Born in north Italy in 1850, Frances was considered too sickly to join the local religious order. In time she founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, started several houses in Italy and in 1889 came to New York to help Italian immigrants. Before her death from malaria at Chicago in 1917, she became a naturalised citizen, crossed the Atlantic thirty times, established 67 religious houses with more than 1500 members. Her body is at Mother Cabrini HIgh School in New York City. She was canonised in 1946, the first canonised United States citizen. – Vatican II Weekday Missal 1975, p 1808