The subject of the new film Cabrini — St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, foundress of the Missionary Servants of the Sacred Heart of Jesus — was known for her untiring work with the downtrodden in 19th-century New York City and elsewhere.

The “Patroness of Immigrants” and future saint was poignantly extolled at her funeral in Chicago on Dec. 27, 1917, five days after her death on Dec. 22.

The Catholic Extension Society’s founder, Father Francis Clement Kelley, delivered the homily. A spokesperson from Catholic Extension shared excerpts of that text with the Register. 

“To the true believer, Mother Cabrini is … surrounded by a new light reflected from the face of the Master she served so well and faithfully,” Father Kelley told the congregation gathered for the funeral Mass.

He emphasized her love of Christ: 

“She named her order after the Sacred Heart. She spread the devotion by every means in her power. It is from love that comes fortitude of soul, which she had to a most remarkable degree.”

Recalling a particular trial in Chicago, he noted, “Discouragements did not cause her to hesitate for an instant. … [H]er confidence in God was so great that … she was far from discouraged.” He went on to explain, “Before night her confidence was rewarded, for the crisis had passed.”

He also recalled the remarkable breadth of her mission, focused on caring for orphans as well as education and health care.

The film’s director, Alejandro Monteverde, told CNA, the Register’s EWTN News partner, “I realized this was a universal story about a woman who happens to be a nun, who happens to be a saint, but what she was fighting for is something that can unite the entire world.”

Monteverde also spoke with the Register, underscoring: “She was a woman who came here with nothing; this is the ultimate underdog story. And she fought for the good of others. She could not sleep knowing that there were children sleeping on the streets. She was also a woman who not only fought all these institutions that were run by men at that time, but she was a woman who was fighting for her own health. Doctors gave her every year only a year to live, and she was always able to squeeze one more year out of life, because she had a very strong purpose. That’s what I love about her life. In many ways, her life was very cinematic, meaning her story is very artful.”

Father Kelley described Mother Cabrini as a trailblazer, saying, “Like her predecessors among the founders of religious orders, Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini was a pioneer, already canonized in the hearts of her spiritual daughters.”

She would eventually be canonized by Pope Pius XII on July 7, 1946 — the first U.S. citizen to be raised to the altars.

Mother Cabrini, pray for us!