"If you love God,

come forth,

have courage,

the devil laughs at the weak, at the timid,

whereas he fears and flies from energetic souls."

Mother Cabrini certainly lived by this ideal...by the time she died at age 67, she had accomplished incredible work. She had traveled across the sea 25 times and founded 67 houses, many of them orphanages or hospitals, in Italy, France, Spain, England, the United States, Central and South America. She became a naturalized United States citizen in 1909, which makes her the first U.S. citizen to be canonized a saint by the Catholic Church.

A booklet written by her order theorizes, "It would seem that God wished to give the Catholics of America a saint typically American. If Americans are known throughout the world for getting things done efficiently and with the utmost dispatch, Mother Cabrini is indeed a typical American."

Here is the statue of the "typical American saint" at her shrine in Colorado at the end of the 50-mile pilgrimage from St. Isidore's Church in Watkins last summer. Join us next week!