St Frances Xavier Cabrini

She is the patron saint of immigrants. She crossed the Atlantic by ship more than thirty times so that she could care for more people in need, and that is why her symbol is the steamship: the sign that she was ready to listen to God’s call and to trust him completely.

The prayer dedicated to her on the official website remembers her as the mother of migrants and asks that we learn to recognise God in those who are strangers to us, to tear down the walls of prejudice and discrimination, and to build bridges between people.

She was born in Italy in 1850. From childhood she wanted to become a religious sister, but her health was fragile and several religious communities would not accept her.

She overcame these trials with firm faith and zeal for the Gospel: she devoted herself to caring for orphaned children and, in 1880, she at last founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

She hoped to go to China as a missionary, but she obeyed what Pope Leo XIII asked of her and went to New York, to care for the Italian immigrants who were living on the margins. Despite her frailty, she crossed the Atlantic more than thirty times and founded sixty-seven institutions – orphanages, schools, hospitals and convents – in the United States, South America and Europe.

She died in 1917. In 1946 she was canonised: the first citizen of the United States to be declared a saint. Today she is the patron saint of immigrants, and her feast is on 22 December.