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.
