Servant of God Julia Greeley

Julia Greeley was born into slavery in Missouri sometime about the 1830s/40s. At age five, her right eye was injured as a man whipped her mother, leaving her permanently disfigured. In 1865, Julia was emancipated. She moved to St. Louis and became a cook and nanny. When the family she worked for moved to Colorado, she went with them. She later went to work in Wyoming and New Mexico but continued to return to Denver.  

In 1880, Julia was baptized into the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Denver. She had a particular devotion to the Sacred Heart. She attended daily Mass and walked around the city distributing literature from the Sacred Heart League, which published literature on Catholicism and devotion to the Sacred Heart. She was known for visiting every firehouse in Denver once a month to share pamphlets with the firemen.

She also pulled a red wagon through the streets of Denver, dispute her arthritis, delivering food, coal, and clothing to the needy. She’d deliver to white families after dark so they wouldn’t be embarrassed accepting help from a black woman. She even donated her own burial plot to a man who was going to be buried in a pauper’s grave.

In 1901, Julia joined the Secular Franciscans and continued to works of charity. She became known as “Denver’s Angel of Charity.”

She died in 1918 on the Feast of the Sacred Heart. She was the first Catholic layperson to lay in state in a Catholic church in Denver. People streamed in for five hours to pay their respects. She was buried in a Franciscan habit in a plot donated to her.

In her obituary it was said, “Her skin was black, but her heart was whiter than the purest snow. She would as soon have confessed her sins on the street as anywhere else, for she did nothing of which she could be very ashamed. So do you wonder that this old negro woman had the distinction of being called to the other life on the Feast of the Sacred Heart?”

In 2014, the archdiocese began her cause for sainthood.

Home Alone

It’s been almost a year. Last February was another time. It’s easy to join in with the complaining about how terrible the past year as been. But there have been good things too. I’ve been in a really good place, mentally. It’s more acceptable to set hard boundaries and decline invitations. I’ve had more time to myself. I’ve been more patient with myself. I’ve been selfish about protecting my health. A benefit of being single is putting me first if I want. And I’ve done that. And it’s been nice.

I came into the Church on my own. I didn’t have someone evangelizing to me. I didn’t have a mentor. I had a teeny, tiny RCIA class at the parish I entered into which I left quickly after confirmation to go to grad school. I’ve struggled finding community. I’ve struggled even harder finding a spiritual director. It’s been frustrating, heartbreaking, and demoralizing.

We need community. We need instruction. The Church teaches that. Sociology teaches that. I don’t want to create my own idea of religion; I want to be a part of the Church. But sometimes I don’t feel a part of it. I don’t feel a part of it when I can’t get priests to answer my calls or emails. I don’t feel a part of it when ministry jumps from youth group to marriage and has no place for those adults who are unmarried. I don’t feel a part of it when other Catholics display such hatred for people different than them, when they treat the Church like a club where they can pick and choose fellow members, or when cults of personality claim for speak for the entire Church. This isn’t what I signed up for, I think. I’m not a part of this.

Then I remember what I did sign up for. I believed something happened in the Eucharist. God pulled me along to the Catholic Church. I didn’t really want to, but I felt the need to, and I prayed a lot and followed the Spirit and joined the Church. I wasn’t seeking community; I had that in the Protestant church. I wasn’t seeking the politically correct organization; that’d probably be the Quakers or something. I wanted Christ in the Eucharist; I wanted to answer the Spirit’s tugging. It was all about me and God. The Church was just the mechanism, the 2,000-year-old treasury of resources for me to use to get closer to God.

It’s selfish. But it’s also what has helped me this past year. Community is important. But I can go on without it. I long for spiritual direction. But I’ve done fine without it. I’m just as Catholic as the cradle Catholics and cultural Catholics and cult-of-personality Catholics. I might seek deeper connection and community, but I can’t let that search distract from what I really want: Christ. I will selfishly guard my faith. I will pray at home and read the books I want. I will set boundaries and decline recommendations. I don’t have to do anything. I don’t have to prove myself.

[Yes, I have to do some things, obligations of the Church. Only those. But I don’t have to pray certain prayers, listen to certain speakers, go to certain events, vote for certain people, share certain posts, wear certain clothes, etc., that any person puts on me. And even if I fail at doing the obligations of the Church, that’s between me and God and my confession.]

This past year gave me pause, time to remember how it felt when I was figuring it out on my own the first time. I’ve regained some of that confidence. I’ll still seek community and instruction. But I know that I’m never truly abandoned.