The subject of the new Angel Studios film "Cabrini" - Frances Xavier Cabrini, foundress of the Missionary Servants of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and a canonized saint in the Catholic Church - has been remembered by many as the "Patroness of Immigrants" for her tireless work with the poorest of the poor in 19th-century New York and elsewhere.
The National Catholic Register revealed that the homily for her funeral mass on Dec. 27, 1917, poignantly extolled her.
Molly Carr of the Catholic Extension Society provided excerpts of the homily. She told the Register that the organization's founder, the Rev. Francis Clement Kelley, delivered the funeral sermon.
"To the true believer, Mother Cabrini is ... surrounded by a new light reflected from the face of the Master she served so well and faithfully," his sermon wrote. "She named her order after the Sacred Heart. She spread the devotion by every means in her power. It is from love that comes fortitude of soul, which she had to a most remarkable degree."
Kelley further recalled that discouragements regarding her missionary work "did not cause her to hesitate for an instant."
"[H]er confidence in God was so great that ... she was far from discouraged," he added. "Before night, her confidence was rewarded, for the crisis had passed."
He also recalled the remarkable breadth of her mission, focused on caring for orphans as well as education and health care.
"Like her predecessors among the founders of religious orders, Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini was a pioneer, already canonized in the hearts of her spiritual daughters," Kelley added in his sermon.
Monteverde: Mother Cabrini is 'Ultimate Underdog Story'
"Cabrini" director Alejandro Monteverde told EWTN that creating a film about the immigrant nun because he believed that "what she was fighting for is something that can unite the entire world."
"She was a woman who came here with nothing; this is the ultimate underdog story," he earlier told the Register. "And she fought for the good of others."
Monteverde also recalled how Cabrini used whatever time she had to serve the poor despite her own poor health.
"That's what I love about her life," he added. "In many ways, her life was very cinematic, meaning her story is very artful."
Cabrini was canonized by Pope Pius XII in 1946, the very first US citizen to be raised to Catholic sainthood.
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