Blessed Solanus Casey (1870-1957)
November 3 / July 30
Bernard Francis Casey (nicknamed "Barney") was
born on November 25, 1870, on a farm in Oak Grove, Wisconsin. He was the sixth
of 16 children of Bernard James Casey and Ellen Elizabeth Murphy, both Irish
immigrants. Bernard was baptized on December 18, 1870. The family lived in a
three-room log cabin on a farm.
At age 17, he dropped out of school and left home to earn
money, working as a logger in a lumberyard, a hospital orderly, and a streetcar
operator. While employed as a prison guard in Minnesota, he befriended the
Younger brothers, who were former accomplices of the outlaw Jesse James. During
this period, he proposed marriage to a young girl, but the relationship ended
when her mother suddenly sent her away to a boarding school.
At the age of 21 he entered St. Francis High School Seminary
in Milwaukee—where he found studies very difficult. He left there and, while
praying before a statue of Our Lady, heard a female voice tell him, “Go to
Detroit!” It was on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, December 8th.
So in 1897 he joined the Capuchins in Detroit on Christmas Eve. He took the
name Solanus, after Saint Francis Solanus (San Francisco de Solano).
On July 24, 1904, he was ordained as a “simplex” priest. Because
he was judged to be weak in the knowledge of theology, Father Solanus was not
given permission to hear confessions or to preach. A Capuchin who knew him well said this
annoying restriction “brought forth in him a greatness and a holiness that
might never have been realized in any other way.” During his 14 years as porter
and sacristan in Yonkers, New York, the people there recognized him as a fine
speaker. “For, though he was forbidden to deliver doctrinal sermons,” writes
his biographer, James Patrick Derum, “he could give inspirational talks or “feverinos,”
as the Capuchins termed them.” (from Porter of St. Bonaventure’s).
Fr. Solanus was also known for quirky habits such as playing
his harmonica to the monastery bees; for singing in a loud squeaky voice as he
played his violin; and for eating his food all mixed together as a penance. His
breakfast might consist of cereal, prune juice, coffee, and milk, all in the
same bowl.
Father Solanus served at parishes in Manhattan and Harlem
before returning to Detroit, where he was porter and sacristan for 20 years at
St. Bonaventure Monastery. Solanus is known for helping to start the Capuchin
Soup Kitchen in 1931 during the Great Depression, which to this day cares for
Detroit’s poor. Every Wednesday afternoon he conducted services for the
sick, which were very well attended. Many people considered him instrumental in
cures and other blessings they received. “Blessed be God in all God’s designs”
was one of his favorite expressions.
He soon became renowned as “the doorkeeper” who gave gentle
counsel and miraculous intercession. He would listen to anyone at any time, day
or night. People would line up for blocks just to have a moment with him. He
told them to “thank God ahead of time.” One story of his miraculous
intercession is told about a friar who came to see Solanus on his way to have
emergency dental work done. Fr. Solanus blessed him and told him to trust God.
While the friar was at the dentist, a lady who came to visit the monastery
brought Fr. Solanus two ice cream cones. Too busy to eat them, Fr. Solanus
shoved the cones into his desk drawer, much to the dismay of his secretary.
After more than half an hour, the friar returned from the dentist, his tooth
found miraculously healthy. He went to thank Father Solanus, who pulled out
perfectly frozen ice cream cones from his drawer on the hot summer day, which
he offered to the friar to celebrate.
Due to failing health in 1946, he was transferred to the
Capuchin novitiate of St. Felix in Huntington, Indiana, where he lived until
1956. This was supposed to be designed as retirement for him, but Solanus was
not the retiring type! He suffered from a skin condition nicknamed St.
Anthony’s Fire that left his skin highly irritated and scaly. He returned to
Detroit in January 1956 and died on July 31, 1957. An estimated 20,000 people
passed by his coffin before burial.
At the funeral Mass, the Franciscan Provincial Father Gerard
said: “His was a life of service and love for people like me and you. When he
was not himself sick, he nevertheless suffered with and for you that were sick.
When he was not physically hungry, he hungered with people like you. He had a
divine love for people. He loved people for what he could do for them—and for
God, through them.”
In 1960 a Father Solanus Guild was formed in Detroit to aid
Capuchin seminarians. By 1967 it had grown to 5000 members, many of whom were
grateful recipients of Solanus’s practical advice and his comforting assurance
that God would not abandon them in their trials.
The cause for his sainthood commenced a few years after his
death; he was officially recognized as Servant of God in 1982 and was declared Venerable
in 1995. In September 2012, Paula Medina Zarate, a Panamanian visiting Detroit,
walked into the Solanus Casey Center. Unfamiliar with Casey, she asked why
people were gathered around his tomb. Told that he had been a healer, Medina
Zarate knelt at the tomb and prayed for the health of the people in her
village. She herself was suffering from ichthyosis vulgaris, a severe
skin disease that restricted her mobility. She immediately felt a rush of heat,
and her skin started clearing up overnight. After this miraculous healing
attributed to him was approved by Pope Francis in 2017, he was beatified at
Ford Field in Detroit on November 18, 2017.
From a letter that he wrote to his brother, Father Maurice
Casey:
“God could have established the Church under supervision of
angels that have no faults or weaknesses. But who can doubt that as it stands
today, consisting of and under the supervision of poor sinners—successors to
the ‘poor sinner fisherman of Galilee’—the Church is a more outstanding miracle
than any other way?”
Prayer for Canonization of Blessed Solanus Casey
O God, I
adore you. I give myself to you. May I be the person you want me to be, and may
your will be done in my life today.
I thank you
for the gifts you gave Father Solanus. If it is your holy will, bless us with
the canonization of Father Solanus so that others may imitate and carry on his
love for all the poor and suffering of our world.
As he
joyfully accepted your divine plans, I ask you, according to your holy will, to
hear my prayer for… [your intention] …through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
“Blessed
be God in all God’s Designs!”
Imprimatur: The Most Reverend Allen H. Vigneron, Archbishop of Detroit, May 2017
