Two saints who walked with migrants at the beginning of the last century can teach us today how we can accompany today's new migrants on their journey to a new life. Both St. Frances Xavier Cabrini and St. Giovanni Battista Scalabrini have been called the Mother or Father of migrants -- St. Cabrini when she was canonized and St. Scalabrini when he was beatified.

Titles can be deceptive, however; when someone is called mother or father, it goes well beyond a simple appellation. Rather, it is a term of endearment and respect. Both saints read the signs of their times and mobilized to assist their Italian co-nationals at the great migration of Italians, approximately from 1890 to 1920.