HOMEPAGE for this issue: September 28, 2011 // Download PDF Version // Click to install/update Adobe Reader on your computer

Laywoman to be first to receive Sts. Bakhita and Drexel Award

By Kate Veik

Black Catholic Ministry Office director Mary Leisring will be the first lay recipient of the Sts. Bakhita and Drexel Award when it’s bestowed next month.

The award will be presented during a dinner at Bogey’s on the Park in Denver at 5:30 p.m. Oct. 28.

Leisring has served as director of black Catholic ministry for nine years.

“Mary has done a tremendous job (promoting) the Catholic faith within the black community,” said Father Simon Kalonga, pastor of Cure d’Ars Church.

Father Kalonga nominated Leisring for the service award comparing her commitment to Catholic education and youth ministry with that of St. Josephine Bakhita and St. Katharine Drexel, the namesakes for the award.

“They were very dedicated women who worked very hard to spread the faith,” Kalonga said. “Mary is an example of that. She is going in the same direction as these very strong women.”

The Sts. Bakhita and Drexel Award will be Leisring’s second honor for her service in black Catholic ministry. Her first was a papal award in 2010.

“I’m humbled by the recognition but I know there are many other people who have worked longer and harder than I have,” Leisring said.

She added that she appreciates the award’s “recognition of the importance of the evangelization of the black community in Denver.”

Leisring was first involved in black Catholic ministry through the archdiocesan HIV/AIDS task force in 1987.

Though she would not retire from a career with the state of Colorado until 2002, Leisring said her involvement in the HIV/AIDS task force developed her sense of “calling” to ministry.

After retirement, Leisring joined the Archdiocesan Black Catholic Advisory Council and was soon appointed director of the Black Catholic Ministry Office.

“When the position came open it seemed like a fit because it was a calling to a deeper ministry and a deeper way of giving back not only to my community but to the universal Church,” Leisring said.

She said that after retiring she had “no inkling of working for the archdiocese, but it just seems like that’s what the Lord wanted me to do.”

Leisring said she strives to live by Jesus’ words in St. Luke’s Gospel: “Much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more” (12:48).

Leisring reflected on her education by the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament in her hometown of Houston, Texas, and the unwavering support of her husband, Charles.

“The Lord expects great things,” Leisring said.

The Sts. Bakhita and Drexel Award dinner will include a silent auction. Bogey’s on the Park is located at 2500 York St. in Denver. The cost is $30 per person or $300 for a table.