God's Messenger: The Astounding Achievements of Mother Cabrini: A Novel Based on the Life of Mother Frances X. Cabrini

by Nicole Gregory

Overview

Her passion became her reality.

Children were her life, and God’s messenger Mother Frances X. Cabrini dedicated her entire life to caring for poor Italian immigrants who sought refuge in the slums of New York City in the early 1890s.

A devout champion of education and proper health care for the poverty-stricken, Cabrini forged a path of survival for young children by building schools, orphanages, and hospitals—not only in the United States, but also throughout Europe and Central and South America. With an acumen for business and a desire to help, Mother Cabrini chiseled away at a problem others refused to see.

Years after her death, Mother Cabrini was named Patron Saint of Immigrants because of her unwavering work for those who needed her.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781947431027
Publisher:	Mentoris Project
Publication date:	02/01/2018
Pages:	206
Sales rank:	102,952
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.47(d)

About the Author

Nicole is a writer and editor living in Southern California with her husband and son. She has been the home and garden/travel editor at the Orange County Register, and has written and edited for numerous publications, including VIV magazine, Family Circle, the Boston Globe, Los Angeles magazine, the Los Angeles Times, and others. Recent features she's written include stories about a treehouse designer, why we need a surgeon general, how a cocoa bean chemical can reverse memory loss, and reasons to take an inn-to-inn hike along the Southern California coast. When she's not obsessing about her garden, she enjoys traveling, cooking, and reading fiction.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Chapter One: A strange sight in Chicago

Chapter Two: A weak girl with a strong spirit

Chapter Three: A gift for teaching

Chapter Four: Conflict in the House of Providence

Chapter Five: A new order of women missionaries

Chapter Six: The plight of Italian immigrants

Chapter Seven: Not welcome in New York

Chapter Eight: The Countess and the orphanage

Chapter Nine: Missionary life in the slums

Chapter Ten: A place in the country for children

Chapter Eleven: Lynchings in New Orleans

Chapter Twelve: Safe havens for Italians

Chapter Thirteen: Crossing the Andes

Chapter Fourteen: A new century and new adventures

Chapter Fifteen: A celebration in California

Chapter Sixteen: Disease and fear

Chapter Seventeen: Trouble in Rio

Chapter Eighteen: Becoming an American

Chapter Nineteen: A quiet death

Chapter Twenty: Sainthood

About the Author

Editorial Reviews

2018-08-01

A dramatization of the life of the much-beloved 19th-century saint Mother Frances X. Cabrini.

Gregory's debut novel tells Cabrini's life story, starting with her girlhood in the 1860s in the northern Italian town of Sant'Angelo Lodigiano and the deaths of her parents in 1870. She took religious vows some years later, founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, and arrived in the United States in 1889. As the story goes on, Cabrini and her fellow sisters go on to found dozens of missions and hospitals, mostly with the aim of aiding poor and destitute children, including many from the flood of Italian immigrants hitting major American cities toward the end of the 19th century. Pope Pius XII canonized Cabrini in 1946, and she became the patron saint of immigrants. All these events, of course, naturally lend themselves to hagiography, but Gregory largely and refreshingly resists that temptation. Her version of Cabrini is a winningly human creation with a kind heart, a sharp mind, and a mordant sense of humor. That said, the narrative sometimes reads more like an encyclopedia entry than a work of immersive fiction ("She was in America, where, now at age fifty-four, she demonstrated her skills as a shrewd and successful businesswoman"). But the book's gentle fictional touches— fleshing out quotes from real-life letters as dialogue, indulging in vivid descriptions of scenery—compensate for its drier patches, and it wonderfully portrays Cabrini's cheerful pluck and courage. Indeed, Gregory seems to appreciate the more worldly aspects of her main character, who stares down corrupt realtors or cowardly city officials with an irresistible moral clarity. Cabrini's many devotees around the world will likely love the author's work here.

An often engaging, lightly fictionalized life of America's first saint.

Kirkus Reviews