Women Who Make the World Better

I t’s near impossible to walk the streets of Manhattan — or any major American city — without running into a woman on the sidewalk who’s begging for money. She may have a sign saying she is a mother, explaining how many children she has. She may have a child or two right there with her. Livonia, from Eastern Europe, was the latest I ran into. It’s of course more common to meet a mother from Mexico or elsewhere in Latin America. Who promised them a lie? Who took their money? These and other questions enter and hurt and even madden the heart as you see them and briefly talk with them — if language allows.

With every such encounter, I think of a woman who is about to be seen on theater screens — Francesca Saverio Cabrini. She’s a canonized saint. The upcoming movie, Cabrini, which tells some of her story, is presented as a feminist success story — and it is, in the truest sense. She faces obstacles, including the skepticism and unhelpfulness of men who, if they had a better sense of her heart, should have done everything in their power to remove them. A missionary from Italy, she came to the United States to help immigrants who were languishing here in the pursuit of a better life. A Catholic religious sister, she led in so many of the mandates of the Gospel. She cared for the orphan and the widow. She built some of the institutions that would become the backbone of so many lives here, as did many other Catholic women religious, such as Elizabeth Ann Seton. Orphanages. Schools. Hospitals.

Also here in New York City, just the other day, I witnessed a religious sister making her final profession with the Dominican Sisters of Our Lady of the Springs of Bridgeport. It’s a long story with a long history — more than 800 years, truth be told — and a small community of women. But one that gives all. Here in the middle of so much noise and confusion, they continue to teach about the virtues and the classics — to whomever comes. You don’t have to be Christian to be served by them. That’s always been the case with religious sisters and with the Church. You only must be looking for something more. You only must be hungry. If they can find you, they will. But if you find them, you will be in the presence of radiant joy. That was certainly the case at Sister Julia Balu’s final profession on a Sunday just before Lent, in the presence of young girls from Saint Vincent Ferrer High School, where she teaches religion, full of smiles and even flowers for their teacher. How many teenage girls in America today know a nun? And yet, here were these girls, embracing and celebrating. It made such a contrast to all the headlines about gender transitions and all the rest. They were loving one another in the most appropriate ways and basking in the beauty of a self-sacrificial vocation — which is what both the rarer religious life and more natural marriage are.

Mother Cabrini on the big screen is a tremendous opportunity to reintroduce not only women religious and their leadership and courage to a culture that doesn’t always encounter them but to help quiet the hearts of a people who are all too riled up by politics and so many other closer-to-home worries.

“Let us be generous, remembering always that the salvation of many souls is entrusted to our charity,” Mother Cabrini wrote in her travel diaries. She continued: “We can do nothing of ourselves, for we are poor and miserable, but if we have faith and trust in him who comforts us, then we can do all things. Let us open wide our hearts, let us help those souls lying under the yoke of the king of darkness. Let us break, by the fire of ardent charity, the heavy chains that bind these poor souls to the terrible slavery of the devil, and we shall see that our efforts are not in vain.”

What’s striking about her writing — which was often addressed to her sisters back in Italy, as she was traveling and serving here — is that she was not merely looking with pity on individuals like that mother on the street of Manhattan. She knew she was nothing special without the Creator who made her and had plans for her, too, beyond anything she could do on her own.

The Cabrini movie is being released for Women’s History Month, and that’s brilliant in its way — it’s for more than a pious crowd and tells a story that reaches beyond church pews. At the same time, her story cannot be told without an understanding of the deep humility that fueled her boldness.

A few years ago, I put together a book, A Year with the Mystics: Visionary Wisdom for Daily Living. This isn’t meant to be a plug so much as an explanation. A main reason I wanted to publish it was to show the heart of women and men like Cabrini. They did tremendous works, but the only reason they could do them was their time spent in prayer.

Trump. Biden. Ukraine. Israel. Whatever you see in your own home and community, there’s something more. If you can lean into it, there may be some peace and quiet. Knowing about Cabrini could help. The Creator certainly can.

This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.