25th Anniversary Pilgrimage to Mother Cabrini Shrine - Colorado

This 50-mile annual pilgrimage is conducted for a special intention each year. In following the footsteps of Mother Cabrini and invoking the intercession of saints and martyrs, pilgrims desire that the Catholic Faith be restored in every heart, family, workplace, neighborhood, city, diocese, and nation. This spiritual journey takes place over a two-day period and begins and ends with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. During the pilgrimage itself, faithful have the opportunity for confessions, spiritual direction, meditations, group rosary, and much more. 

Photos from 2019's Pilgrimage:

More about the Shrine:

Nestled among the Rocky Mountains in Golden, CO just to the west of Denver is the Mother Cabrini Shrine, founded in 1912 by St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, the patron saint of immigrants. The high point of the shrine is a 22’ limestone statue of the Sacred Heart, erected in 1954. Each August the faithful of St. Isidore’s in nearby Watkins make a two-day, 50-mile walking pilgrimage to the shrine.

Mother Cabrini
 

Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, known affectionately as Mother Cabrini, was born in northern Italy in 1850. The tenth of eleven children, Frances came to hold a devotion to the Sacred Heart at a young age. She was nurtured in a loving, religious family and schooled strictly at home by her older sister Rosa.

Frances also participated in parish life and accompanied Rosa on charitable visits to the poor and the sick, and she was encouraged in her piety by her uncle, a priest. In the evenings, the family gathered for prayer and listened attentively to their father read from the annals of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith.

At an early age, Frances was attracted by the accounts of missionaries in the Far East, and she longed to become a missionary. At age thirteen she graduated cum laude from a school run by the Daughters of the Sacred Heart.

Despite lifelong poor health, she proved to be resolute, and in 1880 she and six other women founded the Institute of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (M.S.C.). She was naturalized as a United States citizen in 1909, where she and the Institute became a great support to the Italian immigrants. Mother Cabrini crossed the Atlantic Ocean 30 times, bringing bands of Sisters from Italy to North and South America. In the New World she founded 67 orphanages, hospitals, schools, and other institutions to serve the sick and poor.

She died in Chicago on December 22nd, 1917. She was canonized on the July 7th, 1946, the first American citizen to be so honored. Her relics are venerated in the congregation's international motherhouse in Rome, at the national Cabrini shrine in Chicago, and at the Cabrini shrine in New York City.

Rocky Mountain Home
 

Mother Cabrini and the Missionary Sisters first arrived in Colorado in 1902 at the urgent invitation of the local ordinary: thousands of Italian immigrants had settled in the area, and they needed religious instruction. The Sisters purchased property in Denver as a residence for girls, and under Mother Cabrini’s direction Queen of Heaven Orphanage was established in 1904.

Making of a Shrine
 

While visiting Italian families in mining towns of the area, Mother Cabrini came upon a property on the east slope of Lookout Mountain owned by the town of Golden. It was a beautiful area, but water was scarce and had to be hauled up from the stream in Mount Vernon Canyon nearly five miles away. Mother kept an eye on the property for several years, however, and in 1909-1910 she negotiated its purchase and turned it into a summer camp for the girls of the orphanage. The camp allowed the orphans to enjoy the outdoors and learn how to perform farm chores. During her last visit to Golden in 1912, Mother Cabrini worked with a builder to plan a girls’ dormitory on the property fashioned from the native rock. The girls helped with the construction: they loaded stones from a nearby quarry onto a donkey-drawn cart, and the "Stone House" was completed in 1914.

During her 1912 visit, Mother Cabrini and the girls climbed to the highest point of Lookout Mountain, where they gathered white stones and arranged them into a Sacred Heart with a crown of thorns. After forming the Heart, the group descended the hill. The Sisters rested among some rocks, and they told Mother Cabrini of the area’s lack of good drinking water. Mother Cabrini stood up, tapped a stone with her cane, and told the Sisters, “Lift that rock and start to dig. You will find fresh water enough for you to drink, and clean enough to wash.” The Sisters dug a small hole, and a sparkling spring began trickling forth. In the century since, the spring has never stopped running.

This was Mother’s last visit to her beloved Rocky Mountains.

A replica of the grotto of Lourdes was built over the spring in 1929; it was replaced 30 years later by a grotto built of sandstone. The spring attracts many pilgrims, and some have reported miraculous cures by drinking the water. In 1948, a 22’ Sacred Heart statue was placed atop Lookout Mountain on the spot where Mother Cabrini and the orphans arranged the white stones; today a 373-step pilgrim stairway leads up to the statue, following the path taken by Mother Cabrini.