The (Bonaventurian) Christological Ground of Frances Cabrini Pedagogy and the Liberal Art Model of Education of the Heart

This article attempts to recover the original intent of the first American saint, Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini’s pedagogy, “to educate the heart.” It also highlights her contribution to the liberal arts model of education and her cultural relevance to education in the United States. To articulate these thoughts, this article will lay out the theistic and the Christological grounds of Cabrinian pedagogy of educating the heart, to affirm its goal of transcendence and God as the finality of knowledge. It will locate the theistic and the Christological grounds of the pedagogy within the Franciscan intellectual tradition. It will proceed to argue for the truth-seeking and the dialogic goals of Cabrinian education, as a model of liberal arts education. It will conclude with an argument for the cultural relevance of liberal arts education and the theistic orientation of the social justice initiatives of Cabrinian education.

Keywords: Frances Cabrini, Education, First Principle, God, Subjectivity, Truth, Liberal Arts, Connaturality, Sociality, Social Justice.