Year of Faith Saint for November

St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, M.S.C.

Missionary and founder of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Francis Xavier Cabrini was born into a family of thirteen children. Due to health reasons, her first request to join a religious community was refused, but she was finally able to take her vows in 1877. Soon after being named prioress of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, she was urged by Pope Leo XIII to become a missionary in the United States. However, the house that had been promised to her for an orphanage was unavailable when she reached New York City, and the archbishop advised her to return to Italy. Frances departed from the archbishop’s residence all the more determined to stay and establish that orphanage. And she did. In 35 years, Frances Xavier Cabrini founded 6 institutions for the poor, the abandoned, the uneducated and the sick, and organized schools and adult education classes for formation in the Catholic Faith. She died of malaria in her own Columbus Hospital in Chicago in 1917. She was the first United States Citizen to be canonized, and she is known as the patron saint of immigrants.

See more here: http://usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/how-we-teach/new-evangelization/year-of-faith/saints-for-the-year-of-faith.cfm