Frances Xavier Cabrini Day in Colorado Date in the current year: October 7, 2024

Frances Xavier Cabrini, also known as Mother Cabrini, was an Italian-born Roman Catholic nun who spent a major part of her life in the United States. The founder of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, she was the first citizen of the United States to be canonized by the Roman Catholic Church.

Maria Francesca Cabrini was born in 1850 in Lombardy, which was part of the Austrian Empire at the time. She became a nun in 1877 and took Frances Xavier as her religious name in honor of Francis Xavier, a co-founder of the Society of Jesus and a patron saint of missionaries and foreign missions. Three years later, she founded a female religious congregation that was named the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

In 1887, Cabrini met with Pope Leo XIII, seeking his approval to establish a mission in China. Instead, he suggested that she go to the United States to support numerous Italian immigrants, most of whom lived in poverty. In 1889, Cabrini and six other sisters arrived in New York City. Upon obtaining the permission of Archbishop Michael Corrigan, she founded an orphan asylum that would eventually become known as Saint Cabrini Home.

During her stay in the United States, Frances Xavier Cabrini established schools, orphanages and hospitals in New York, Chicago, Seattle, New Orleans, Denver, Philadelphia, and other cities. In addition to her missionary work in the United States, Cabrini traveled to Latin America and Europe, where she also founded missionary institutions.

Cabrini became a naturalized U. S. citizen in 1909 and died eight years later. She was beatified in 1938 by Pope Pius XI and canonized in 1946 by Pope Pius XII. The Catholic Church observes her feast day on December 22 (Cabrini’s death anniversary), but in the United States her feast has been celebrated on November 13 (the anniversary of her beatification) since 1961.

In addition to her feast day, the state of Colorado celebrates Cabrini Day on the first Monday in October. This holiday was created to replace Columbus Day, a federal holiday commemorating the anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the Americas.

Columbus Day has been increasingly controversial in recent years due to the actions of Columbus and other European colonizers against Native Americans. Due to this, many states do not celebrate it, and some have replaced it with Indigenous People’s Day. Colorado, however, went one step further and introduced Cabrini Day, celebrated a weak earlier than Columbus Day.

Colorado’s governor Jared Polis signed a bill proclaiming the first Monday in October Cabrini Day in March 2020. The inaugural Frances Xavier Cabrini Day was celebrated on October 5, 2020, mostly virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is the first paid state holiday honoring a woman in the United States.