Sun-Times (2003) credited her with "founding some sixty-seven orphanages, schools, hospitals and convents in Italy, France, Spain, Chile, Argentina, Brazil and the United States."

How did this amazing nun and her Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart accomplish all this?.

Perhaps we can gain and inkling of how she and her sisters achieved such feats when she told her sisters: "We shall have eternity to rest. Now, let us work.".

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