Sister M. Cabrini Bongiovanni, SSND

Our beloved Sister M. Cabrini Bongiovanni, 91, died peacefully at 2:42 a.m., Wednesday, August 31, 2016, in Notre Dame Health Care, Our Lady of Good Counsel, Mankato, Minnesota. A decline in her condition caused her to enter Hospice about two weeks prior to her death. Sisters had been keeping vigil with her for several days as she grew progressively weaker. The Funeral Liturgy, with Father Eugene Stenzel as presider, will be held Tuesday, September 6, at 10:30 in Our Lady of Good Counsel Chapel, followed by burial in the Good Counsel Cemetery. A prayer service of remembrance will be held at 9:00 a.m. Tuesday morning. We extend our sympathy to her sister, Laura Roiger, her extended family, her friends, former students and colleagues, and her sisters in community, the School Sisters of Notre Dame. She was preceded in death by her parents, Lorenzo Bongiovanni and Antoinetta (Labalestra) Gasparro, and her brother, Nick. Sister Cabrini’s parents were both Italian immigrants who met in St. Paul. Their first child was stillborn, so there was great rejoicing when a daughter was born on January 4, 1925. In the Italian custom, she was christened Francisca after her grandmother on June 28 at Holy Redeemer Church. Frances, as she was known, was joined by her brother, Nick, two years later, and her sister, Laura, in another three years. Their father drove a vegetable truck to earn a meager living for his family. In 2011, Sister Cabrini published the story of her life and ministry entitled A Song of Joy, of Love, Life and Laughter. In it, she described her childhood, “I loved to dance and sing! I was a happy child and loved to make up my own tap dances and rhythms to the jazzy music on our player piano or on the radio. My folks often marveled at the precision of the dance steps and the way I seemed to ‘feel the rhythm in my bones.’” Frances attended Jefferson School, a short distance from their home, until the family moved to a home that her Uncle Nick had built on a five-acre farm. There she attended a one-room school with one teacher for all eight grades. Frances found this a difficult change. When she was about nine, her parents divorced, which she described as a “horrible sense of loss.” As a fifth grader, she contracted tuberculosis and spent several weeks in an isolation ward, another difficult time in her life. Along with potatoes, melons and other vegetables, tomatoes were grown on the farm, and all three Bongiovanni children helped their mother with the picking and canning. Canned tomatoes were then turned into a special Italian salsina used in the spaghetti sauce that was the drawing card for her Uncle Nick’s Café di Napoli in Minneapolis. Frances worked in the restaurant when she was in high school, earning the name “Little Miss Sunshine” for her cheerful disposition. She attended Murray Public High School near the State Fairgrounds, and it was toward the end of her senior year when she began to experience the call to religious life. She attended a spirit-filled retreat at Corpus Christi Parish, their family church. A priest asked her if she wanted to become a nun. Her emphatic response was, “Oh, no, Father. I’m not good enough to be a nun.” Shortly before graduation, she met a former classmate, Rosemary Walsh, who was then attending Good Counsel Academy in Mankato as an aspirant. In conversation, Frances again adamantly stated that she did not want to be a nun. She wrote, “I had always wanted to be a singer, a dancer, and a movie star, anything but a nun!” And yet, before she knew it, she had promised Rosemary that she would visit the sisters at St. Andrew’s convent with her the next day. Frances had almost no experience with sisters, but found them to be gentle and understanding. They promised to include her in a novena, and Frances found solace praying before a statue of Mary at Corpus Christi. She wrote, “The sisters would pray that I would become a nun and I would pray that I would NOT.” Soon after, she was invited to go to Reception and Profession ceremonies with Rosemary. She accepted the invitation, but was hesitant to go. Her attendance at the ceremonies convinced her, however, that she should give religious life a try. At first, her mother could not understand why she would want to leave home, but was reassured when Frances promised to come home if she was not happy. She entered the SSND candidature in August 1944 and attended college classes, including an art class, where she discovered her artistic talent. During the 1945-46 school year she taught first grade at SS. Peter & Paul, Mankato. She was received into the novitiate in July 1946 and given the name Sister M. Cabrini, taken from the newly canonized Italian-born American saint, Frances Xavier Cabrini. Following profession of first vows in 1947, Sister Cabrini began a thirty-year teaching ministry. She taught primary grades at St. Anthony, Lismore; St. Mark, Shakopee; St. Francis de Sales, St. Matthew and Holy Childhood, St. Paul; Holy Rosary, North Mankato; Immaculate Conception, Gilbertville, IA; Blessed Sacrament, Waterloo, IA; SS. Peter & Paul, Strasburg, ND; St. Bartholomew, Wayzata; St. Anne, Wabasso; and St. Mathias, Wanda. A special joy was preparing children to receive their First Holy Communion. She earned a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from St. Catherine’s College in 1958. A very creative teacher, Sister Cabrini used a variety of means to enhance her classes. A former student wrote, “Sister Cabrini’s special talent was telling religious stories and teaching us songs. Her stories of saints and bible characters were no mere spoken narratives. You see, Sister Cabrini not only told the stories, she dramatized them.” She became fascinated with ventriloquism after seeing Shari Lewis and her puppets on television. Using a library book as a resource, Sister Cabrini began practicing in the convent. She wrote, “I was richly rewarded one day at school when I was using a moving mouth puppet to say good-bye to the children. One youngster said in amazement, ‘Gee, Sister! It looks like he’s really talking!’” Using another book, she found that it was possible to make her own ventriloquist figure. She had been given a piece of basswood and used borrowed scout knives to carve Jerry, her own little boy figure, complete with moving mouth and eyes. Jerry soon became the star of her classroom. Sister Cabrini began performing outside the classroom. One of her first performances was at a parish picnic where she teamed with the pastor who knew magic tricks. She commented, “I think it was at that time that God planted a little seed of longing inside of me. It was unusual, to say the least, for a nun to become a performer. The longing persisted. As time went by, the dream and desire also grew! Why couldn’t I bring the message of God’s love to everyone, young and old, through a ministry of entertainment? Why couldn’t I?” She pursued the idea with Mankato Province leadership, who scheduled an aptitude test for her. She rated highest in education, and she felt that she would definitely be teaching in her entertainment ministry. It was decided that she would be freed from classroom teaching for a year to explore this special ministry. She began an arrangement with Ed and Thelma Mahowald, whom she knew from her days at St. Matthew Convent. Ed was a master jack-of-all-trades who assisted Sister Cabrini in many ways, and served as her driver. Thelma was the “business wizard”, who set up the engagements. Sister Cabrini expanded her repertoire to include magic, original music and chalk art, and a one-year experiment became an almost thirty-year ministry. She joined the Fellowship of Christian Magicians, a wonderful resource for her. She prepared programs that could be adapted to any type of audience “from two to ninety-two.” A blurb in the Minneapolis Star Tribune stated: “She appears before all types of audiences – public and parochial schools, Sunday Schools, homes for the elderly, colleges, Scout banquets, hospitals and institutions for the handicapped. ‘I have always been a ham,’ she said. ‘As a kid, I loved to dance, sing and write poetry. I thought I had given all that up when I entered the convent. But the Lord turned right around and gave it all back to me.’” An audience member wrote, “[Through] Sister’s actions, smile, overflowing bubbling joy, and sparkling eyes one could plainly see that she was truly committed to Christ . . . and she revealed without words, ‘Jesus in me loves you.’” Sister Cabrini retired from the entertainment ministry in 2003 but continued to write and paint. In 2010, she moved to Good Counsel where, whenever she had the opportunity, she continued to entertain – with no coaxing needed. “Sing a Song of Joy, of Love, Life and Laughter.” This was Sister Cabrini’s lifelong mission. May she now be a part of the heavenly choir and continue to sing in God’s presence.