June 7, 2024
The missionary passion that inspired St. Frances Xavier Cabrini was born from a charism strongly rooted in the spirituality of the Sacred Heart that was revived in the late 1800s. This revival took place for several reasons, but it was primarily due to the bicentennial anniversary of the first appearance of the Sacred Heart to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque and the consecration of the world to the Sacred Heart desired by Pope Leo XIII in the encyclical Annum Sacrum.
Mother Cabrini grew up in the sacred sphere that is the Heart of Jesus. With extraordinary courage, she felt impelled to transfer her profound experience to the missionary world, entrusting her work to the unlimited trust that she was given by God’s heart.
Mother Cabrini never theorized her spiritual experience drawn as it was from the Sacred Heart. The fundamental characteristics of that spirituality are of the Sacred Heart and is focused on sharing the sentiments of the Heart of Jesus, making His interests and preferences her own, “learning from Him, gentle and humble of heart”, (Matthew 11:29) sharing his mission of salvation, and offering oneself in sacrifice for humanity and in reparation for sin.
Devotion to the Sacred Heart had a profoundly spiritual influence on Mother Cabrini toward acceptance of God’s project of love of humanity, and this, in turn, became social reparation in her works.
In the spirituality of Mother Cabrini, her source was the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and her missionary spirit was the trickle with which she fed her tireless apostolic activity.
And so it was that humble missionaries managed to undertake and promote difficult works and missions and overcame obstacles and difficulties solely driven by the desire to give glory to God. This, in fact, is the ultimate ideal to which Mother Cabrini leads: the greatest glory of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, which consists of his saving will for humanity and to which every missionary has made her vow.
~ excerpts from the Introduction to Free Yourself and Put On Wings, A Journey of Cabrinian Spirituality by Sr. Maria Barbagallo, MSC