Archbishop's web site Denver Catholic Register Parishes Catholic Pastoral Center
July 17, 2002
Hundreds attend gala honoring 100th anniversary of St. Cabrini's arrival in Denver
Friends and former orphans gather to pay tribute to legacy of saint and nuns in Colorado
By Roxanne King
Nearly 400 people attended a festive gala at the Hyatt Regency in Denver July 12 honoring the 100th anniversary of St. Francis Xavier Cabrini's arrival in Colorado and a century of service in the archdiocese by her Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart.
The event exuded gratitude and love as Missionary Sisters from across the country joined the nuns of Denver to celebrate the anniversary of their founder, and former residents of a now closed orphanage Mother Cabrini established here turned out to say thank you.
Attendees visited the tranquil Cabrini Shrine atop Lookout Mountain in Golden through a video narrated by News 4 anchor Stephanie Riggs, who served as mistress of ceremonies. They journeyed back through time via a timeline outlining Mother Cabrini's arrival and work in Colorado and highlighting significant Colorado events of the past century. The festive event included a sumptuous meal and dancing to the Dean Bushnell Orchestra.
"Cabrini was a small person with a big vision. The world was too small for her," shrine administrator Sister Bernadette Casciano, M.S.C., said paying tribute to America's first saint, who crossed the Atlantic Ocean 24 times and founded 67 missions tirelessly opening schools, hospitals and orphanages and ministering to immigrants.
Locally, her work continues at the Cabrini Shrine, which the saint opened as a summer home for the girls of Queen of Heaven Orphanage. Today, three Missionary Sisters — Sister Casciano, Sister Ilaria Povero and Sister Theresa Shih — minister to 150,000 shrine visitors a year who want to walk where a saint once walked and drink from the spring she miraculously unearthed on land she was told lacked water.
"The shrine is a place of prayer and pilgrimage, where the sisters strive to bring people to God and God to people," Sister Casciano told the crowd.
To applause, the nun invited eight Missionary Sisters who traveled from out of state to assemble with the Denver nuns onstage "as a visible sign of Cabrini's legacy."
Also receiving a warm round of applause was beloved Mother Ignatius Miceli. Now retired, she served both Queen of Heaven Orphanage and the Cabrini Shrine.
Adding to the joyfulness of the event was news that on the previous day the City Council of Golden had unanimously approved allowing the shrine to tap into its water supply for irrigation purposes, which will help ensure that the spring discovered by the saint will continue to flow for visitors. The gala served in part as a fund-raiser to obtain the estimated $250,000 cost to tap into Golden's water.
The event was a homecoming for former residents of Queen of Heaven Orphanage, which served thousands of girls before being torn down in 1973.
"The orphanage was a safe haven for me," said Mary Brown, 49, of Denver. "I was well-cared for, loved and grew to be a strong woman because of the sisters."
The oldest living former resident of the orphanage Margaret Larche, 73, took the bus from Arvada to attend the celebration.
"Tonight meant everything: it's a way to say thank you to the sisters," Larche said. Placed in the orphanage when she was just 3 years old, she grew up there and frequently returned to visit the sisters after graduating from high school and marrying.
"I missed the sisters," she said. "I was so protected all those years. I was so scared when I got out."
Juliana Oestreicher, 49, credits the nuns who raised her with teaching her "morals and love." The nuns and the girls she grew up with "are like my family," she said.
New Orleans resident Denise Theriot, 44, said the nuns who maintain the shrine and the former orphans she has befriended over the years have become family to her, too. For the past six years, Theriot and two friends have spent two weeks each summer volunteering at the shrine.
"It's a holy place," she said. "It's hard to be on that mountain and not feel Mother Cabrini's presence. Today we'd call her an operator. She knew how to do it — how to get things done."
A white rock heart formed by Mother Cabrini herself at the shrine's highest point was imitated in table and stage decorations and served as the theme for the evening. It captured Mother Cabrini's motto and the gratitude the event sought to extend to her and her sisters, said Brown, who created the timeline, an anniversary power point presentation and co-authored the anniversary booklet guests received.
"I'm grateful to the sisters for all they continue to do," Brown said. "The sisters (throughout the world) continue to carry out Cabrini's mission of teaching, caring, healing, reaching out and giving. That was Cabrini's motto: `Reaching out to the heart of the world.'"
Perla Arellano, 49, who was raised at the orphanage and, like Brown and Oestreicher, works for the sisters today to stay connected to them, said she was elated with the event turnout, which the nuns hope to hold annually.
"I'm thrilled to see all the support we have tonight for the Mother Cabrini Shrine and I'm really touched that all the sisters came from their homes across the United States to share this night with us," Arellano said, adding that working for the shrine, which holds happy childhood memories for her, is like "coming back to work at home."
"The orphanage meant family and home," she said.
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