Priests

Conductor Barney Casey, on a routine run through the dock area of Superior, Wisconsin, brought his trolley to a sudden and unscheduled stop before a group of people gathered on the tracks. Whatever attracted them so absorbed their attention that they neither heard nor saw the approaching trolley. Barney and his two crewmen jumped from the car and ran up to the group, forcing their way into its center. On the tracks lay a woman, brutally stabbed. Blood poured from numerous knife wounds in her body. A drunken sailor bent over her, poised to stab her again. Before he could do so, however, police arrived, took the knife from his hand and led him away.

At Father's Stream's direction, Barney enrolled in St. Francis De Sales Seminary in January 1892, in Milwaukee. Because he had not attended high school, he had to begin his studies with thirteen and fourteen year old boys. Nevertheless, he adapted himself quickly to the study, prayer and recreation routines of seminary life. On the completion of high school four years later, he was admitted to the college department where he maintained a C average and ranked twelfth in a class of fifteen for much of that year. However, his professors registered disappointment at his failure to thoroughly research his work and think through the implications of the philosophy he was studying. For Barney, who had difficulty grasping class and textbook materials couched in Latin and German, research and reflection were beyond his abilities.

Although Barney did not score high academically, his kindness, gentleness, spirit of prayer and cheerfulness impressed his fellow students and faculty. A natural leader, he possessed a strong personality -----and a streak of impudence that revealed itself in his refusal to don a catcher's mask behind home plate.

Barney's father, after whom he was named, and his mother, Ellen Elizabeth Murphy, both born in Ireland, met at a Fourth of July picnic in 1860 and were married in Salem in October, 1863. After the Civil War, the young couple moved to Pennsylvania and then, at the urging of Ellen's brothers, Owen and Patrick, to Prescott, Wisconsin, where they built a three-room log cabin overlooking the Mississippi River. In these pioneer surroundings, Bernard, Sr., began farming an eighty-acre claim he had obtained from the federal government.

Ellen bore five of their sixteen children in the little log cabin. Bernard labored from dawn to dusk. The farm prospered. In later years, Barney, born November 25, 1870, described the little cabin as a "retreat." "How we thrived there," he wrote, "in real innocence and unworldliness."

By 1873, Bernard Sr., purchased a large farm near the Trimbelle River. "Trimbelle," Barney later wrote, "how primitive, how picturesque. To the south were valleys and prairies rolling down to the Mississippi. There was a fair pasture for cattle as well as deer and other wild animals."

In 1882, Bernard Casey purchased a new three-hundred-and-forty-five-acre farm at Burkhardt, Wisconsin. The property featured a six-room house, two barns, a huge icehouse and a deep root house. A railroad line ran through the property. The Caseys could journey to St. Paul, Minnesota, only thirty miles away , in less than an hour.

Early in the spring of 1886, after a failed crop exhausted family finances, Barney found work in a nearby Stillwater lumber camp. The wiry youth fulfilled well his duties of moving logs down the river to the sawmills. At the end of the logging season, he returned home to finish grammar school and help on the farm. After finally obtaining a diploma in 1887, he returned to Stillwater and began working in a brickyard. One day, he forgot his lunch. His fellow workers, all Germans, offered him a Limburger cheese sandwich. After he finished it, they joked with him, asking if he had ever eaten that kind of cheese before. "No, I never ate it," he replied, "but I often stepped in it."

In the evenings, Barney moonlighted as a prison guard at the Stillwater Penitentiary. Two inmates, Jim and Cole Younger, accomplices of Jesse James, took a liking to him. Cole Younger gave him a clothes trunk he kept for many years.

Despite the heartbreak, Barney maintained an active social life at Stillwater and later in Superior where he moved to take a higher-paying motorman's job. Superior, a boom town, offered new opportunities. So promising glowed the future that Barney persuaded his father to leave the Burkhardt property; where he had suffered a series of droughts, insect invasions and crop failures from 1887 to 1889, and established a dairy farm near Superior. By 1891, Bernard sold off the Burkhardt property and constructed a ten-room house for the family in Superior. The move proved successful and the Caseys prospered.

It was to this house that the desolate, dejected Barney returned in the summer of 1896 after his failure at St. Francis De Sales Seminary. His chronic sore throat throbbed in pain; his spirits foundered in uncharacteristic depression.

Still convinced the Lord wished him to dedicate his life to him, Barney visited the Capuchins and returned home unimpressed. They were German and, according to their order's regulations of the time, wore long, flowing beards. He had had enough of German in the seminary, and wearing a beard appealed to him not at all.

Father Eustace encouraged him to investigate the Capuchins further. A cheerful man, Eustace found an argument in Barney's chronic sore throat. "Barney," the Friar advised him, "you will love the Capuchin beard. The beard will protect your throat and your chest." With the encouragement of Father Eustace, Barney wrote the Capuchins and, after several months’ correspondence, the provincial superior accepted him. Unenthusiastic and tentative, Barney made a novena in preparation for the feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8, 1896. With his confessor's consent, he made a private vow of chastity. After he made the vow, he knelt in prayer. He became intensely aware of the Blessed Virgin's presence. Then, he later claimed, he distinctly heard the words, "Go to Detroit." The Capuchin novitiate was in that city. On Christmas Eve, 1896, Barney Casey, lugging Cole Younger's trunk, entered the Capuchin Monastery of St. Bonaventure in Detroit, Michigan.

The Capuchin novice master allotted three weeks for Barney to pray and meditate before entering the novitiate. The master also gave him a book containing the Rule of the Franciscan Order and noted that, if he decided to join, he would be received formally on January 14, 1897. In the book, Barney wrote the date and added beside it, "A dark day, indeed."

On his reception day, Barney removed his suit coat and shoes, donned the traditional Franciscan habit and sandals, and received the name, Francis Solanus. His patron was St. Francis Solanus (1549-1610), a Spanish Franciscan missionary who-----while laboring among Indians in the Andean regions of Peru, Paraguay and Argentina-----had accompanied his preaching with his violin. To this day, the Andean Indians venerate his memory. The Franciscan habit donned by Solanus Casey remains a passport in the wildest regions of South America.

Solanus Casey-----obedient, cheerful and convinced he had finally found his niche in life as a Capuchin----- pursued his daily round of prayer, work, studies and recreation with ever-mounting enthusiasm. A fellow novice recalled: "I was highly edified by the care he took of the choir altar (his special responsibility during novitiate). It took him at least a half hour to prepare that simple altar." Then his fellow novice added: "He was deeply absorbed spiritually. That's the one thing I cannot forget."

Following his novitiate year, Solanus made his first vows and began studies in philosophy and theology. Once again, Latin and German texts and lectures hobbled him. Capuchin authorities questioned his intellectual abilities for the priesthood. They requested him to prepare a statement of his intention to remain a Capuchin even if he did not receive holy orders. He complied. Recognizing his academic jeopardy, he stated: "I do not wish to become a priest if my superiors consider me unqualified." He added: "I have offered myself to God without reservations; for that reason, I leave it without anxiety to the superiors to decide about me as they may judge best before God."

The attitude of his superiors remained ambiguous right up to the time of Solanus’ ordination to the priesthood. Incapable of adapting the Capuchin training program, which rested on Germanic approaches in spirituality, education and discipline, and unwilling to abandon the German language in the classroom, the Capuchins had locked themselves into a system with which American candidates experienced great difficulty. the superiors confronted a dilemma, realizing that Solanus possessed admirable moral qualities despite his intellectual limitations. They finally decided to approve the ordination.

"We will ordain him," one of them stated; "he will be like the Cure d'Ars." The Cure d'Ars, St. John Vianney, was ordained a pries despite misgivings about his intellectual abilities. His moral qualities, however, were so outstanding that his bishop decided to ordain his and hope for the best.

Solanus was ordained but was not granted faculties to preach formal sermons or to administer the sacrament of penance. He was an anomaly in the Catholic Church----- a priest who could say Mass but could not hear confessions or give a formal sermon.

The irony of the decision becomes cruelly apparent when even a cursory examination of Casey's writings and obvious wisdom and knowledge of the human heart indicates an intelligence level high enough to discharge priestly responsibilities. From an analysis of his handwriting, experts have concluded that he had an IQ of at least 135, enough by any standard for the priesthood.

Solanus received holy orders on July 24, 1904. The following Sunday, he celebrated his first solemn Mass. For the first time in eight years, he saw his mother. (His father had visited him while he was a student at the Capuchin friary in Milwaukee). "I was told," Solanus wrote, "that, for very joy, Papa wept all during the services at the thought that God had finally blessed his family with a priest."

Following ordination, Father Solanus's superiors appointed him to the Capuchin parish of the Sacred Heart in Yonkers, New York. Aware of the limitations placed on his priesthood, the pastor was puzzled about an appropriate assignment for the kindly and gentle Friar. He finally appointed his sacristan. With that responsibility, Father Solanus also assumed directorship of the altar boys and the ladies’ sodality.

As moderator of the altar boys, he dealt with lively and heedless but nevertheless willing grammar school children. So serious did he take his responsibilities that he made a novena to Our Lady of Perpetual Help in the hope that the boys would behave better. His prayers had extraordinary results. "Before I knew it," he wrote, "every one of the altar boys showed new zeal."

The boys held him in veneration and affection. One of the, recalled: "I have fond memories of the good times we had under his supervision, such as the yearly outings for the altar boys. I remember on these occasions that we had to attend Mass and pray for a safe journey to and from our destination. These visits were to Rockaway Beach, to St. Patrick's Cathedral and other places like that. Before heading home, Father Solanus always treated us to an ice cream soda. After that we would stop at the nearest church and say a few prayers for a safe return home."

In 1906, a new superior appointed Solanus doorkeeper (called the porter in monasteries). His sensitivity and cheerfulness quickly attracted parishioners. They longed to speak with him about their cares and worries, their sins and guilt.

They could not understand why he could not hear their confessions. "Father Solanus," one woman averred, "loves God so much that he cannot hear confessions, because he might not be able to take it if he discovered how many people were hurting God!"

One young woman, who later became a Sister, wrote: "He accepted people wherever they were. If you were sick, he hurt with you. He was very compassionate. He could say a few words to you and you would be perfectly as ease. He would do anything for you." What he did best of all was to create the unmistakable impression that he was in touch with God. "If anything went wrong in the neighborhood," another woman remembered, "people would say to me, ‘Go get the holy priest.’ On one occasion, I went to Father Solanus and told him that one of the ladies who just had a baby was going to die. As soon as Father came to her house, he blessed it with holy water, prayed over the woman and blessed her; from then on the woman got over her infection and lived a long time afterwards."

Form the moment he assumed porter duties, he made the poor and homeless feel and though they owned the monastery. If he were sweeping the sidewalk when a needy person arrived, he would drop his broom, usher his visitor into the porter's office and serve his guest a huge bowl of coffee and a thick slab of bread and butter. Everyone, form the insignificant school child to the homeless old woman, received a warm, cheerful welcome from Solanus.

A new pastor placed him in charge of various church organizations, thus providing him with the opportunity to speak as their director. He carefully researched and prepared his talks. They were concise expositions of the Church's position of social questions, morality and doctrines of faith.

He revealed a human side that won the affection of the people of Yonkers. He never set aside his habit even on the baseball diamond when hitting fun goes or playing pepper with the grammar school team he coached. Form his days on the prairie, he had learned that no religion has a corner on goodness. Soon Protestants, Jews and atheists discovered the warmth, gentleness and good humor of the young Capuchin. He often found employment for members of his immigrant flock among and with the aid of wealthier non-Catholics who admired him so deeply.

A true Franciscan, he loved not only the people of Yonkers but also the natural beauty of the area. "Surely the natural scene now before me," he wrote of Yonkers, "when I turn my head to look at it, is as picturesque as any scene of long ago. The mouth of the Hudson shines like a silver lake away in the horizon in the clouds. I was going to say, ‘with hills and valleys and human achievement between,’ but what is nature in the light of the supernatural? Ah, a substratum!"

On July 16, 1918, after fourteen years at Sacred Heart, Solanus was transferred to the capuchin parish of Our Lady of Sorrows on Pitt Street in Lower Manhattan.

At Pitt Street, his new superior allowed him wider range for public talks and freed him from porter duties. Solanus used his free time to study Holy Scripture. His talks reflected how deeply the Holy Word penetrated his heart and mind. Despite his ravaged voice, he soon became everyone's favorite speaker. He did not always handle well the compliments he received. In his journal, he noted: "I affected to be little conscious of the beauty or success of (my) sermon yesterday." In the same journal, he noted his own insensitivity to the needs of the poor who approached him for help: "Refused five cents one time and two cents another."

In early summer, 1921, one of his legs became infected with gangrene. At St. Francis Hospital on East 142nd Street, doctors operated to counteract the infection. In a letter to his sister, Solanus described his experiences as he lapsed into unconsciousness under anesthesia. "Hearing bells from St. Joseph's Hospital for Consumptives across the street striking the Angelus," he wrote, "I said, ‘Behold, be it done unto me according to your Holy will.’ With that act of resignation, I came to perfect darkness and death. A shorter instant, however, than that death lasted could not be imagined. With electric quickness, the bubble broke. What peace!" The doctors saved his leg.

In October 1921, Solanus joined the Capuchin community of Our Lady Queen of Angels in New York Cory's Harlem. Once more he returned to porter duties. And once more his reputation as a healer of human ills of body, mind and spirit spread throughout the neighborhood. He applied the procedure he had developed in Yonkers as he counseled in his porter's office. After people shared their worries with him, he quickly and gently analyzed their physical or spiritual condition, often laying bare the root of pain. He very often revealed that its source was far different from what the person thought it was.

He usually talked about Good's goodness and about the need to thank God ahead of time for working so powerfully in our hearts. He suggested that a person should thank God in advance of any response to his or her petition for deliverance from suffering. He urged visitors to perform some act of charity, such as enrolling in the Capuchin Seraphic Mass Association or performing some spiritual or corporal work of mercy. Convinced that we should attribute to God good will in everything, and that we should thank him for his love before presenting any petition, and certainly before receiving any response, Solanus urged visitors to do something for someone in the name of God. "This will be." he counseled, "your sign of expectant faith."

A letter to a client clarified his approach. "A friend of you daughter Jenny, Miss Rose Faris, writes me that Jenny is very low with polio and asks for prayers that, if it be God's holy will, she recover. I am enrolling Jenny in what we call the Seraphic Mass Association for prayers of hundreds of thousands of people. The members of this association are asked to pray for our foreign missions and their work and for one another. Those members, of course, who can pray. Also, those who can afford to do so are asked to help with an offering of some kind for the missions, besides prayers and Masses. I am confident that this will help your Jenny. This will help especially if you and yours do your part."

In the fall of 1923, the Capuchin provincial requested Father Solanus to keep a notebook with accounts of special cases and reported cures related to his consultations with people. Solanus obeyed, and wrote on the notebook's first page, "Notes About Special Cases, November, 1923." Then he added, "November 8:

Today visitation closed. Father Provincial wishes notes to be made of special favors reported as through the Seraphic Mass Association." Before he entered any cures, he wrote the words, "Deo gratias, Thanks be to God."

As the years went on, Solanus filled seven notebooks with reported cures. The notes are a catalogue of human woe and human triumph. The very first one, typical of thousands more, concerned a certain Marge Quinn, "who enrolled her neighbor, Mr. Maughan, against drink and consequent anger, on October 26, as also her sister, against severe inflammatory rheumatism, and who reports wonderful improvement in the former and the reception of a letter from her sister, who says, ‘Thank God and the good prayer society, I am feeling fine,’"

He noted prayers for: the grace of a religious calling and for the strength and grace to accept it; hitchhikers terribly beaten up; a woman whose husband has two partial strokes; a missing sixteen-year-old who was found a day after being enrolled in the prayer association; a person with a nervous breakdown. These were among the petitions recorded by Solanus during his first month of note-keeping.

Within a year, people were coming from Connecticut and New Jersey to visit the humble Capuchin in Harlem. In January 1922, when Solanus celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of his reception into the novitiate, the Capuchin house chronicler noted: "A great multitude of the population of New York had come to celebrate."

In August 1924, Solanus was assigned to porter duties at the monastery of St. Bonaventure in Detroit, headquarters for the St. Joseph Province of the Capuchins in the United States.

He continued his notebook as people inevitably sought him out.

The entries piled up: law suits amicably settled; students recovering from nervous breakdowns; diabetes cured; suicides averted; people returning to their Faith.

On December 29, 1924, Solanus wrote: "Benedict Morvitt, forty-four, father of two was gone two weeks from family on December 24. His brother enrolled him for one year. Before two days passed Benedict came home all right, weeping and happy. When asked what had happened, answered, ‘Please don't ask me any questions.’"

Not all cases issued in reported cures and triumphs. "December 29," he reported, "Louis De Simeres, 39, typhoid poisoning; given up by doctors and already lamented by friends. Is enrolled second time in a week. Died in peace."

In March, 1925, the auto industry slumped. By the following Christmas, every plant in Detroit was shut down. As winter wore on, some plants reopened one or two days a week. Chevrolet, a Detroit giant, had already secret bankrupt proceedings. Fear and panic tore at workers’ hearts and homes.

John McKenna, a Chevrolet worker, visited Father Solanus. "I don't know what to do," he groaned. "I can't support a wife and family with the hours I've been working. I haven't had a full day now in two weeks. Today, I had only two hours." Suddenly, McKenna said to the priest, "Enroll the company. Enroll Chevrolet."

"That's new." Father Solanus replied. In a letter, he recorded his own inner response to the request. "But if a single holy Mass." he thought, "can help any legitimate cause, why should not five hundred daily Masses in connection with the holy foreign missions help?"

"All right, John," he said; "I'll enroll them."

McKenna responded, "I'll off fifty cents for the enrollment" (at that time, the ordinary stipend of the Seraphic Mass Association).

Two nights later McKenna returned, waving his arms: Father, we had overtime yesterday and today, and we heard this afternoon that the company has an order for forty-five thousand machines wanted in thirty days."

McKenna, Solanus concluded, had saved Chevrolet from bankruptcy by enrolling the company in the Seraphic Mass Association.

Politicians, prelates, street people, the poor, the afflicted, the oppressed, the spiritually destroyed, Communists, the vice-ridden-----the whole tide of suffering humanity flowed into Casey's little office. All, from Montreal's Brother Andre (recently beatified) to Detroit's Mayor Frank Murphy, who later became Governor of Michigan and the a Justice of the United States Supreme Court, waited their turns, sitting on metal chairs outside the office. All received the same openhearted welcome. He challenged then to an expression of faith; he sent them all away renewed and refreshed.

Father Solanus made himself available every waking moment of the day. Following lunch in the friary, he frequently shot billiards with fellow Friars. "Often as not," a Friar recalled, "he would pick up a cue and start to shoot, and his call bell and start to shoot. The he would put the cure stick right back into the rack, but never give any expression of impatience. When he received that call, we all knew he would never leave his office for the rest of the day until supper."

The relentless pace took its toll. Sometimes Solanus was so exhausted that he went into a corner of his office and collapsed on the floor for a catnap. A Friar remembered: "I would drop in the chapel at midnight or one o'clock in the morning and, sure enough, Father Solanus was there with his fiddle in from of the Blessed Sacrament. At other times when I thought I was alone in the chapel, a figure would rise up form behind the pew and Father Solanus would be there with a grin. He was just taking a little nap after a fatiguing day."

On Wednesdays, Father Solanus conducted special devotions for the sick. A woman, skeptical of his reported cures, wrote: "I went thirteen weeks to these devotions, not believing that Father Solanus could heal others. One Wednesday, I saw a rabbi with his cap, long beard and heavy cane. He used to come every week, too. Now the rabbi had faith and I was full of doubts. But, when I saw the rabbi walk away without the use of his cane, then I believed."

When doctors allowed him to say Mass, he wrote: "The old foot is still stiff but, by keeping it raised and rested, it causes very little pain. I'm resting it on the bed now, and it gets tiresome sitting in one position. Anyone over sixty need not be told how the ‘rear fenders’ cry for better padding."

Early in his career, Solanus became fascinated by a purported biography of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the work of Spanish mystic Mary of Agreda (1602-65). She claimed that the Blessed Mother had directly provided the information for her four-volume work. Solanus found the biography a deep source of comfort and consolation, and frequently recommended it to his clients.

Devotees of Mary of Agreda met each weekend at St. Paul's Maltese Church where Solanus assisted in ministry. Although the pastor, Father Cefai, deeply respected and loved Solanus, he had little enthusiasm for the Agreda group. Their piety, in his opinion, bordered on the bizarre. They brought petals of flowers for Father Solanus to bless and afterwards insisted they saw images of Christ on the petals. When Solanus went to the hospital, Father Cefai refused the group hospitality. they then met in a private home.

Father Theodosius Foley, the Capuchin provincial, took a dim view of the group and ordered Solanus to avoid further meetings. Father Solanus, even the defender of the underdog, asked him to reconsider the ban, saying his judgment against these good people was too harsh. The Detroit chancery weakened Father Solanus's appeal when it complained officially to his provincial that he was out of order in promoting sales of Mary Agreda's expensive, four-volume alleged biography. Even though Solanus never received a penny from sales, the chancery ordered him to desist.

A few weeks following Father Foley's stricture, Solanus received a new obedience, transferring him from Detroit to Brooklyn and removing him from the whirlwind created by the Mary Agreda incident. Further, his provincial, judging that his health was too fragile to endure the constant demands of his ministry, decided to provide a rest for the nearly seventy-five-year-old Friar. The transfer bewildered and angered Detroiters. Many people claimed he was the city’s best loved person.

In July 1945, Father Solanus took up duties as porter at St. Michael's Friary in East New York. His reputation quickly spread, and soon he was exhausting himself as he had done in Detroit.

Within a year of his transfer to Brooklyn, Father Solanus’s superiors realized the old man would never rest in any friary located in a large city. In April, 1946, they sent him to the Capuchin Novitiate of St. Felix in Huntington, Indiana, deep in the countryside.

Solanus found peace and quiet in the lovely Huntington novitiate. He walked the extensive property, wandering through the orchards, garden patches and winding woodlands. As assistant beekeeper, he played his harmonica and sang to keep his bees peaceful. He played tennis and volleyball with the novices, and normally took the stairs at a run. He enjoyed hot dogs and sauerkraut and good wine, and followed intensely the fortunes of the Detroit Tigers baseball team.

He never lost his sharp Irish wit, his Irish hardheadedness or sense of loyalty.

He deeply admired Father Charles E. Coughlin, supported Senator Joe McCarthy and fretted about America’s slide into materialism and atheism.

"And just in these days of atomic invention," he wrote, "it would seem that God might be permitting men without faith to be preparing the fearfully poisoned lightening fires with which he will arm his angels of wrath on an adulterous, defiant, atheistic generation . . . Man's purpose as a rational creature is to recognize and to know his Creator so as to be able intelligently to love Him, confidently to hope in Him and gratefully to serve Him."

Word of his presence spread rapidly through the city. Much to his chagrin, his superiors kept a firm lid on his activities. "We had to limit his acceptance of phone calls and visits," Father Bernard Burke, the superior, remembered. "We asked him not to go to the phone or the front office without special permission in order to safeguard his strength. He complied with these wishes."

"Why won’t they let me see the people?" he asked on of his brethren. This was the closest he came to complaint, although he felt the deprivation deeply.

By Christmas, 1956, Father Solanus was extremely weak. A novice recalled his last Christmas. "Christmas evening, I was on my way to community recreation and stopped in the friary chapel for a visit to the Blessed Sacrament. While kneeling there, I heard a familiar squeaky noise coming from the larger church (attached to the friary chapel), which I immediately knew was Father Solanus playing his violin. I wanted to see the sight, however, and so opened the door from the friary chapel to the main church. There I saw Father Solanus alone in the choir loft playing Christmas carols on his violin and singing them to the Christ Child.

By May 1957, Father Solanus's skin condition had degenerated into severe erysipelas. Doctors placed him in an oxygen tent and re rallied. As his strength returned, so did his customary humor. A visiting hospital Sister said: "Father, throughout the years, I have often heard people speak of you."

"Yes," he replied, "people often speak of Jesse James too."

"Even in his pain," another Sister recalled, "he wanted to continue working to bring more people closer to God. 'I can’t die,' we overheard him say, ‘until everyone loves Him.’"

"Where do you hurt?" a conferee asked him.

"Oh, I hurt all over," he answered, and then added: "Thanks be to God."

When Father Gerald Walker, the Capuchin provincial and Solanus’s former altar boy, visited him on July 30, the dying priest said:

"I looked on my whole life as giving, and I want to give until there is nothing left of me to give. So I prayed that, when I come to die, I might be perfectly conscious, so that with a deliberate act I can give my last breath to God."

At eleven o'clock the next morning, while a nurse bathed his wasted body, she heard Solanus whispering. Suddenly, he opened his eyes wide, stretched out his arms and said clearly: "I give my soul to Jesus Christ." As he had told the provincial, he gave his last breath to God.

He died July 31, 1957, on the fifty-third anniversary of his first Mass. For two days, a steady stream of people moved by his open casket. At his funeral Mass in the friary chapel, Father Gerald, fighting back tears, gave the eulogy.

"His was a life of service and love for people like me and you. When he himself was not 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."

Near his grave, in the cemetery next to the friary, a granite slab bearing a bas-relief of St. Francis represents the Saint proclaiming the words, "Praised be the Lord for our Sister Bodily Death." Chiseled in the base of the monument is the Franciscan motto with which Father Solanus Casey had dedicated his life of nearly eight-seven years: "My God and my all."

 THE CAUSE FOR HIS CANONIZATION

The fame of Father Solanus has continued to spread through the years and many people have visited his simple grave in the Friars’ cemetery. Soon after his death his many friends formed The Father Solanus Guild to preserve his memory and ideals. They in turn sparked the movement to have Fr. Solanus proposed as a candidate for Sainthood.

In 1966 a Vice-Postulator was appointed who began to contact people who had known Fr. Solanus. Material for a biography was collected and published in 1968. The Vice-Postulator contacted John Cardinal Dearden, Archbishop of Detroit, in 1976 and he issued an official request in 1977 for all writings attributed to the Servant of God. These were transcribed, bound into four volumes and taken to the Postulator General in 1980.

By 1981, Cardinal Dearden presented his petition to the Congregation for Causes of Saints to open the Cause. Permission was granted in 1982 and instructions were sent to the new Archbishop of Detroit, Edmund C. Szoka, to begin the Informative Process. After interrogating 53 witnesses, the Process was completed and taken to Rome in October of 1984.

The exhumation and examination of Fr. Solanus’ body took place on July 8, 1987, in the presence of Archbishop Szoka and the Archdiocesan Officials. His body, found to the quite intact, was clothed in a new habit and place in a new steel casket. Sealed with the Archbishop’s seal, the casket was reentered in a cement vault in the floor of the north transept of St. Bonaventure’s Monastery Church. His tomb continues to be visited by the people and many report favors, attributed to his intercession. The Cause of Fr. Solanus continues to be studied in Rome and many people are praying for a favorable decision.

Pray to Our Lady as he was so devoted to her and one of his sayings was: "When Jesus is in our hearts, Mary will not be far away."

VEN. SOLANUS CASEY GUILD