Nov 13th - Frances Xavier Cabrini

How often does a trip does not go as we expected? You plan routes, call ahead, build expectations only to have them crumble around you: delays, mix-ups, miscommunications, detours, weather - you name it. Even with contingency plans things do not always go smoothly. So often it is in life. Our aspirations, our dreams, our stubbornness, our private appetites and will can get in the way of God's will for us. But in the end, and to this I can attest, He always puts me where He needs me and in the end does what is best for me.
Mother Cabrini wanted to serve in the missions, and she did - just not in the way she expected or desired. She wanted to do so within a specific order but she had to found her own to accomplish it. She wanted to go East, even taking the name Frances Xavier because of his life, but the pope sent her West, and we, in America, benefited from that. Who knows what good she would have done in other places but that was not the place where God needed her - even then things did not always go smoothly.
So it is in our lives. We must strive to serve God no matter what the circumstances, no matter what are our desires, no matter what the obstacles. God will put us where we are needed because we are needed there.

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Your letter has given me incredible joy, and done my soul immense good, because it tells me that you are very happy in your mission and are visited by God with wonderful consolations. And now that you have had experience that God remembers you, do not let yourself ever forget Him. Beware of growing weary of your work, however ungrateful it may be, and don't let any kind of disgust weaken you so as to relax your keen and unconquerable perseverance in the good which you have begun. Keep always a humble and lowly spirit before God, with a meek feeling of internal thankfulness that He has chosen you for so lofty an office as that which you are discharging.

Francis Xavier: Letter to Francis Mancias