Bl. Solanus Casey

Who they were

Bernard Casey was a Wisconsin farm boy, one of sixteen, who worked as a logger, a prison guard, and a Detroit streetcar operator before entering the Capuchins, where the seminary nearly finished him. Instruction was in German and Latin, he struggled, and he was ordained a simplex priest: permitted to say Mass but not to preach doctrinal sermons or hear confessions. The Church's least credentialed priest was assigned to answer the door.

At St. Bonaventure on Mt. Elliott, from 1924, the doorbell became a ministry. Thousands came, sick and broke and desperate, of every faith and none, and Fr. Solanus listened to each one at whatever length they needed, enrolled them in the Mass association, and told them to thank God ahead of time for the answer coming. The favours reported through his door filled notebooks the order still keeps. During the Depression he helped found the Capuchin Soup Kitchen, which has fed Detroit continuously since 1929 and feeds it today. He died in 1957 saying I give my soul to Jesus Christ, and sixty thousand Detroiters filed past. He was beatified at Ford Field in 2017.

Why people turn to Bl. Solanus Casey

Detroit, personally: the sick, the waiting, and anyone whose credentials do not match their calling. The simplex priest is the patron of being underestimated.

How to ask their intercession

In his own words, thank God ahead of time, offering gratitude before the answer, which he insisted was the highest confidence. For the sick, by name. And consider his own practice: do something for someone else while you wait.