In 1880, Mother Frances Cabrini established the Institute of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Codogno, Italy. This year, 2005, marks the 125th Anniversary of their foundation as a religious community.
Born in 1850 in Sant’Angelo Lodigiano, Italy, Frances Cabrini was inspired by the accounts of missionaries returning from the Orient. She would launch paper boats filled with violets from a riverbank near her childhood home and pretend that the flowers were missionaries en route to China.
Growing to womanhood, she became a licensed public school teacher. However, she still held the strong missionary desire to bring the word of God and God’s love to the ends of the earth. Basing the foundation of the Order on her devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the early years of the Institute of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart were characterized by poverty and sacrifice, yet the Sisters were joyful as they engaged in various good works such as founding schools, orphanages and doing parish work involving youth and family ministry.
The charismatic personality and visible holiness of the life of Mother Cabrini attracted many women to her congregation. From the outset, she stressed love of God and neighbor as the characteristic virtue of the fledgling Order. She encouraged the sisters, whom she referred to as her daughters, to grow in simplicity and humility. By 1889, nine years after the beginning of the Congregation, over 100 sisters worked throughout northern Italy and 40 novices were preparing for missionary life.
That same year, Pope Leo, XIII requested that the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus undertake service to Italian immigrants in the United States. So it was that Mother Cabrini and her sisters became one of the first women’s religious congregations to respond to the needs of the poor, abandoned Italian immigrants in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Illinois, Colorado, Washington State and California. She and seven of her sisters arrived in New York harbor on March 31, 1889 to begin their ministry.
Schools, hospitals and social service institutions soon sprang up, each functioning as a center for meeting the socio-religious needs of immigrants. Extensive outreach programs began, meeting needs in far-flung urban and rural areas. The sisters visited public hospital wards, jails, prisons and mines bringing solace to many Italians and other immigrant groups who struggled to build new lives in a new land.
While missionary activities in the United States received a great deal of emphasis, the Congregation in the 1890’s spread throughout Italy and to Nicaragua, Panama, Argentina, France and Spain. In the early 1900’s England and Brazil received the Sisters. Nine years after Mother Cabrini’s death in Chicago on December 22, 1917, the Missionary Sisters realized her life-long ambition to go to China. The Sisters opened schools, orphanages and medical dispensaries there.
Today, the Missionary Sisters and their lay collaborators and missioners are found on six continents and sixteen countries throughout the world. Though so widely dispersed geographically, they strive to be of one heart and one mind as they work and pray together to alleviate human misery, transform unjust social structures, educate new generations and become a voice for the voiceless.
The Stella Maris Province, which includes the the apostolic works of the Missionary Sisters in the United States, Australia, the Philippines and Swaziland, Southern Africa, celebrated this milestone anniversary with a conference on Global Solidarity and a liturgy of thanksgiving in Philadelphia in April. Sr. Lina Columbini, M.S.C., Superior General of the Missionary Sisters from Rome was a featured speaker during their gathering.
The next century of the Institute will continue to be characterized by total trust in God, recalling the motto of St. Paul which Mother Cabrini made her own: I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me.
The Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus continue to serve the Denver area by offering a place of prayer and pilgrimage at Mother Cabrini Shrine in Golden, CO. The Shrine attracts over 150,000 visitors each year who come to pray and find the peace and solitude the Shrine offers. The 373 steps that lead to the 22-foot statue of the Sacred Heart are adorned by the Stations of the Cross, the Mysteries of the Rosary and the Ten Commandments. A cool spring of water still flows today after Mother Cabrini discovered it on the barren hilltop. The Stone House, which has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places in Colorado, offers retreat facilities to many groups who come to be renewed and refreshed on their spiritual journey.
Today, three Missionary Sisters reside at Mother Cabrini Shrine. They continue their mission of bringing God to people and people to God.
Locally, the Sisters and their collaborators will celebrate this 125th anniversary of their order at their annual Mother Cabrini Shrine Gala July 15, 2005 at the Seawell Grand Ballroom at the Performing Arts Center in Denver. Dinner, dancing, silent and live auctions will be included in the evening. A raffle drawing with prizes including $5,000 cash, 42 inch plasma TV and His and Her Golf Clubs with a one night stay at the Broadmoor with breakfast and golf for two will also take place at the gala. Stephanie Riggs of News 4 is the Mistress of Ceremonies. A traveling display which reflects the past 125 years of the Missionary Sisters will also be a part of the gala. For more information or to purchase gala or raffle tickets please contact: JoAnn Seaman, development director at:
Mother Cabrini Shrine
20189 Cabrini Blvd.
Golden, CO80401
303.526.0758.
303.526.9795 fax