The priest who answered the doorbell.
Bernard Casey was born in 1870, in a 3-room log cabin, to Irish immigrants on a farm in western Wisconsin, bordering the Mississippi River. He was the 6th child of a family with 10 boys and 6 girls.
Although he was physically weak, he was strong spiritually and as a teenager, he saved a man from drowning, believing that the help of Our Lady made it possible.
He left the farm and worked in Wisconsin and Minnesota as a logger, a hospital orderly, a prison guard and a street car operator. He saw or experienced several difficult incidents, including a witness of a murder, which created in him a sense of wanting to do something to make the world better. This led him to enter the local German seminary.
Due to language barriers he struggled and was encouraged to enter a religious order. He sought out the Capuchin Order in Detroit in 1897 and received his religious name of Solanus. Unfortunately they also spoke German and he had difficulties again with his studies. His superiors saw his devotion and decided to ordain him as a simplex priest when he was 33 with some abilities removed.
People waited in lines in order to speak with him and many believed he had the gifts of healing and prophecy. Many contributed him as the cause of miracles. He constantly showed his love of God by loving all of God’s people. In return for his prayers and assistance, he asked them to develop their own spiritual lives by growing in Love, God and neighbor, especially with their support for the missions.
He spent 20 years in the New York area and was then transferred to another monastery in Detroit where he worked an additional 20 years, traveling the area. Reports of healings and conversions became everyday occurrences.
He spent his life in the service of the people and during his final painful illness, he remarked; “I’m offering my suffering that all might be one. If only I could see the conversion of the whole world.”
His last act was to sit up in bed and exclaim, “I give my soul to Jesus Christ.” He died at the age of 86 on July 13, 1957.
For God’s Glory.
