'Miracle' Spring Could Finally Dry Up
[Original headline: Drought could dry up Mother Cabrini's 'miracle' spring]
Nuns continue to pray while they tote linens to coin laundry in bid to slow water usage
Drought threatens to dry up what's believed to be a miraculous 90-year-old water supply at the popular Mother Cabrini Shrine in Golden.
Unless substantial rain comes soon, the water is expected to run out by August -- for the first time in its history, said Sister Bernadette Casciano, who manages the retreat and prayer center for 150,000 visitors and guests each year.
"The sisters are praying every night to Mother Cabrini," said Casciano, one of three sisters who lives at the shrine. Their heavenly mentor, Mother Francis Cabrini, crisscrossed America founding schools and orphanages. She died in 1917 and was the first American to be canonized a saint, in 1946.
The sisters don't plan to turn on the flower beds' sprinkler system and they're taking guest linens to a coin laundry.
"We've been on water watch, so to speak," Casciano said. "So far we're holding our own."
They're also using paper dishes, "and many retreatants bring their own sleeping bags so we don't have to go through the sheet routine."
The first water "miracle" came in 1912, when Cabrini wanted to buy the towering, rocky outcrop as a summer camp for homeless youngsters. But she was blocked by the fact there appeared to be no water supply.
One day she was sitting with some sisters and orphaned children in the area of the present grotto, "playing with her cane," Cascino said. "Her cane pushed some rocks and the water started to come up and it's the spring we still have."
Since then, water has been easily collected in an 8,000-gallon glass-lined tank. But in March, the shrine's maintenance head, Thomas Francis, alerted Casciano that the water was not being replenished.
The only other water crisis was in 1993 when the huge World Youth Day crowd strained the system. That time, Coors Brewery stepped in and filled the tank with water, "and that's when we realized we needed to watch it," she said. The shrine is now negotiating with the city of Golden to get hooked into the city water supply.
In the meantime, if the tank runs dry this summer Casciano hopes to buy water again from Coors or the city. But the sisters have not given up on the formidable Mother Cabrini for another "miracle."
"Wonderful things happen in the lives of the saints," Casciano said.
• Story originally published by:
Rocky Mountain News, Denver / CO | Jean Torkelson - Apr 30.02
All Copyrights© are acknowledged.
Material reproduced here is for
educational and research purposes only.
