Servant of God Julia Greeley, Denver’s Angel of Charity, was born into slavery and emancipated after the Civil War. She spent her life serving the poor with a special devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and a love for children and praying for the city’s fire fighters.

Biography
Servant of God Julia Greeley was born into slavery in Hannibal, Missouri. Julia did not know her own birthday and exact age or the full names of her parents. It is thought she may have been born around the year 1840. She was freed from slavery in 1865 when the state of Missouri passed their own Emancipation Proclamation. This was 2 years after two years after Abraham Lincoln passed the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. After being freed from slavery she eventually landed in Denver, Colorado working a variety of jobs and caring for the city’s poorest residents.

As a child, a slave master’s whip cut her in the face blinding her in her right eye. This didn’t stop her from seeing the needs of her community wherever she lived and working hard to meet those need, though. In 1880, Julia converted to Catholicism at the Sacred Heart Church in Denver. Her particular devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus led her ministry all over Denver. She became an active member of the Secular Franciscan Order in 1901, committing her life to live simply, love God, and think of all people as her brothers and sisters. She attended daily Mass, always sitting in the front left pew. Her parish priests adored her and fervently defended her from any racist comment made by affluent white folk who took offense to having a black woman sitting in the front of the sanctuary for Mass every day.

Of her many ministries in the city, one was to enlist countless Denver firefighters into a devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and what she coined as the Firefighter’s Prayer Union — an organization that still exists today. She’d do this by visiting the various fire stations in Denver, often on foot, and passing out cloth patches that firefighters could keep with them in their pockets or wallets to be assured of her daily prayer for them. The organization quickly grew in popularity, and she became well known among firefighters in her city.

Alongside her ministry to those working for the city, Julia also worked with young women and girls in their youth in her parish. When the young women she served didn’t have appropriate clothing for church socials, Julia went door to door asking affluent parishioners to donate their daughter’s nice used dresses for them to wear. She also led youth programs, often working in the background serving food and cleaning up.

Julia Greeley was a joyfully spirited woman who seemed to have a lot of fun and live her life to the fullest. Once, when some of the young girls of her parish organized a charitable beauty contest, the elderly Julia convinced her firefighter friends to purchase tickets that would each count toward a vote for her in the contest. She ended up with a sweeping win of the entire beauty contest when her firefighters purchased a whopping 3,500 tickets. She was also a self-taught pianist and was known to play at parties.

Julia died on the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. After her death she was found to be severely arthritic. This surprised those who knew her because she had never complained of the pain that she was likely suffering while she walked miles and miles in service to those in need. She is now lovingly known as Denver’s Angel of Charity and, due to her cause for canonization being opened in the Fall of 2016, her remains were transferred to the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Denver, in 2017. She is the very first person to be interred in the Cathedral.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, Your servant Julia Greeley dedicated her life to honoring the Sacred Heart of Your son and to the humble service of the poor. Grant to me a generous heart like Your son’s, and if it be in accordance with your holy will, please grant this favor I now ask through Julia’s intercession (insert intention).

I pray this through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

(Prayer Source: Julia Greeley Guild, 1535 N. Logan St., Denver CO 80213.)

© LPi

St. Joseph the Steward

Tracy Earl Welliver • Dec 23, 2022

St. Joseph is one of the greatest examples of stewardship we have in the Gospels. Here is a man who understands care and reverence for the property of God, a man chosen to be steward over the very life and breath of God’s Son and Spouse.

Joseph was mindful. He recognized what belonged to God. When he understood that Mary was to be the mother of God, he was not jealous or bitter. He did not presume to claim ownership over her.

Joseph was prayerful. He accepted the opportunity to be in relationship with God, even if it was in a radical and unexpected way. How many of us would trust a crazy dream we have where an angel tells us our fiancée is carrying the Son of God? Well, those of us who are already profoundly connected to God through prayer. Joseph was open to receiving God, and so he was open to the truth in a way many of us would not have been.

Joseph was gracious. Even before he had full understanding of the situation, he was unwilling to expose Mary to shame. He did not give himself over to feelings of betrayal.

Joseph was committed. He persevered. The Lord had no shortage of strange and even dangerous-sounding tasks for Joseph, but he submitted to each one.

Joseph was accountable. When he awoke from his dream, “he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him, and took his wife into his home.”

Joseph was a man entrusted with many gifts, and he gave of them wisely. Let us pray that we have the grace to follow in his example.

— Tracy Earl Welliver, MTS

Saint Andrew was a fisherman in Galilee, along with his brother, Peter, when they were called by Jesus to leave their boat and become fishers of men. John’s Gospel also places him as a follower of John the Baptist before he came to be one of Jesus’ twelve Disciples. Beyond the scant references in the Gospels, not much is known of Saint Andrew’s life.

According to Christian tradition Saint Andrew, like many of his fellow Disciples, went out into Greece and Turkey to preach the Good News. A 4th century account of the saint’s life tells of his martyrdom by crucifixion in Patras. Medieval accounts describe the cross used as X-shaped because Andrew said he was not worthy to die on the same style of cross as Jesus.

Famously, Saint Andrew is the patron Saint of Scotland, the country’s flag bearing the X-shaped cross associated with him. Legends claim that the saint either traveled to Scotland to spread the Gospel or that his relics were brought there by St. Regulus who had a vision telling him to take the bones to the end of the earth. Regulus set out and was shipwrecked on the coast of Scotland. Today relics of St. Andrew which had been held by the Vatican are now at a shrine in Patras.

Saint John Paul II was born Karol Wojtyla in the small Polish town of Wadowice. During World War II, when the Nazis invaded Poland, Karol secretly studied for the priesthood in an underground seminary.

He was ordained to the priesthood in 1946, appointed Archbishop of Krakow in 1964, and three years later he was made a cardinal. In 1978, he was elected the 264^th pope, where he took the name John Paul II.

Saint John Paul II made evangelization a key part of his papacy and made pastoral visits to all parts of the world. In 1981, he was shot twice in an assassination attempt. Following Jesus’ example of compassion, he later met with his would-be assassin in his prison cell, where he forgave him for what he had done.

September 27 – Feast day for St. Vincent de Paul

St. Vincent de Paul was born in Pouy, France on April 24, 1581, and was ordained a priest on September 23, 1600. Vincent devoted himself entirely to the alleviation of suffering of the poor. To that cause, he established the Confraternities of Charity, later known as the Ladies of Charity, in 1617. In 1625, he founded the Congregation of the Mission, his community of priests and brothers. With Louise de Marillac, he cofounded the Daughters of Charity in 1633. Vincent died in Paris on September 27, 1660 and was canonized in 1737. Pope Leo XIII declared him patron saint of all works of charity.

We celebrate St. Vincent de Paul and his charitable works through the St. Vincent de Paul Society. To learn more about St. Vincent or to volunteer visit https://www.svdpevansville.org/