EVANGELIZATION

The Office of New Evangelization exists
To support parishes in forming
Joy-Filled, Intentional,
Missionary Disciples of Jesus Christ
So that On Fire with the Holy Spirit
They will be witnesses that
transform the culture around them.

 

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Cabrini, the Movie and Too Small a World, the Book.

 

Last April 8, I went to the movies and watched the movie Cabrini and came away somewhat disappointed.  The movie was enjoyable, but I didn’t find it inspirational or thought provoking. Other than Cabrini, all the secondary characters felt like cardboard cutouts. We don’t even get to know the names of any of the other sisters.  We never get to know the motivations behind any of the actions of any of the people, including Mother Cabrini herself. People just get in her way and somehow, she overcomes all obstacles.

Going into the movie, I knew very little about Mother Cabrini. When I lived in New York, some of the first houses were pointed out to me and I knew she was the first American citizen to be canonized, but that was all I knew. The movie didn’t tell me much more.  What the movie did accomplish was that I realized if I wanted to know more about this saint, I needed to read a good biography. I purchased and read Too Small a World: The Life of Mother Frances Cabrini which was written in 1945, a year before she was canonized by Pope Pius XII.

Unlike the movie, the book is not just set in New York but follows Mother Cabrini as she opens houses around the world and travels back and forth between Italy, around the United States, England, South and Central America. Reading the book. I realized that many of the events and scenes portrayed in the movie were actually events that happened in cities other than New York.  The book also made sense of some of the symbolism in the movie such as the paper boats with flowers that she plays with in the river (boats being sent to the missions with “flowers” of missionaries).  Most of all, the book supplies the motivation behind the actions of both the saint herself as well as those who cautioned her to limit herself to a smaller mission. 

If you want to know more about this amazing woman and American Saint than a plaster cast image that the movie portrays, I would highly recommend Too Small a World: The Life of Mother Frances Cabrini.