Within these pages we meet a remarkable woman, one most finely and profoundly human who is the first citizen of the United States of America elevated to the splendors of canonized sainthood. Leo XIII, who was a great personal friend of hers, on one occasion said to her, "Let us work, Cabrini, and we will win heaven." She replied that she liked to work so well she doubted whether it would gain any merit for her!
Theodore Maynard presents the first authoritative biography of this saint of our own times. He has drawn his material directly from the Vice-Postulator of her cause, from the original records of her life, and from interviews granted him by the members of her own Institute who had enjoyed close relations with her.
The work of the little Italian-American nun still lives on in the form of her organization, the Institute of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Almost to the last year of her life, Mother Cabrini personally selected every site and established every home of her Institute in both the Old and the New Worlds.
Her incessant travels were never uninteresting because for some reason or other her personality seemed to come into its own on board ship. Mother Cabrini might start with a steerage ticket, but always ended up eating at the captain's table and living in the best stateroom on the boat. She seemed to have the power of winning over anyone with whom she came in contact.
She helped change the status of the Italian immigrants in the United States as well as South America, through her work with the hospitals, schools, and orphanages. Even the anti-clerical Italian government and some of its most rabid officials recognized in a most tangible way the things she was doing for the Italian immigrants.
Mother Cabrini was a woman after God's own heart, who, like St. Paul, could do all things in Him who strengthened her. She never saw a country, she could hardly think of one, without immediately longing to go there to save souls. Indeed, the world was too small for her!
Here, then, in this book, is Mother Cabrini - a true mother to homeless children - a mother caring for the sick - a mother clothing and feeding the poor.