Miracles happened here
On a hill in Seattle's Laurelhurst neighborhood, Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini made miracles happen.
At the Sacred Heart Orphanage she founded there in 1912, children were taken in, taught and nurtured with the love of God and warmth that the frail Italian nun instilled.
Small miracles happened there every day, with every child, but in 1925, one miracle caught Rome's attention. Mother Cabrini appeared in a vision to a member of her order who was near death, telling the nun that she would be saved to continue God's work. That miracle was recognized in 1946 by Pope Pius XII and Mother Cabrini became the first American saint.
This month, the Villa Academy, formerly St. Cabrini's Sacred Heart Orphanage, celebrates the 150th anniversary of the birth of the saint who worked miracles in Seattle.
A special mass and reception will be held Thursday at St. Bridget Church and Villa Academy.
"We're quite thrilled with everything that we've found to celebrate the 150th anniversary of her birth," said Polly Skinner, head of school at the academy.
On display will be St. Cabrini's hairbrush, slippers and reading glasses, a copy of her death certificate and a piece of her coffin.
"They have quite a few artifacts up there that we're dying to see," said Kathy Spencer, development director at St. Frances Cabrini School in Tacoma. "We have great respect for the type of woman that she was."
The youngest of 13 children, she was born Maria Francesca Cabrini in the
province of Lombardy, Italy.
She was born two months premature and her small size and frail health would follow her all her life, but could never keep her from devoting her mind, body and spirit to the Catholic faith.
She was home-schooled by her mother and grew up on her family's farm south of Milan.
Due to her delicate health, the future saint was twice refused entrance into a convent. Undeterred, she formed a new order, the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, in 1880.
She spent the next nine years as a religious powerhouse in Italy, establishing several convents, schools and orphanages.
At the request of Pope Leo XIII, she came to the United States in 1889 to minister to the nation's flood of immigrants.
Arriving in New York, Mother Cabrini and the sisters opened their first of many orphanages in America.
Mother Cabrini traveled the country establishing institutions, and, in 1903, her travels brought her to Seattle.
That year, she established Mount Carmel Mission on Beacon Hill. The mission included a school, convent, chapel and orphanage.
After continuing her missionary work throughout the states and in South America, Mother Cabrini returned to Seattle in 1909 and became a U.S.citizen at the King County Courthouse.
Villa on a hill
When city planners threatened to level Beacon Hill in 1912, Mother Cabrini set out to find a suitable site to relocate the orphanage and, according to one story, she found it in a dream.
In the dream, she saw a "villa on a hill." She sent two sisters to explore a site she found on a city map that she determined was the place she'd dreamed of. The following day the sisters and Mother Cabrini returned to the site with a real estate agent who told them the owner would never sell.
Hitchhiking back to their Beacon Hill home, the sisters were picked up by a woman in a chauffeur-driven limo.
During their ride, Mother Cabrini told the woman of the home she hoped to buy, and the woman confessed that it was hers. She donated the land to the sisters, sealing the deal by sharing "a glass of water in the name of Our Lord," with Mother Cabrini.
In 1914, the Beacon Hill orphanage was relocated to the 25-acre site in Laurelhurst. A year later, Mother Cabrini opened Columbus Hospital (later renamed Cabrini Hospital) on First Hill.
In 1951, the orphanage site became Sacred Heart Villa Academy and in 1977 it became the independent day-school that today offers preschool through eighth-grade programs.
By the time of her death in Chicago in 1917, Mother Cabrini had created 67 institutions world-wide--one for each year of her life.
"She was quite a presence and her impact on Seattle is still lasting today," said Mike McCloskey, development director at Villa Academy.
The second of two miracles attributed to Mother Cabrini in her canonization occurred in the office of the Villa's head of school.
On Dec. 17, 1925, Sister Delfina Grazioli was on her deathbed and was receiving Last Rites. The sister said a vision of Mother Cabrini appeared to her saying she was to be healed because she was "needed for more work."
The next day, Sister Delfina had fully recovered. She went on to minister for more than four decades.
In 1950, four years after she was canonized, St. Cabrini was proclaimed Patroness of Immigrants.
Seattle's celebration of St. Cabrini's birthday continues Nov. 13, her Feast Day, at Villa Academy. The school will focus on her teachings, and Gena McReynolds' sixth-grade students will perform a play, "The Mother Cabrini Story," written by kindergarten teacher Victoria Kristy.
St. Cabrini "had a very real dedication to see the face of God in the faces of the sick and the orphans and the elderly," Skinner said. "It should be really fascinating to look back at Mother Cabrini's time here in Seattle and show the heritage that she's left behind."