After 10 months of construction, the Mother Cabrini Shrine in Golden, Colorado will open its newly renovated and expanded chapel this week, just in time for a special Mass celebrating Cabrini Day on Monday, October 2.
“We’re just thrilled,” JoAnn Seaman, the executive director of the shrine, told Denver Catholic. “And the chapel is so beautiful. So this is just a big celebration of our renovations being completed.”
Cabrini Shrine will host a special Mass at noon on October 2 in honor of Cabrini Day, a state holiday established by Governor Jared Polis in 2020 honoring Mother Frances Cabrini. At the Mass, the shrine will have prayer cards available with prayers said by Mother Cabrini during her lifetime, Seaman said.
Mother Frances Cabrini was an Italian religious sister who founded her own order, called the the Institute of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in 1880. Pope Leo XIII commissioned her to come to the United States to serve the Italian immigrants, and she arrived in Colorado in the early 1900s, where she served Italian immigrants and their families and established a convent, a school, an orphanage, and a summer camp for orphan girls, which was on the grounds where her shrine now stands.
According to the shrine website, Cabrini founded 67 institutions in her lifetime, including schools, orphanages and hospitals. Cabrini died in 1917, and in 1946 she became the first American citizen to be canonized a saint. She is also the first woman in the United States to be honored with a paid state holiday.
Seaman said that ordinarily, the shrine hosts additional events on Cabrini Day, such as a scavenger hunt for kids, but that those events were not possible this year due to the chapel construction.
Still, Seaman encouraged Coloradans to visit the Mother Cabrini Shrine on Cabrini Day and enjoy the many prayerful spaces on the grounds, including the 373 stairs to the top of the Mount of the Sacred Heart, where stands a 22-foot statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in honor of Cabrini’s devotion. There is also a spring, a grotto, and multiple prayer gardens and a gift shop.
The shrine is expecting lots of visitors and good weather for Cabrini Day.
“Last year we had a full chapel,” Seaman said. “I know there are several Catholic school groups coming up that day, kind of as a field trip, so we expect to be busy. I think the weather should be nice.”