Most students know Cabrini College was named after Mother Cabrini.
Few of us know exactly who she was and why she was so important. Most students don’t understand that there are Cabrini sisters all over the globe, working everyday, continuing the work that Mother Cabrini had started. These women may not get the recognition they deserve, but they are silent heroes, helping those in need all over the world.
Cabrini was the first U.S. citizen to be given sainthood. She is the patron saint of immigrants. But that is the past. Who are Cabrini sisters today?
They are women religious present on six continents and in 16 countries of the world.
Recently, five students and the college president, along with two professors, a member of Cabrini’s marketing department and a representative from Cabrini’s Wolfington Center ventured to Guatemala to visit Cabrini sisters to see the work that the sisters do.
There they were welcomed with open arms as family by the Cabrini sisters. They witnessed extremely poor areas of Guatemala being helped by Cabrini’s health clinics, women’s empowerment programs and the love and support of the sisters.
In the most extremely poor parts of Guatemala City, without the Cabrini health clinics, hundreds of people would not have anywhere to go to receive needed healthcare. The Cabrini Missionary Sisters give opportunity to many people and provide loving care to all citizens as if they were their own family members.
Throughout the world, whether it be in Swaziland, Guatemala or the United States, the Cabrini Missionary Sisters are hard at work making a difference in their communities. They may be small in size, but the hearts of the Cabrini Sisters are larger than life.
The Cabrini Sisters in Guatemala hold true to the mission of Mother Cabrini. The sisters work hard to protect the people of Guatemala from disease. The health clinics are open to the public for vaccinations and medications for children, expectant mothers and the elderly.
In the rural areas, dedicated doctors and nurses work with Cabrini sisters and travel each day to remote villages.
The Cabrini sisters are currently waiting to send three of 16 sisters in Guatemala to a new mission on the Mexican border to work with immigrants. The sisters discussed the dangerous area they will work in, rife with human trafficking and human organ trafficking. These women are full of courage and integrity to begin their new mission in Mexico. They want to take three of their own, ages 23 to over 60, to work in an even more difficult area of the Mexican-U.S. border, because the greater need for care and assistance of poor people is present there.
We students and staff at Cabrini are a part of something larger. We are a part of a network of incredible people working to better the lives of immigrants and poor people all over the world.
We are a part of Mother Cabrini who spent her life helping immigrants like our grandparents and great grandparents and who still seek out the most desperate of people to bring love and faith to. Cabrini is not just a single institution of higher learning but part of a global network working for social justice.
