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CONFIRMATION:
CONSECRATED FOR
MISSION
CONFIRMATION IS THE SECOND SACRAMENT
OF INITIATION
—CCC, NOS. 1285-1321
FRANCES CABRINI, “GO TO AMERICA”
When Frances Cabrini received the Sacrament of Confirmation, she was
more perfectly bound to the Church as a true witness to Christ and more
urgently called to spread and defend the faith in word and deed.She heard
that call and responded with extraordinary generosity.This is her story.
This spirited woman was born in Italy in 1850. Early on, she felt the
call to religious life, but no congregation accepted her because of her
poor health. At age twenty-seven, her missionary zeal led her to found a
new congregation, the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart. Within a few
years, she and her sisters had opened six orphanages.
In 1889, she obtained an audience with Pope Leo XIII, asking him to
support her desire to open a mission in China. Pope Leo directed her
elsewhere. He told her to go to America and work among the Italian immi-
grants there.
A short time later, she was in New York City opening a Catholic school
at St. Gioacchino’s parish church. Within a year, she had begged enough
money to buy a 450-acre Jesuit property across the Hudson River to house
her first American orphanage. Soon after, she realized that Italian immi-
grants and others needed a hospital. Her skills at fundraising and getting
people to give of themselves led her to found the first Columbus Hospital,
where she relied on the donated services of the doctors, Catholic as well