As the decline in COVID infections made public gatherings less risky, I recently decided to visit two national shrines in the Chicagoland area that had long been on my list of places to explore, those of dynamic and influential women saints: Mother Cabrini and Saint Thérèse of Lisieux.
The National Shrine of Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini is located in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago’s North Side. Though born in Lombardy, in what is today Northern Italy, Cabrini eventually became a U.S citizen and so was the first to be canonized, in 1946. She is often regarded as the patroness of immigrants to America. In her lifetime, Mother Cabrini founded 67 different institutions to care for the scores of poor and uneducated masses who arrived here in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including those in the Philadelphia region. When she died of malaria in 1917, her convent room at Columbus Hospital in Chicago became a destination for pilgrims.
The shrine, commissioned by Cardinal Samuel Stritch (for whom Loyola’s Medical School is named), was originally part of this hospital complex. When the hospital was converted to a luxury high-rise, the shrine was renovated and rededicated adjacent to the lobby, so that people today live above the ongoing prayers of the faithful in this hidden gem bedecked in Carrara marble and Florentine stained glass. My favorite of the detailed frescoes in the ceiling depicts Mother Cabrini embracing immigrant children with the Statue of Liberty and docked steam ships behind her. As Chicago remains a destination and hub for immigrants today, the relevance of her life’s mission to care for those the society of her day deemed undesirable and unwelcome is more pertinent than ever. A small museum preserves Mother Cabrini’s room as it looked over a century ago, and private gardens extend in a courtyard nestled right in the heart of the busyness of the city.
The second visit demanded more than a bike ride from our apartment, as the National Shrine and Museum of Saint Thérèse is located in Darien, Illinois, about a half-hour drive through the Southwest suburbs. But since we recently named our first daughter Fiorella (Italian for the “Little Flower”), I made a point to visit it in the days after her birth to offer a small prayer of thanksgiving.
Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, who is also known as Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus or the “Little Flower,” was a French Carmelite nun who Pope Pius X once called “the greatest saint of modern times.” She is one of four women to be named a Doctor of the Church, and the youngest of any person to be so recognized. Pope Francis holds a special devotion to her, once saying a white rose often shows up somewhere in his life after he invokes her intercession as a sign that she’s listening to him. I must admit, I was a bit stunned when days after my visit, we found the previous tenants of our new house had left us a bouquet of them on our porch as a gesture of welcome.
The shrine is part of a wider Carmelite campus, which includes relics, an absolutely gorgeous chapel, an impressive museum that includes personal effects, and a massive wood carving depicting scenes from her life. Though the daily Mass was quite crowded on a weekday, I was able to spend some time alone in the museum reading about her life and meditating on a number of striking mementos from her childhood and spiritual life, including an original oil portrait of her painted by her sister Celine, a map she drew of North America in school, and even a tambourine and tea set she played with as a child. My favorite exhibit was tucked in a side room, and had close to fifty rosaries framed from around the world, made of local materials from a variety of cultures: preserved seeds from India, turquoise from New Mexico, pearls and shells from Oceania, walrus tusk from Alaska, green Connemara marble from Ireland, and the like. I spent longer than I would have anticipated pondering the history of these beautifully crafted objects of art and devotion, wondering how many hands they had passed through and how many prayers to God they represented.
One of my graduate courses on ecclesiology this semester has sought to prioritize women’s roles in the Church, both historical and contemporary. I am even working on arranging a panel of “Women in the Vatican” for when my students visit Rome with me in January, so we can hear the experiences of so many of these indispensable Church leaders, whether eminent scholars or abuelitas (grandmothers) passing the faith on through teaching bedtime prayers and witnessing to Christ’s role in their daily lives. My mini-pilgrimages to the shrines of these two women saints served as one small personal step in continuing to recognize the plurality of voices that the Church both represents and needs to hear.
Originally from Collingswood, Michael M. Canaris, Ph.D., teaches at Loyola University, Chicago.
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