Our next Mother of God movie will be Cabrini. It will be at 4 pm on Sunday, July 28. I saw this movie in the theater when it was out for a few weeks. It is now streaming. I was very impressed and moved by this film.
    
Maria Francesca Cabrini was born in what was then part of the Austrian Empire, and is now in Italy, in 1850. She was born two months premature, and because of this, she was small and frail throughout her life. Maria went to a school run by the Daughters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. She graduated cum laude with a teaching certificate. When her parents died, she applied to become a Daughter of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which she eventually joined. She then took the name Xavier.
    
Frances Xavier Cabrini eventually asked the pope if she could go to China to establish missions there. He told her, “Not to the East, but to the West.” He asked her to go to America to work with the many Italian immigrants there. She agreed. She came to New York where she ran into problems with the mayor and other officials. Most disappointing was that the bishop of New York was not very supportive.
    
Eventually she opened 67 missionary institutions to serve the poor in New York, Chicago, New Orleans, Denver, and Seattle. Nine years after her death, some of her sisters were successful in opening a mission to China.
    
The movie Cabrini is a fascinating portrayal of an incredible woman who left an amazing mark on the American Church. I hope to see you there.