Devotion to Detroit's humble porter 'has welled up from the people,' Archbishop Weisenburger says during feast day Mass
DETROIT — The faithful gathered July 30 at St. Bonaventure Monastery to celebrate the feast day of Detroit’s own simple, holy saint-to-be — Blessed Solanus Casey.
Visitors filled the chapel for all three Masses celebrated during the feast day, including an overflowing evening Mass led by Detroit Archbishop Edward J. Weisenburger.
“It’s wonderful that this gentle, loving man has brought us all so closely together,” Archbishop Weisenburger said of Blessed Solanus, celebrating the feast day among Detroit's faithful for the first time.
Archbishop Weisenburger, who once served as a priest in Oklahoma City at the home parish in Blessed Stanley Rother, said he's familiar with the impact a local saint can have on a Catholic community of believers. Archbishop Weisenburger later worked on the canonization cause for Blessed Stanley, who, like Blessed Solanus, was beatified in 2017.
“I know what it is like to make sausage,” Archbishop Weisenburger joked. “It's complicated — but always made easier when you are dealing with a real saint. Blessed Stanley was beatified a few weeks or maybe a month before Solanus Casey, so I have seen (the process) from both sides, and how wonderful we have come so far.”
Archbishop Weisenburger attributed the fast-moving cause of Blessed Solanus to the devotion of the people.
“This devotion is not one we are trying to go out and teach the people, but rather the devotion has welled up from the people,” Archbishop Weisenburger said. “And that’s what we've seen for 2,000 years of Church history: it's the voice of the people — eventually proved by Rome, by the Vatican — but it is really you who have been moved to a greater witness of your own because of this blessed man. That is why this cause is moving along so quickly.”
Blessed Solanus Casey was born Bernard Francis Casey in 1870 among the Irish immigrant-run farms in Oak Grove, Wisconsin, and died July 31, 1957, in Detroit. He entered the Capuchin order, but was initially denied ordination after six years in the seminary. He eventually was allowed to become a simplex priest, and spent his days as the monastery's humble porter, where he touched countless lives through his wise counsel, quiet service and healing prayers.
Since his death, thousands have come forward with stories of healing, mercy and miraculous favors attributed to the humble Capuchin's intercession.
In a homily given during a morning feast day Mass at St. Bonaventure, Fr. Ed Foley, the vice postulator for Blessed Solanus' canonization cause, said he experienced a "mild but nagging panic" when preparing for his homily — what could he possibly say about Blessed Solanus that hadn't already been said?
"At first blush, preaching about Solanus just yards from where his earthly remains hallow this site, could seem like an exercise in redundancy, a fruitless endeavor to gild the lily; a futile attempt to whisper secrets to the wind," Fr. Foley said. "On the other hand, the mystery of faith, which we proclaim at every Eucharist, can never be explained; the wonder of Christ’s incarnation which we celebrate with gusto each Christmas is so far beyond human reasoning that it will never fully be grasped, and the journey into holiness that unfolded in the life of Barney Casey traverses so many paths that the likelihood of it being explained in full is negligible."
Blessed Solanus' life should be viewed through a "mystical prism," Fr. Foley explained, but not the kind portrayed in romanticized paintings of rapturous visions or out-of-body experiences.
"Rather, Barney was a mystic of the mundane who evolved into an ever-attentive Solanus, paying attention to the ordinary of the everyday and to the ordinary people who daily crossed his path," Fr. Foley said. "He lived a life of unusual integrity, of shocking consistency, of startling transparency, of mundane mysticism, winking back at the daily revelations of God’s presence and enduring faithfulness with every 'Deo gratias' … inviting us to do the same."
At the end of the evening Mass, Archbishop Weisenburger was presented with a stole depicting Blessed Solanus and the Tau Cross in gratitude for his support of the Solanus Casey Center and St. Bonaventure Monastery, made by Nancy Long, the head of the Eucharistic Mission Band, a century-old sewing group that makes vestments for Capuchins around the world.
Long, who has been with the group since 2011, said she adapted the design from one made by the late Bro. Michael Gaffney, OFM Cap.
“I was inspired to do it because I had heard so much about how the archbishop had been coming down here and how gracious he has been to the Capuchins since he moved to Detroit,” Long told Detroit Catholic. “I think Solanus Casey is a wonderful person to follow; his life was so simple. He had a simple way of doing things, and his door was always open to people in need.”
Sama Kizy and her husband attended the evening Mass along with her 2-year-old twin boys: Adam Solanus and Isaac Charbel.
Kizy said she and her husband have long had a devotion to St. Charbel and Blessed Solanus and never miss a feast day at St. Bonaventure.
“When my husband and I found out we were pregnant with twin boys, it was like a sign from God: two boys, so we said 'Solanus and Charbel,' there is no need to fight it,” Kizy said.
Kizy said her son, Adam Solanus, perked up every time he heard the name Solanus mentioned during Mass, and that she and her husband are teaching the boys about the holy men for whom they are named.
“Like Solanus, we want them to be simple; we want them to help anybody and everybody in need, and be good leaders and follow the word of God,” Kizy said.
