Thursday, November 13, 2025

 

Memorial of Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, Virgin

(Wisdom 7:22b-8:1; Luke 17:20-25)

Two years ago, a major motion of the life of St. Frances Xavier (Mother) Cabrini made its debut. A hundred or so years ago Mother Cabrini was in the United States what Mother Teresa came to signify throughout the world sixty years later.  She worked untiringly for the poor, in her time mostly Italian immigrants.  The movie depicted her as especially capable of dealing with Church authorities and civic officials for the benefit of children.

Mother Cabrini demonstrated what the first reading today teaches about wisdom.  She was “…intelligent, holy, unique, manifold, subtle, agile, clear, unstained, certain, not baneful, loving the good, keen, unhampered, beneficent, kindly, firm, secure, tranquil, all-powerful, all-seeing, and pervading all spirits…”

“Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?” T.S. Eliot asked decades before the Information Age.  Wisdom fully develops our human potential so that we may become saints.  Like Mother Cabrini, we should not just admire it but embody it.

No comments: