More Mother Cabrini....
Having grown up in Connecticut, I had visited the tomb of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini in New York City. I thought of her as the New York saint. When she was first asked to go to New York from Italy, she thought it was too small of a place! She was hoping to go to China, like her namesake the great Francis Xavier.

When I moved to Colorado in 1995, I discovered that there was a shrine to her in Colorado, and that many Coloradans thought of her as "their saint".

She had huge influence in Chicago too, founding Columbus Hospital there. She visited North, Central and South America numerous times, and traveled back and forth to Europe in the late 1800's and early 1900's when travel was much more difficult than today.

I'm reading about her journeys through the Andes in feet of snow. Here is the Mother Cabrini Shrine in Colorado buried in snow last November:

It's more difficult to climb to the Sacred Heart statue in the snow...

Beneath the snow is a glass case, covering the white stones that Mother Cabrini arranged...

Mother Cabrini wrote: "Prayer is a great comfort and works truly. It is the life of the soul, though its effects are not always visible. Of the many graces that proceed from prayer, some are known to us and others not; but this does not prevent its enriching our souls....In Heaven, prayer will be explained in all its pomp and majesty. Pray, then, pray with unlimited faith in every need, in every difficulty, and do not become weary if in our short lives we do not see the effects of our prayers. Have faith, lively faith, resting always assured that not one of our supplications will be rejected."

"Oh, faith! How beautiful, great, powerful!" she continues. "Faith produces hope, and prayer is at once the supplicating hope. 'In te Domine speravi, non confundar in aeternum.' [In You, O Lord, have I hoped, and I shall not ever be confounded.] Oh, hope of Heaven, thou obtainest so much when we think our prayers obtain nothing, and when our hope seems a delusion. No, our prayers are never in vain, but everything is disposed of by the wisdom of the Omniscient God. Confide in God above all, hope, and you will not be confounded. Repeat often, 'In te,' etc., and, saying it from your heart, open wide the wings of trustful hope, rejoice in the Spirit and live in holy joy."

May Grandpa Stephen F. Boucher, Jr. rest in peace:

(August 12, 1989)
(This statue is located at the top of the mountain at the Mother Cabrini Shrine in Golden, Colorado.)