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Gospel: Luke 17: 11-19
As Jesus continued his journey to Jerusalem,
he traveled through Samaria and Galilee.
As he was entering a village, ten lepers met him.
They stood at a distance from him and raised their voice, saying,
“Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!”
And when he saw them, he said,
“Go show yourselves to the priests.”
As they were going they were cleansed.
And one of them, realizing he had been healed,
returned, glorifying God in a loud voice;
and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him.
He was a Samaritan.
Jesus said in reply,
“Ten were cleansed, were they not?
Where are the other nine?
Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?”
Then he said to him, “Stand up and go;
your faith has saved you.”
The Gospel of the Lord.
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“Your faith has saved you.”
We can certainly say this about the Saints, whose stories not only inspire us, but remind us of what human beings are capable of when a willing heart is filled with God’s grace.
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Today we celebrate the Feast of Saint Frances Cabrini.
Just last week, a group of parishioners and I made a pilgrimage to her shrine, celebrating Mass at her tomb.
Frances is one of only ten canonized Saints to have called America, “home.” Although born in northern Italy in the 1850’s, she immigrated to the United States after being sent by the pope to care for sick and orphaned Italian immigrants in New York City.
By the end of her life, her mission expanded far beyond New York; she established 67 different institutions to care for the poorest of the poor, not only in the US and Italy, but also in Central and South America.
Nine years after her death, sisters from the religious order she founded, the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, even took root in China.
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What strikes me most about Frances’ life was her ability to overcome fear for the sake of the Gospel.
For example, she nearly drowned in a canal as a child, leaving her with a terrible fear of water. Imagine what must’ve been racing through her mind – the fear, the anxiety! – after seeing the ocean for the very first time, realizing she was about to cross it.
Frances made that months-long pilgrimage across the Atlantic 23 times over the course of her life.
She once said, in so many words, “I do not ask God to take my fear away. Rather, to expand my heart. If I love more than I fear, then I shall overcome.”
And overcome she did. She turned fear into love; darkness into light; chaos into order; doubt into faith; sick and restless orphans into children of God.
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May Frances intercede for us, that God would expand our hearts with his grace, never allowing fear to prevent us from doing his will.
Saint Frances Cabrini, pray for us.
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Image credits: (1) Pin Page (2) Catholic News Agency (3) Hope With God, Facebook