“Solanus Casey was declared a Venerable in 1995, making him the first male born in the U.S. to be elevated to this position. This work is the true story of a real-life American saint, excerpted from the official 1300-page canonization document. Casey, 1870-1957, became a Capuchin and served in humble positions as he lived out his religious life in service to others, especially the poor.”
“Michael Crosby’s book on the American Capuchin friar Solanus Casey (1870-1957) gives those interested in saints and the saint-making process an inside look at the kind of dossier compiled for the canonization process.
Solanus Casey is a textbook example of the traditional candidate for beatification and canonization. A model Franciscan religious whose academic deficiencies were such that he was ordained to the priesthood but was not given faculties for solemn preaching or hearing confessions—a so-called sacerdos simplex—Casey exercised his ministry as a doorkeeper at various religious houses in Detroit. He never requested that his status be changed even though he was obviously average in intelligence, and his deficiencies were largely because of the bad academic training he got in a seminary where the texts were in Latin and the lectures in German. He had an extraordinary reputation for his spiritual counseling, the power of his prayer, his generosity to the poor, and his work as a healer. Thousands attended his funeral and, after his death, his reputation grew as many people invoked his aid in their prayers.
As these pages make clear, Casey derived his spirituality from the traditional sources set forth for every consecrated religious in his day: the Mass, the Office, devotional practices of the rosary, and visits to the Blessed Sacrament. The only peculiar side to his spiritual life was his lifelong devotion to the four-volume The Mystical City of God by the seventeenth-century Poor Clare, Mary of Agreda—a work which for a time rested on the Index. How Casey came across this strange work and why he read it all his life ‘on his knees’ and encouraged others to read it is not clear although, in that period, there was a rather wide-spread taste for other rococo spiritual writers like Grignion de Montfort. There is no evidence in Casey’s writings—consisting of his spiritual notebooks and his many letters—that he was in any way heterodox.
How the process of Solanus Casey fares (and every indication is that he was a person of great prayer and extraordinary self-giving) is not for us to say. What is interesting in this volume is the rhetorical tone that is adopted to make its case.”
“Fr. Solanus Casey, OFMCap., a very holy, Franciscan with a reputation for having worked hundreds of miraculous cures, died in Detroit. Michigan, in 1957. He was well known in Detroit and New York, the two places where he spent most of his life. The first time I heard about him was about thirty years ago in the 1970s. I recall that someone told me about the holy friar who spent most of his life as a porter; he was a priest who was not allowed to hear confessions or preach in a parish church because of his low grades in the study of theology. He was called a saerdos simplex or ‘simple priest,’ which meant that he could offer Mass each day and offer counseling to those who came to him. And they came to him by the thousands.
There is something very attractive about the life of this humble priest. He practiced the theological and moral virtues to a heroic degree so much so that he is almost a mirror-reflection of Jesus Christ himself.
The book by Michael Crosby is basically a summary of the various testimonies that were given before a commission established by the archdiocese of Detroit to investigate the holiness of Solanus Casey. The first part gives an account of the life of Fr. Casey, who came from a large Irish family of ten boys and six girls: the second part of the book tells us how Fr. Solanus practiced the various virtues—most of them to a heroic degree. He was born to pious Irish immigrants in Wisconsin in 1870; as the result of a special grace he went to Detroit in 1896 and joined the Capuchins, a decision he never regretted.
Since, like St. John Vianney, he had trouble with his studies, his superiors decided to ordain him but to restrict him to saying Mass. Because of the limitations set on the exercise of his priesthood, he spent most of his life doing the work of a lay brother.
Because of his virtuous life, which was accompanied with hundreds of miraculous cures, his cause for beatification has been introduced and accepted by Pope John Paul II. So we can now refer to him as Venerable Solanus Casey.
Every saint manifests the infinite perfection of God in his own particular way. Solanus Casey was outstanding for his faith and trust in God. He was a man of unshakable, unperturbable faith. And like St. Ignatius Loyola, who was a favorite saint for him, Solanus found God in all things. Related to this was his sense of gratitude to God for his many gifts. He used to counsel the people who came to him to thank God not only for what they had already received, but also to thank him for the future and for the death God has planned for them.
What did this humble priest do? What he did for over forty years was to answer the door and to take care of the needs of the people who came to the friars for help—either spiritual or material. Fr. Solanus was always there from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day. He became widely known for his good advice, his encouragement, his promise of prayers, and eventually for the many cures worked by God through him and his intercession. Every day in Detroit there were lines of people waiting to talk to Fr. Solanus Casey. Whatever good he did he attributed to God alone, never to himself. His brother friars attest to the fact that Solanus Casey was a very humble man who gave all the credit to God.
In addition to giving good spiritual advice, Solanus was a model of kindness and helpfulness to all who came to him. He was never in a hurry, never impatient with the many requests for his time. In the practice of faith, hope, charity, patience and humility Fr. Solanus is an excellent model for all of us, whether priests, religious or lay persons.
I was given the grace to meet and speak with Mother Teresa of Calcutta on several occasions; I also preached to the Sisters three or four times while she was present. I think she was the holiest person I have ever met. While reading this life of Fr. Solanus . . . I see many similarities between the two holy persons one a man and the other . . . [a] woman. They both incarnated in their persons an extraordinary imitation of Jesus Christ that radiated from their persons.
This book by Fr. Crosby presents a good picture of that holy friar. [sic.] Solanus Casey. Let us hope that it will contribute to his becoming better known and to his eventual beatification and canonization. At the end of the book the author quotes the well-known Fr. Benedict Groeschel . . . who has come in contact with many holy persons. Of Fr. Solanus, Groeschel says. ‘I could easily say without any hesitation that he was the greatest human being I have ever known’ (p. 267).”
“This volume makes public the simple yet awesome facts of a man whose relationship with God was so profound that his prayers could help heal people.”