CV NEWS FEED // A group of Capuchin Franciscans in Denver, Colorado, is organizing a pilgrimage to walk in the footsteps of Julia Greeley, a member of the Secular Franciscan Order known for her ministry among Denver’s poor in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Often called Denver’s “Angel of Charity” and “Secret Angel of the Poor,” Greeley’s cause for canonization was opened in 2016. According to an emailed news release from the Capuchin Franciscans, the pilgrimage will honor her and commemorate her life, as pilgrims travel 22 miles by bus and stop at 17 sites frequented by Greeley.
The pilgrimage will conclude at the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, where she is buried.
Greeley was born into slavery in Missouri sometime in the 1830s or 1840s. She was freed by Missouri’s Emancipation Act in 1865 and eventually made her way to Denver, where she began helping the city’s poor.
“Whatever she did not need for herself, Julia spent assisting poor families in her neighborhood,” a biography on her official website reads. “When her own resources were inadequate, she begged for food, fuel and clothing for the needy. One writer later called her a ‘one-person St. Vincent de Paul Society.’ To avoid embarrassing the people she helped, Julia did most of her charitable work under cover of night through dark alleys.”
Greeley became Catholic in 1880 and quickly became devoted to the Eucharist, the Blessed Mother, and the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
“The Jesuits who ran [her] parish considered her the most enthusiastic promoter of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus they had ever seen,” her biography reads. “Every month she visited on foot every fire station in Denver and delivered literature of the Sacred Heart League to the firemen, Catholics and non-Catholics alike.”
Greeley joined the Secular Franciscan Order in 1901 and continued her ministry until she died in 1918. Hundreds of people attended her wake and petitioned to open her cause for canonization, which was granted in 2016. In 2017, her remains were moved from a cemetery to the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Denver.
According to the news release, the Capuchin Franciscans did the same pilgrimage last year as well.
“Last year’s pilgrimage motivated me to want to be more like Julia Greeley in her passion to [make the] love of Christ known throughout the world,” one 2023 pilgrim stated in the news release. “It is so easy to wall out people who have hurt you in the past but that never stopped Julia Greeley. I want to be as colorblind as Julia Greeley and as creative in personifying Christ to others.”
The pilgrimage will begin at the Capuchin administrative office, which is at 3613 Wyandot St. in North Denver, at 10 a.m. July 27 and return at about 3 p.m. that day. Pilgrims will receive lunch at Sacred Heart Church.
