Solanus Casey Center’s healing service a 140-year tradition at St. Bonaventure

Weekly blessing of the sick services began at monastery in 1880s, gained prominence thanks to Blessed Solanus Casey’s influence

DETROIT — Every Sunday and Wednesday afternoon at the Solanus Casey Center, people file into St. Bonaventure Chapel for the 2 p.m. blessing of the sick healing service. 

Some come alone, others bring a family member or friend, and still others attend with a group of people supporting them in their difficulties. 

The healing service has been a tradition since the 1880s, when Fr. Bonaventure Frey established a Capuchin monastery in Detroit to serve the poor in the area and assist at local churches. From 1924 to 1945, Fr. Solanus Casey, OFM Cap., ministered to visitors at the Detroit friary, blessing them with a relic of the True Cross of Christ in his role as the doorkeeper.

The annual novena leading up to Blessed Solanus Casey's feast day, July 30, begins today. Blessed Solanus' feast day Masses will take place at 7:30 a.m., 12 p.m. and 6 p.m. on July 30 at St. Bonaventure Monastery, and at 7:30 a.m. and 12 p.m. most days during the novena. Learn how to participate.

Today, the same relic held by Blessed Solanus — who was beatified in 2017 — is used during the center's weekly blessing of the sick services. A friar leads each service, beginning with a Scripture reading and a short reflection, followed by petitions. After a communal blessing with the relic, all are invited to come forward for an individual blessing.

At each service, smiles and tears are seen throughout the chapel. As the faithful approach a friar, they bow their heads for the blessing with a relic. Friends and family place their hands on their loved ones as he or she receives the blessing.

Aida Susmiran, a parishioner at St. Mary, Our Lady Queen of Families Parish in Center Line, has attended the blessing of the sick nearly every week since 1973. 

“I don’t just come when I need something,” Susmiran told Detroit Catholic. “Friends ask me to pray for them, and I bring their prayers with me.”

Susmiran holds a deep devotion to Blessed Solanus and considers him a close confidant. She wears a third-class relic badge from his habit every day and has given out hundreds of them over the years to friends, family, and people she meets during her weekly visits to the Solanus Casey Center.

“I feel peace when I come to the blessing of the sick,” Susmiran said. “And I feel peace just being at this place. I pray for vocations and for my family and friends.”

Bro. Benoy Joseph, OFM Cap., director of the Solanus Casey Center, says that while the main charism of the Capuchins is to serve the poor and spread the Gospel, Blessed Solanus was a friend to the sick as well. 

'I have two loves: the sick and the poor.' -Blessed Solanus Casey

Bro. Joseph and his fellow friars have welcomed pilgrims to the center from around Michigan as well as places such as New York, Florida, California and other countries. Many come for healing of physical or mental illness, addictions, or even common problems they are facing.

“One day after a healing service, a woman told me she had prayed to get a job, and when she was leaving the service, she got a phone call letting her know she got the job,” Bro. Joseph said.

The weekly blessing of the sick service was a hallmark of Blessed Solanus' own ministry, highlighted by the relic of Christ's cross used at every service. Over the years, many healings — both physical, spiritual and emotional —  have been documented.

Fr. Ed Foley, OFM Cap., points to the writings of Blessed Solanus, who documented cases in which people with serious illnesses and infirmities came to the center seeking healing. Many received what they had prayed for.

“Fr. Solanus was restricted from priestly ministries and could not hear confessions, but he could give blessings,” said Fr. Foley, who serves as vice postulator for Blessed Solanus' sainthood cause. “That was one way he could exercise his priestly ministry, by blessing and using a relic to do so.”

In an entry on Aug. 12, 1942, Fr. Solanus wrote of a woman who “came to the blessing here for nine Wednesdays and today reports ‘perfectly cured.’ Thank God.”

In January 1941, Fr. Solanus wrote about a young man “with hopeless cancer of tongue reported cured, his mother having come to these Wednesday blessings for four years.”

Fr. Solanus also mentions a woman “believed to be possessed” whom he “blessed ... with relic of the cross out in front of the chapel” on Oct. 3, 1948.

Blessed Solanus knew that God’s will might not always be for physical healing, but his writings demonstrate a peace that came to those who received the Blessing of the Sick, Fr. Foley said.

In a 1946 letter to a couple from Chicago with whom he corresponded, Blessed Solanus wrote, “What might we not expect if we would trust in God and leave things more in His divine hands. Simplicity and confidence in God was the real secret of young Tobias’ success in the Old Testament, and Jacob’s, too.”

The friars offer Mass every Thursday for those who attended the healing service the day before. They also pray with the prayer intentions, which are collected next to Blessed Solunus’ tomb. The intentions are counted, and the total number is sent to Rome for the cause of Blessed Solanus’ canonization.

“We also invite people to ask for prayers at our front desk when they come to the center,” Bro. Joseph said. “A friar will come to them and give them a blessing any time.”

In addition to providing the blessing of the sick for mental and physical healing each week, the friars offer spiritual healing through confession every Tuesday through Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.