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For women who have experienced homelessness and are ready to rebuild their lives | |
Mid-summer news from the Julia Greeley Home | |
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"For everything there is a season,
a time for every purpose under Heaven"
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Our newest guest, Deborah, hopes to become our third Ward Family Foundation scholarship winner, so she can finish her education and fulfill her interrupted dreams | |
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Your support means that this faith-filled widow can recover from a season of heartbreak and loss, and find a new life.
Here's Deborah's story:
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Deborah comes from a loving, Scripture-reading family; her kind parents used to help the homeless. No one -- much less their talented daughter - thought she would have a season of homelessness herself. Deborah's story reveals how homelessness can overtake a hardworking, faith-filled woman, and do it, oh-so-gradually.
The seeds were planted years before when she and her husband of 18 years decided to try out a still-new phenomenon — social media. They joined a "chat room." She was retail manager, wrote music, sang in a band, and published poetry. A chat room seemed an exciting new way to make new connections. (No red flags. Yet.) But before long, her husband had moved to a private chat room with another woman. The secret eventually exploded Deborah's marriage.
"I thought marriage was forever," says Deborah. "We were talking divorce, and it was like he was having the best day of his life, and I was all alone. It was a clinically depressed time. When I looked at myself all I saw was dry bones, and when they turned to dust I would be no more."
A true depression and loss of faith followed, "All my controls were gone." One day, someone suggested, "Why don't you turn back to God? " That gentle whisper led to a wonderful second marriage with Brad and a move to his state of Colorado. But some years ago, Brad died from esophageal cancer and Deborah's health went into decline. By then, her family and in-laws had passed away or were not able to help.
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Hard years of struggle and loss followed, and Deborah, now 61, eventually found herself at a temporary shelter in Denver. "I had never been homeless. I didn't know what to expect."
Every morning, she had to lug her belongings to a day-shelter. At night there was the constant presence of hard-core drugs and lurking danger -- shrieks in the night, shadows in the dark, and waking up to wonder if her personal belongings were still there. All the time, she was thinking: "God has something better for me. I have a whole half of my life left to live!"
Then, Deborah was given an application to the Julia Greeley Home. Her first week here, she told us,"Finally I can sleep all through the night not worried about being robbed or attacked. You feel love here."
Now she can concentrate on her interrupted dreams, too. There's a possible scholarship to fully expand her managerial experience into human resources, and steady improvement of her health, thanks to good food and sleep. "Some people don't want to change their life," she says, "but people like me want to better their situation. And it's OK when you're walking through the valley of death to tremble. God is good. I know He has a plan for me."
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"If you don't believe in God,
follow me around for a day!"
(Mary Ann's favorite saying.
It meant that God was at the center
of her life, and at the center of everything.)
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"A Friend
of Julia's"
Like Mary Ann Sanfilippo, when you support the Julia Greeley Home with your prayers and material gifts you become part of the family, and that means you're "A Friend of Julia's" too. We've put our mission under Julia's guidance as she moves along the path to sainthood. While in this world, Julia understood the need to do something -- she supported firefighters in their dangerous work and gave generously to those even poorer than she. The world counted her for little, but in her lifetime Julia was already known as "Denver's Angel of Charity." Thanks to your support, we're able to inspire "Julia's Guests," the recently homeless women who join JGH, with Julia's courage and great, God-given dignity, which is available to them as well. Pray to Julia for your own needs, too. We know she's listening!
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Wife, mother, nurse, woman of staunch faith,
-- and inspired by our founder, too
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Mary Ann Sanfilippo was born and raised in the Chicago, Illinois area, the oldest of six children to James & Dorothy Cox. When it came time to attend college, she had wanted to become a lawyer. However, her mother objected. "You can't do that," she quipped, "you're too honest!"
Besides a lively sense of humor, the Cox clan had a courageous and adventurous streak. Mary Ann's Aunt Eileen was a very accomplished nurse in the military who had helped liberate Dachau Concentration Camp at the end of WWII. For a young woman of Mary Ann's generation, the acceptable degree paths for young women was nursing or teaching. She opted for nursing and was strongly guided to one of two approved Catholic colleges – Loretta Heights in Denver or St. Mary’s in Indiana. She chose to head west with the “cowboys” on the frontier.
Mary Ann met her future husband, Mike on a blind date while attending Loretta Heights. Mike was a senior at University of Colorado in Boulder. Her parents had established the rule she had to finish college before she could get married. They married in 1958, and eventually had six children themselves. They experienced raising their children in the wild times in the church post the close of the Vatican II Council. She was too busy raising children and helping Mike with his various entrepreneurial businesses. In her eyes, the church of her youth had changed dramatically, and it didn’t make sense.
Fast forward 30 years, after all her children were raised, she discovered Father Regis Scanlon, who helped clarify the teachings of Vatican II and made sense of those documents. She learned from Father how to put relationship with Jesus Christ above all the contortions to the faith that ensued after Vatican II. She was eternally grateful to Father Regis for his great love of the faith and his inspiration to others to love Jesus Christ and understand the Catholic Church well.
As in any relationship, the more you get to know the beloved, the greater appreciation one develops of that beloved. Father Regis inspired that, especially among the college students he served. When Father moved into his new role as Prison Chaplain, he discovered the need homeless single women have for a safe place to live. He eventually founded the Julia Greeley Home.
Mary Ann passed into eternal life on June 19, 2022, the Feast of Corpus Christi, a most fitting day, since in her later years the Catholic adoration chapel was her favorite place to be. Before she died, she was inspired to include the Julia Greeley Home in her will, so that she could be part of continuing the mission that Father Regis began 10 years ago.
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On the anniversary of Julia Greeley's baptism, June 26: | |
Mass, celebrated on the 143rd anniversary of Julia's baptism, at the altar of her own parish church: Father Eric Zegeer says Mass at Sacred Heart Church, Denver, with (at left), Father Blaine Burkey OFM Cap, Julia's biographer, who is concelebrating. | |
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"She was only one person, yet she made
a lasting impact" -- Father Eric Zegeer
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At Sacred Heart Parish in Denver this past June, in the church where Julia Greeley was baptized 143 years ago - and in the same year, 1880, that the church was founded - Father Eric Zegeer paid tribute to this child of slavery, who overcame "the horrors that plagued her dignity" and chose instead heroic forgiveness. He asked his listeners to pray for her beatification - the next step to sainthood - and to ask Julia for help to live, not trapped in brokenness of oneself or others, but to "live a life after Christ, as she did."
What his listeners may not have known was the impact Julia Greeley had on his own life -- an impact that began quietly, even before he realized it. In a later conversation, Father Eric explained how, as a junior in high school in Miami in 1993, he sensed a call to see the Pope at World Youth Day in Denver.
That event "was a very vocation-affirming experience of my sense of a call to priesthood. I've called it my personal Pentecost ..."
Twenty-five years later, he was a young priest, back in Denver, fresh from a meeting with Archbishop Samuel Aquila, to discuss a teaching position at St John Vianney Seminary. It was during that trip to Denver that he first encountered Julia Greeley.
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"I knelt for the first time at the tomb of Julia Greeley," he recalled. "It was the first time I ever heard of her, and I prayed to her that if this was the Lord's will and He wanted it done, to please ask Him to accomplish it ..."
And so it happened. Not only did he win the seminary teaching position, but Father Eric was assigned to Risen Christ Parish, located within the boundaries of Cherry Creek State Park, the same venue where, as a teenager, his priestly vocation was affirmed at World Youth Day.
But Julia wasn't done distributing God's gifts to him, and with lasting impact, too. In August, 2022, Father Eric became the newest in a long line of pastors assigned to lead Sacred Heart Church -- 143 years' of pastors, in fact, and the very parish that Julia called home.
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Julia Greeley is still making a lasting impact | |
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Please join us in this exciting work, as prayers continue
to be answered through this future saint!
When you contribute to the Julia Greeley Home,
you are directly helping to restore
the lives of good women, like Deborah.
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We can only do this with your help. If you have any questions or feedback about our mission, please let us know.
Whether by mail, phone, or email to our executive director, Jean Torkelson, we'd love to hear from you!
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