Do you know who Mother Cabrini is? We celebrate her Feast Day this week. St. Frances Xavier Cabrini was an Italian-born sister who felt a passionate desire to serve the poor. In 1880, after founding the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, she presented herself to Pope Leo XIII and asked to be sent to China. Leo answered, “Not to the East, but to the West.”

So she set her sights on sailing to New York, where she hoped to work with Italian immigrants. But between the time that she left Italy and arrived in New York, the local archbishop decided that he didn’t need her. No one even met her at the docks when she arrived. When Mother Cabrini finally made it to the archbishop’s office, he told her that she should return to Italy. In response, this woman, who knew little English, said, “In America I stay.”