Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini was born on July 15, 1850, in Sant'Angelo Lodigiano, Italy. Despite her frail health, she founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in 1880, dedicating her life to serving the poor and immigrants. In 1889, at the request of Pope Leo XIII, she moved to the United States to assist Italian immigrants, establishing schools, orphanages, and hospitals across the country.

Over the next 34 years, Mother Cabrini founded 67 institutions dedicated to caring for the poor, the abandoned, the uneducated, and the sick. She became a U.S. citizen in 1909 and was the first naturalized U.S. citizen to be canonized. She passed away on December 22, 1917, in Chicago, Illinois. She was beatified in 1938 and canonized in 1946.

Pope Pius XII, during her canonization, remarked, "She was a woman of extraordinary faith and courage, who dedicated her life to the service of God and humanity."