When Faith Becomes Flesh: How Love Left Its Mark on Julia Greeley, Mother Teresa and the Sisters of Loretto

Posted by the Denver Catholic October 27, 2026

When you think of faith, you might think of something far-off or hard to describe: a feeling, a private conviction, an invisible virtue floating around somewhere out there. …

But what if faith goes deeper? What if it literally becomes part of us, visible in our bodies, even in our bones? …

In 2022, in what was dubbed “Operation Sacred Rescue,” some of the sisters buried at Loretto Heights were exhumed and reinterred at Mount Olivet Catholic Cemetery in Wheat Ridge ahead of the property’s sale. In the process, archaeologists noticed signs of their faithful service in their bodies, even decades after their death.

The wear on certain bones — including clavicles, or collarbones, and patellas, or kneecaps — suggested repeated patterns: shoulders worn by loving service, knees accustomed to devoted prayer.

The whole, beautiful article can be read on the Denver Catholic website.