‘Let Christ hold you’: Archbishop Golka Takes Possession of Cathedral Ahead of Holy Week
- Sheryl Tirol
- 2 minutes ago
- 9 min read
Those who knew him before Denver say the Archdiocese is in good hands.
Archbishop James R. Golka's first full day leading the Archdiocese of Denver began at the doors of the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception.
Standing before the doors of the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Denver on Thursday, Archbishop Golka knocked at the entrance as part of the ancient Rite of Possession, a ceremony marking a bishop’s formal taking of his cathedral. Father Michael Bodzioch, rector of the Cathedral Basilica, opened the doors and presented the new archbishop with the keys as well as a crucifix, which he kissed in reverence. Archbishop Golka then received holy water, with which he blessed himself and all those gathered.
Once inside, he was escorted to the cathedra — the bishop’s chair from which the word “cathedral” derives and from which a bishop formally presides over his diocese — before being greeted by priests, deacons and members of the Cathedral community.
(Photos by Dan Petty/Denver Catholic)
Jesus: God Saves
With Palm Sunday just days away, Archbishop Golka used his second homily as Archbishop of Denver to invite the faithful into something deeper than extra Masses and familiar prayers; he wanted them to hand Christ their wounds.
Drawing on ancient covenant theology, Archbishop Golka traced a direct line from the Book of Genesis to the Last Supper to Good Friday.
“In the Bible, in the Old Testament, you see where God creates a covenant, then literally, you turn the page, and now we’re worshiping a golden cow,” the archbishop said. “We are sinful people. We break it.”
The solution, he said, was not another set of rules — it was a Son.
Archbishop Golka anchored his homily in a little-known biblical tradition, the “cutting” of a covenant. In the time of Abraham, he explained, tribal leaders would slaughter an animal, split it in two and walk between the halves as a solemn pledge, their lives on the line if the covenant was broken.
“It was common to not make a covenant, but to cut a covenant,” Archbishop Golka explained. “The leader would walk between those two halves and say, ‘If I, or anybody in my tribe, fails to uphold the terms of this covenant, you can do that to me.’ Your life is on the line.”
The archbishop connected that ancient ritual to the intimacy of marriage and then to the altar.
“This is like the day of your marriage, when you stood at the altar and gave your life to somebody else, and they received it,” he continued. “You became different. God wants to do that with you and me.”
The homily’s pivotal moment came when Archbishop Golka fast-forwarded 2,000 years to the upper room on Holy Thursday.
“What is Jesus doing at the Last Supper? Not only giving us a memorial by which he can continue to feed us — he’s cutting a covenant with us,” Archbishop Golka said. “Jesus is saying, ‘If I fail to uphold my part of the covenant, you can do this to me. You can kill me.’ What happens the next day on Good Friday? That’s what we do.”
But the story does not end there, the archbishop noted.
“The love of Jesus is so great that his sacrifice, giving up himself, he can hold it all,” he said. “He can hold you and me in our brokenness and our sin, and that’s simply what he desires to do during this Holy Week. Let Christ hold you in everything, especially your greatest pain and disappointment.”
Prayer First and Foremost
For those who knew Archbishop Golka long before his installation in Denver, none of that came as a surprise.
Megan Hjelmstad, a Catholic speaker and writer based in Highlands Ranch who knew the new Denver archbishop during his time as bishop of the Diocese of Colorado Springs, and for whose recent book, Offer It Up, Archbishop Golka wrote the foreword, paused to collect herself as she spoke about him, her voice breaking with emotion.
“He is one of the most incredible people, priests and bishops I’ve ever met in my life,” Hjelmstad said. “He is so humble. He is so prayerful. He’s so incredibly discerning. And I’ve never encountered such a shepherd who is so present.”
Hjelmstad said Archbishop Golka’s fatherly quality flows directly from his own prayer life and his relationship with God.
“He knows the Holy Spirit, and he knows the Lord so deeply through his prayer that he just has that grace — the overflow of his own spiritual life — to just be a father to others,” she said. “I don’t have words for how special he is, what a gift he is.”
Her advice to Catholics in the Denver Archdiocese is simple: listen and pray.
“Pray for him. He is the first to tell you that he’s so human and he needs all of those prayers,” Hjelmstad said. “And listen to his words, because they are directly from the Holy Spirit, because he listens with everything in him to the Holy Spirit.”
(Photos by Grant Whitty/Denver Catholic)
A Force for Unity
Jennifer and Kory Koralewski are Colorado parishioners originally from Grand Island, Nebraska, where then-Father Golka served as pastor of St. Mary Cathedral. Kory, who served as director of stewardship and development for the Diocese of Grand Island during those years, said the new archbishop’s impact on the parish was unmistakable.
“His ability to just attract people who truly love the Lord — I saw that several times,” Kory said. “The cathedral is in downtown Grand Island, and there’s just a very diverse group of people that would attend. He served them all.”
That included Spanish-speaking parishioners, Kory noted, through Masses in their language that he described as “beautiful.”
Archbishop Golka also gave Kory personal spiritual direction, he said, helping him see his faith and his work in stewardship in a new light.
“He really helped me to see the Lord in a new way,” Kory said. “He helped people understand that what God gives us is not meant to be kept — that we’re supposed to use the talents we have.”
For Jennifer, watching Archbishop Golka incense the altar on Thursday moved her in a way she hadn’t fully anticipated.
“I got so emotional watching him — he’s so intentional and gentle about that, like he is in everything,” she said. “He was a big part of the formation of our son in the faith. Our son's altar serving, growing up in the faith, Confirmation. He was just very important to our family. To see him here, it’s just… surreal.”
Jennifer said she believes what set him apart in Grand Island will define his tenure in Denver.
“He loves everybody,” she said. “He brought the Vietnamese into the Vespers, the Spanish and the English. He’s really big about unifying everybody, and I think that’s going to be a good thing.”
An Authentic Witness
Logan Stickney is a Denver Metro resident who has called Colorado home for nearly 20 years. He grew up in Kearney, Nebraska, where “Father Jim” was assigned to St. James Parish fresh out of seminary. Stickney was 11 years old.
“Even as an 11-year-old, I remember thinking he brought this really sincere, dynamic energy to our parish,” Stickney said. “His Masses would be more heavily attended because his homilies were so insightful and inspirational. He just had a way of connecting with people that didn’t feel forced or inauthentic. It felt very calm and peaceful and natural.”
Stickney said then-Father Golka had a particular gift for youth ministry, leading retreats across the diocese and creating spaces where young people felt genuinely welcomed.
“He created a space where people could just show up as they were and feel loved and accepted,” Stickney said. “In large part, my choice to be involved in parish and diocesan activities was because I really respected and admired him.”
Now watching that same priest become the shepherd of an entire archdiocese, Stickney said he believes the timing is providential.
“People, especially in today’s world, crave authenticity — and that’s especially true with our spiritual leaders,” he said. “He was that way as a new priest back in the 90s, and just from everything I can tell, he continues to be that way. That’s going to make people want to be a part of the Catholic Church in the Denver area.”
Stickney said Archbishop Golka’s approach is what lapsed and searching Catholics most need to encounter.
“I think that people really want to feel like they’re welcome,” he said. “Just reaching out in love is something that goes a long way.”
A Church Fully Alive
That reach across generations was on display Thursday in the pews. Joshua Evans Jr., a 17-year-old junior and parishioner of All Souls Parish in Englewood, came to the Mass on his spring break at the suggestion of his father. It was his first time witnessing anything like it.
“I’d never done anything like that in my life — seeing a new archbishop with all the robes and the big procession,” Evans said. “I thought it was really great.”
The homily, he said, landed in a way he didn’t expect.
“His homily was really good about how we’re all broken, but Jesus comes, and he heals us and stops our brokenness, even though we’re all guilty,” Evans said. “I had heard that message before, but never from an archbishop, and never quite like that — in that very articulate way.”
For Evans, the experience pointed to something larger about why events like this matter for his generation.
“Faith is obviously really important — I think it’s the foundation of any good life, and obviously any spiritual life,” he said. “Participating in events like this gives us these physical things that are symbolic of the spiritual, and kind of reminds us of the spiritual world and our worship as Christians.”
Margaret DeMaioribus, chief of staff at CatholicVote, said the three-day installation experience left her reflecting on what the Church’s visible rituals make possible.
“It was a beautiful experience to see the Church fully alive over the past three days — to see the beauty of the Church’s tradition and ritual and the power of that, the tangible, visible symbolism that leads us to Christ,” DeMaioribus said.
Like many in attendance, it was her first time witnessing an archbishop's installation. She said what struck her most was the breadth of people gathered under one roof.
“Beauty is the gateway to enter into the true and the good,” she said. “Experiencing the past three days and seeing the breadth of the Church, people from all different walks of life coming, that’s who the Church is.”
DeMaioribus said she is praying for Golka as he steps into the demands of his new role.
“He brings his own gifts and talents that only he can bring and that the Lord has given him,” she said. “The excitement of that — to see how the Lord is going to use him.”
She added, “Anyone stepping into a new role, it’s going to be a fire hose of information and new things to be briefed on. So just prayers for this beginning for him.”
Humility, Unity, Charity: Keys to the Christian Life
Archbishop Golka, who was ordained and installed as bishop of Colorado Springs on June 29, 2021, and installed as Archbishop of Denver on March 25, said his four years of Jesuit formation at Creighton University have been an influence on his journey as a priest and archbishop.
“Jesuits became my good friends, and I learned two things from them — one, how to think, and the other, how to pray,” he said. “And when you know God’s voice, you know what he wants you to do, you’re filled with confidence to go do it. That’s been a blessing for me.”
He credited the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, a 30-day silent retreat he has completed twice, as a turning point in his spiritual life.
“That has been life-changing for me,” Archbishop Golka said. “It has just helped me hear God’s voice in a more clear way.”
That clarity of voice is something the new archbishop said the broader Church desperately needs, particularly as social divisions deepen.
“Social media is divisive. People make money by doing that. That’s not Catholic,” he said. “To be Catholic means to be a holy, joyful person. Joy attracts. Beauty attracts. Goodness attracts.”
When asked how the faithful can respond to a fractured world, Archbishop Golka returned to three words he said anchor his own leadership.
“I keep coming back to humility, unity and charity — those senses of who we are,” he shared. “If we can grow better that way, we’re going to be more like Jesus, and that’s what the church ought to be.”
Let Jesus Claim You
At the close of Mass, Archbishop Golka reflected on the phrase at the heart of the day’s ceremony and gently reframed it.
“This is the second time I have been involved in the taking possession of a cathedral,” he noted, recalling the same rite five years ago in Colorado Springs. “I’m always struck by that phrase, because we possess nothing. Everything we have is received as gift and given as gift. The only one who possesses is God.”
He closed with a prayer and an aspiration for all who would pass through the Cathedral’s doors in the years ahead.
“Let us pray that all of those who enter here to worship and encounter Christ may be possessed by the love of God even greater,” Archbishop Golka said. “I can’t wait for that.”
For this Holy Week specifically, the archbishop issued a direct challenge to the laity.
“I challenge you to take the week and make it different than normal,” he said. “Don’t just go to an extra Mass or two — take the whole day and let it be holy. Listen for Christ to talk to you.”
He said the week holds particular power for those carrying grief, fear or uncertainty.
“This week, I think Christ wants us to give him our wounds and our worries and our anxieties — that’s why he came,” Archbishop Golka said. “When I give him the worst part of me, or what I’m scared of, I feel his joy.”
The invitation, he said, is nothing less than transformation.
“He wants to take everything that’s broken in us to the Cross and let it be transformed,” Archbishop Golka said. “Let’s do that this week with him.”
