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Saint Francesca Xavier Cabrini (July 15, 1850 - December 22, 1917), known during her life as Mother Cabrini, was the first American citizen to be canonized.
She was born Maria Francesca Cabrini in Sant'Angelo Lodigiano, in Lombardy in Italy, the youngest of thirteen children of Agostino Cabrini and Stella Oldini. She took religious vows in 1877, becoming the Mother Superior of the House of Providence orphanage in Codogno, where she was teaching.
In 1880, the orphanage was closed and she became one of the seven founding members of the Institute of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. She was sent to New York as a missionary, arriving on March 31, 1889, and obtained the permission of Archbishop Michael Corrigan to found an orphanage, the first of more than sixty institutions she founded in New York, Chicago, Seattle, and New Orleans, and in countries throughout South America and Europe.
She was naturalized an American citizen in 1909.
Mother Cabrini died of complications from malaria at Columbus Hospital in Chicago. Her remains are enshrined in Mother Cabrini High School at 701 Fort Washington Avenue in Manhattan, New York.
She was beatified on November 13, 1938 and canonized on July 7, 1946 by Pope Pius XII. St. Frances Xavier Cabrini is the patron saint of immigrants. Her beatification miracle involved the restoration of sight to a child who had been blinded by excess silver nitrate in the eyes. Her canonization miracle involved the healing of a terminally ill nun.
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