The first American citizen to be canonized a saint was an immigrant to our country and her life was dedicated to the care of immigrants. Coming to America, however, wasn't what Frances Cabrini had in mind when she journeyed from Milan to Rome in AD 1887 to meet with the Successor of Peter. She wanted be a missionary in China.

From the time she received the Sacrament of Confirmation at the age of 8 she had dreamed of witnessing to Christ among the Chinese; and that desire had only grown as she discerned her call to Religious Life and took St. Francis Xavier as her patron. But Pope Leo XIII told her, "Go not to the East but to the West — to New York rather than China." 

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Source: http://www.catholicsun.org/