Early Life and Aspirations

Saint Francis Xavier Cabrini was born in 1850 in Lombardy, Italy, as the youngest of 13 children in a sickly family. Her early education was overseen by her older sister, Rosa, who introduced her to stories of missionary work, igniting Cabrini's desire to serve as a missionary despite her parents' aspirations for her to become a schoolteacher. She attended a convent boarding school, where she excelled academically and eventually became a school teacher. After her parents' deaths, Cabrini pursued her true vocation, leading her to seek a community of sisters, which ultimately resulted in her founding her own missionary order, the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart.