Novenas
Novena to St Frances Xavier Cabrini
The full novena to St Frances Xavier Cabrini — the Mother Cabrini prayer to the Sacred Heart, a nine-day form with distinct daily intentions, and the story of the first American citizen-saint, patroness of immigrants.
The novena to St Frances Xavier Cabrini is a nine-day prayer to "Mother Cabrini" — the Italian foundress who crossed the ocean to serve the immigrant, the orphan, the sick, and the poor, and who became the first citizen of the United States to be raised to the altars. It is prayed most often for immigrants and those far from home, for the sick and those who care for them, and for any cause we wish to place in the hands of a saint whose whole life was one of fearless trust in the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
It is commonly begun on 4 November and prayed through the nine days to her feast on 13 November (the day kept in the United States), though it may be said at any time of year. Below we give the prayer in full, a nine-day form with a distinct intention for each day, the variants the faithful ask for, and the story of the saint herself. If you are new to this kind of prayer, see first our guide to what is a novena.
The novena prayer to St Frances Xavier Cabrini
This is the classic prayer of the devotion, carried on the prayer-cards of the Mother Cabrini League; it is a devotional composition, with no liturgical text, and we cannot cite a document of approval of its own. It is said once on each of the nine days. Name your intention where indicated, and after each of the three prayers say one Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be.
To God the Father. Almighty and Eternal Father, Giver of all gifts, show us Your mercy, and grant, we beseech You, through the merits of Your faithful servant, Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, that all who invoke her intercession may obtain what they desire according to the good pleasure of Your Holy Will.
Our Father. Hail Mary. Glory Be.
To God the Son. O Jesus, who said, "Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you," mindful of Your bountiful goodness and love, we humbly beg of You, through the tender devotion of Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini for Your Sacred Heart, to hear our prayer and grant our petitions.
Our Father. Hail Mary. Glory Be.
To God the Holy Spirit. O God, the Holy Spirit, Comforter of the afflicted, Fountain of Light and Truth, through the ardent zeal of Your humble handmaid, Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, grant us Your all-powerful aid in our necessities, sanctify our souls and fill our minds with Divine Light that we may see the Holy Will of God in all things.
Our Father. Hail Mary. Glory Be.
Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, beloved spouse of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, intercede for us that the favour we now ask may be granted. (Here name your request.)
Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, pray for us.
The whole devotion rests on the Sacred Heart. Mother Cabrini named her congregation the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and it was in that Heart that she taught her daughters to hide every fear. Many join to the novena the Litany of the Sacred Heart or a decade of the Rosary, and those who wish to enter more deeply into the devotion at its root will find it in our novena to the Sacred Heart.
A nine-day novena with a distinct intention for each day
Beside the single repeated prayer, there is a fuller nine-day form in which each day carries its own intention and a saying of Mother Cabrini to meditate upon. It is well suited to the days from 4 to 12 November, leading up to her feast, and each day may be closed with the prayer above. Begin and end each day with the Sign of the Cross.
Day 1 — Words of the Saint:
"In whatever difficulty I may encounter I want to trust in the goodness of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, who will never abandon me." Today we pray for an end to the violence, poverty, corruption, and injustice that force people from their homelands.
Day 2 — Words of the Saint:
"What shall I fear? Whatever happens, I will close my eyes and I will rest my head on the Heart of Jesus." Today we pray for peace in the world — that nations may set aside their weapons and resolve their grievances through dialogue and reconciliation.
Day 3 — Words of the Saint:
"I am afraid, I am very afraid, but I trust fully in you. Ah, my sweet Jesus, I tightly embrace your Cross." Today we pray for all who are wounded by what they have suffered or witnessed, that God may grant them healing and peace.
Day 4 — Words of the Saint:
"My Jesus, help me! I surrender myself totally to you, to serve you faithfully and to attract many souls to your holy love." Today we pray for children, that they may grow up free from the shadow of war, violence, and fear, and thrive by God's grace.
Day 5 — Words of the Saint:
"Enlighten my mind with a ray of your light and make me understand well what you want of me." Today we pray for forgiveness for the sins of racism, oppression, hatred, and injustice, that our works of peace may make reparation.
Day 6 — Words of the Saint:
"During every hour and every moment I must desire what God wants from me — nothing more, nothing less." Today we pray that God may transform our hearts, that we may grow in compassion and be peacemakers who show the face of Christ to all.
Day 7 — Words of the Saint:
"A patient soul who bears tribulations with love experiences God closer to her than someone who does not suffer at all." Today we pray for immigrants and refugees throughout the world, that they may find refuge and rest in God.
Day 8 — Words of the Saint:
"Know how to alleviate pain, dress wounds, console the troubled, strengthen the weak, with the precious balm of the love of Jesus' Heart." Today we pray that our hearts may be moved to serve Christ in the stranger, the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the sick, and the imprisoned.
Day 9 — Words of the Saint:
"I can do all things through him who strengthens me." Today we pray that the Church may be renewed by the Holy Spirit and become a light of joy and truth that draws all people into the love of Jesus.
To this each day the following prayer is added:
St Frances Xavier Cabrini, in the name of Christ you ministered to those most in need: the orphan, the immigrant, the sick, the poor, the imprisoned. You saw Christ in them, and they met Christ in you. Pray for us, that we may have eyes and hearts to see and respond to the needs of our own time. Pray for us, that we may welcome the stranger as you did, with compassion and generosity. Amen.
The novena for immigrants and those far from home
Because St Frances Xavier Cabrini is the patron saint of immigrants — declared so by Pope Pius XII in 1950 — hers is the novena the faithful bring above all for those who have left their country, for families separated by borders, for the papers and visas on which a livelihood hangs, and for the safe passage of those who travel in fear. She herself crossed the Atlantic dozens of times to seek out the poorest of her countrymen scattered through a strange land. Name the person or the case plainly, ask her intercession, and leave the outcome to the good pleasure of God's holy will, as the prayer itself asks.
The novena for the sick and for hospitals
Mother Cabrini founded hospitals with her own hands — Columbus Hospital in New York and Chicago among them — and is honoured as a patroness of the sick and of those who nurse them. A novena said for a sick loved one, for a difficult diagnosis, or for doctors, nurses, and hospital chaplains is entirely fitting to her. She who told her sisters to "dress wounds" and "strengthen the weak with the balm of the love of Jesus' Heart" is a sure friend to bring to a hospital bed. For a saint invoked when human means seem spent, see also our novena to St Jude, the patron of hopeless cases.
Is there a St Frances Xavier Cabrini novena PDF?
Many look for a printable St Frances Xavier Cabrini novena PDF to carry through the nine days. The full text is on this page — both the Mother Cabrini prayer and the nine-day form with daily intentions — and you may copy it to keep beside you. The Iter Fidei app also carries the complete novena with day-by-day reminders and audio, so it can be prayed from a phone without a printed sheet.
Rather than a loose printout, carry it in the Iter Fidei app: each day's text, a reminder at the hour you choose, offline, in Latin and in English. Join early access here.
How to pray the novena to St Frances Xavier Cabrini
A novena is nine days of prayer for one intention, from the Latin novena, "nine." Pray at a fixed hour each day so it is not forgotten. Begin on 4 November if you wish to end on her feast, or on any day when a need presses. Name your intention at the start and keep the same one through all nine days.
Say the prayer (and, if you use it, the day's meditation) slowly and with attention; add an Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be as marked, and, where you can, join the novena to Holy Mass or Communion. Above all, ask in the spirit Mother Cabrini herself lived — total trust in the Sacred Heart — and pray for the grace to "see the Holy Will of God in all things," content to receive either the favour you named or the better thing He chooses to send.
Who was St Frances Xavier Cabrini?
Maria Francesca Cabrini was born on 15 July 1850 at Sant'Angelo Lodigiano, in Lombardy, the youngest of thirteen children of a devout farming family. From childhood she dreamed of the missions — she would float little paper boats down a stream, each carrying a "missionary" violet, imagining them borne to China. Frail in health all her life, she was twice refused entrance to religious communities on that account. Undeterred, she took private vows, added to her name that of the great missionary St Francis Xavier, and in 1880 founded at Codogno the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a congregation for the missions.
She had set her heart on the East. But when she went to Rome to seek the Pope's blessing, Leo XIII turned her westward with words she never forgot: "Not to the East, but to the West." In 1889 she sailed for New York to labour among the tens of thousands of poor Italian immigrants crowded into the tenements of America, abandoned and often far from the sacraments.
What followed was one of the most astonishing works of the age. In little more than a quarter-century she crossed the ocean some thirty times and planted, across the United States and down into Central and South America, roughly sixty-seven institutions — orphanages, schools, and hospitals — one for nearly every year of her life. She met poverty, prejudice, and exhaustion with an unbreakable serenity, teaching always that fear is conquered by resting one's head on the Heart of Jesus.
In 1909 she became a naturalized citizen of the United States. On 22 December 1917, worn out by her labours, she died alone in a chair at Columbus Hospital in Chicago, wrapping Christmas gifts for the poor children of the city. She was sixty-seven.
The Church was swift to honour her. She was beatified by Pope Pius XI in 1938, and canonized by Pope Pius XII on 7 July 1946 — the first citizen of the United States to be declared a saint. In 1950, Pius XII named her the heavenly Patroness of Immigrants. Her feast, first kept on 22 December, is observed in the United States on 13 November; she is not in the universal calendar of 1962.
Two miracles were required and confirmed for her canonization: the restoration of sight to an infant blinded by an accident of silver nitrate at birth, and the sudden cure of a dying religious. She had taken the name of a great missionary saint; those who wish may pray as well the novena to St Francis Xavier, apostle of the Indies, whose zeal she carried to a new world.
Why we ask her intercession
St Frances Xavier Cabrini is asked to pray for us because her whole life proves what the Sacred Heart will do through a soul that trusts without reserve. She was sick, small, and unwanted by the world's reckoning, and she built hospitals and schools on three continents. She is the friend of the emigrant because she was one; the friend of the sick because she nursed them; the friend of the abandoned child because she gathered orphans by the thousand. To bring her a need is to bring it to a saint who understood the poor from the inside, and who never once let fear master her love. The Sacred Heart of Jesus in whom she hid is the same Heart to which she now leads all who invoke her.
Frequently Asked Questions
When do you start the novena to St Frances Xavier Cabrini?
The novena is commonly begun on 4 November and prayed through the nine days to her feast on 13 November. It may, however, be prayed at any time of the year for any pressing need — the nine days need only be consecutive.
What is St Frances Xavier Cabrini the patron saint of?
She is the Patroness of Immigrants, declared so by Pope Pius XII in 1950. Because of her many foundations she is also honoured as a patroness of the sick, of hospital administrators and workers, and of orphaned and abandoned children.
When is St Frances Xavier Cabrini's feast day?
Her feast is kept on 13 November. It was originally observed on 22 December, the day of her death in 1917, and later moved to November.
Was Mother Cabrini the first American saint?
She was the first citizen of the United States to be canonized — canonized by Pope Pius XII on 7 July 1946. (An earlier native of the Americas, St Rose of Lima, and others born in what became the United States are honoured as well; but Mother Cabrini, a naturalized American, was the first U.S. citizen raised to the altars.)
How did St Frances Xavier Cabrini die?
She died on 22 December 1917 at Columbus Hospital in Chicago, worn out by decades of labour, while preparing Christmas gifts for poor children. She was found seated in a chair, having quietly given up her soul to God at the age of sixty-seven.
What miracles did Mother Cabrini perform?
Two miracles were formally recognized in her cause: the restoration of sight to an infant, Peter Smith, blinded shortly after birth by an accident of silver nitrate, and the cure of a dying member of her own congregation, Sister Delfina Grazioli. Beyond these, countless favours have been reported by those who invoke her, especially in matters of immigration and health.
Is the novena to St Frances Xavier Cabrini a traditional devotion?
Mother Cabrini was raised to the altars within living memory of the traditional Church — beatified by Pius XI and canonized by Pius XII — and her novena is thoroughly orthodox, rooted in the ancient devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. She is not in the universal calendar of 1962, her feast having been granted only to particular places.
The Iter Fidei app carries the novena to St Frances Xavier Cabrini — the prayer and the nine-day form — with day-by-day reminders and audio, in Latin and your own language. Join early access here.
Sources. Holy Scripture (Matthew 7:7; Philippians 4:13); the novena prayer to St Frances Xavier Cabrini of the Mother Cabrini League (with ecclesiastical approval); the sayings of St Frances Xavier Cabrini drawn from her letters and journals; the acts of her beatification by Pope Pius XI (1938) and canonization by Pope Pius XII (1946), and her proclamation as Patroness of Immigrants by Pius XII (1950).