Pope Francis announced May 4 that Detroit’s beloved Capuchin friar has met the requirements for beatification and will be named “blessed” — the second U.S.-born man to achieve such a designation and the first person from Michigan.
Although Fr. Solanus was born in Oak Grove, Wis., in 1870, he spent most of his adult life and ministry in Detroit, caring for the sick, poor and downtrodden and lending a listening ear and caring heart to the thousands who came to him for counsel, wisdom and aid.
Among the hundreds — if not thousands — of healings attributed to Fr. Solanus during and after his lifetime, Pope Francis recognized the authenticity of a miracle necessary for the friar to be elevated from “venerable” to “blessed” after a thorough review by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints, including panels of doctors and theologians, was completed earlier this year.
The declaration is here – and as usual, the list of approved causes moving forward provides an interesting glance at the breadth and depth and diversity of Catholicism.
Solanus Casey is very important to us here. My late husband Michael was devoted to him, and, for example, wrote this about Fr. Solanus as “The Priest who saved my life.” Of course, he died just a few weeks after writing that…but there was that other time….
(Here is a blog post of mine, written a few years later, reflecting on the very weirdly timed discovery of a photograph of Michael and Fr. Groeschel at the St. Felix Friary where Fr. Solanus had lived and where Fr. Groeschel had known him.)
Anyway.
When we lived in Fort Wayne in northern Indiana, we would often find our way to the Solanus Casey Center in Detroit – either because we were going to Detroit for some 
reason or we were on our way to Canada. Solanus Casey has been important to our family, and I find him such an interesting person – and an important doorway for understanding holiness.
For that is what Solanus Casey was – a porter, or doorkeeper, the same role held by St. Andre Bessette up in Montreal. They were the first people those in need would encounter as they approached the shrine or chapel.
And it was not as if Solanus Casey set out with the goal of being porter, either. His path to the Franciscans and then to the priesthood was long and painful and in some ways disappointing. He struggled academically and he struggled to fit in and be accepted, as one of Irish descent in a German-dominated church culture. He was finally ordained, but as a simplex priest – he could say Mass, but he could not preach or hear confessions – the idea being that his academic weaknesses indicated he did not have the theological understanding deemed necessary for those roles.
But God used him anyway. He couldn’t preach from a pulpit, but his faithful presence at the door preached of the presence of God. He couldn’t hear confessions, but as porter, he heard plenty poured from suffering hearts, and through his prayers during his life and after his death, was a conduit for the healing grace of God.
This is why the stories of the saints are such a helpful and even necessary antidote to the way we tend to think and talk about vocation these days, yes, even in the context of church. We give lip service to being called and serving, but how much of our language still reflects an assumption that it’s all, in the end, about our desires and our plans? We are convinced that our time on earth is best spent discovering our gifts and talents, nurturing our gifts and talents, using our gifts and talents in awesome ways that we plan for and that will be incredible and amazing and world-changing. And we’ll be happy and fulfilled and make a nice living at it, too.
I don’t know about you, but I need people like Solanus Casey to surround me and remind me what discipleship is really about.
He’s in the Loyola Kids Book of Heroes. Here’s the first page.
For the most up-to-date news on the cause, check out the Fr. Solanus Casey Guild Facebook page.
Charlotte was Both 