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Nozomi Kawaguchi, whose first name means “hope” in the language of her native Japan, perfectly exemplifies the spirit and faith of immigrants so clearly evoked during the Year of Faith Mass Cardinal Dolan celebrated Nov. 17 at St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Shrine in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan.
The first of the regional Masses in the archdiocese dedicated to the Universal Church’s celebration of the Year of Faith appropriately highlighted the New York Church’s history of service to and enrichment by recent immigrants, never better exemplified than by St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, the Italian immigrant who went on to become the patron saint of immigrants.
Miss Kawaguchi, at a reception in the basement of Mother Cabrini High School after Mass, told CNY of the welcome she has received at the shrine and at St. Elizabeth’s Church, also in the Washington Heights section, in recent years. She sings in the choirs in both churches each Sunday, gladly traversing the neighborhood’s hilly terrain to be part of the music ministry and the community of faith.
“Everyone has welcomed me,” she said with a radiant smile as she sat at a table with her friends Gregory Gaertner and Lucy Espinal, with whom she had attended the Mass.
“I don’t have family, but I never get lonely. People are so nice, the priests are so nice,” said Miss Kawaguchi, a recent convert to Catholicism who received the sacraments of initiation at St. Elizabeth’s last year.
She, like many at the reception, said they were happy Cardinal Dolan had come to ring in the Year of Faith at the Cabrini Shrine.
“Always when he comes here, it’s something special,” Miss Kawaguchi said. “Every time I see him, he is full of joy.”
In his words of greeting at the beginning of the Mass, Cardinal Dolan said he and Father Brian McWeeney, coordinator of Year of Faith activities in the archdiocese, decided a visit to the Mother Cabrini Shrine was in order right away. The Year of Faith, which began Oct. 11, will continue until the Feast of Christ the King on Nov. 24, 2013.
“The fruit of faith is holiness,” Cardinal Dolan said in his homily, “and we have a tremendous example of faith and sanctity here in Mother Cabrini.”
Calling her a woman of “indomitable faith,” the cardinal said Mother Cabrini believed in the doctrines of the Catholic faith and put her trust “absolutely” in God that “things would work out.”
Mother Cabrini, he said, was a woman who reached out “in love and charity” to orphans, the homeless and immigrants, especially Italian immigrants whom Pope Leo XIII sent her to America to serve in 1889.
As the cardinal spoke, he did so in the presence of Mother Cabrini’s earthly remains, which are contained behind glass at the base of the altar in the shrine that bears her name. A mural illustrating her life story in service to those in need covers the wall in the rear of the sanctuary.
All around the shrine church were examples of those following in her footsteps, most notably the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Sister Pietrina Raccuglia, M.S.C., provincial of the Stella Maris Province, welcomed Mass-goers to the shrine with remarks in English and Spanish spoken just a few days after Mother Cabrini’s feast day of Nov. 13.
The voice and handbell choirs of girls from Mother Cabrini High School provided the music at the morning liturgy. After Communion, the school’s president, Bruce Segall, presented Cardinal Dolan with gifts, including a spiritual bouquet. Segall also spoke of 70 other Cabrini students, along with faculty and friends, who that day were helping eight families in the shore town of Belmar, N.J., to clean their damaged homes.
“Forgive me for being like a proud father,” Segall said.
In the church’s rear vestibule, under a gigantic stained-glass window of Mother Cabrini, workers from archdiocesan Catholic Charities and Cabrini Immigrant Services were available to answer questions about immigration.
In keeping with the spirit of the occasion, the general intercessions were recited in five languages: English, Spanish, Creole, Tagalog and Italian.
Cardinal Dolan said our nation has been “slow to learn the lesson” about immigrants that the Catholic Church has understood for at least 200 years. Welcoming the immigrant is more than a matter of justice, it is also a matter of patriotism, he said.
“The immigrant is good for America. America is enhanced and strengthened by the arrival of the immigrant,” the cardinal said to applause from the congregation.
