By John J. Boucher | Special to The Catholic Free Press
How much we hurt. How deep is our need for the healing power of Jesus! The life of soon-to-be Blessed Solanus Casey, O.F.M. Cap., offers healing and evangelization lessons for us. He was an evangelizing, charismatic, healing priest long before Vatican II’s (1959-1965) call for evangelization and teaching about charisms or gifts of the Holy Spirit, or the ministry of healing
associated with the Catholic Charismatic Renewal and Divine Mercy
movements. Thousands came to his parish door, and to Wednesday
afternoon healing services he conducted. Father Solanus Casey’s life offers seven lessons for healing and evangelization today:
1) Healing and evangelization ministry arise from obedient humility.
Solanus Casey was born of Irish immigrants in 1870, and was baptized Bernard (“Barney”) Francis Casey Jr., in Prescott, Wis. Nothing about his early life was particularly extraordinary, growing up as one of 16 children. Convinced that God wanted him to become a priest, he entered a German seminary in Milwaukee, but left because he was too weak academically. Later he resumed his studies for the priesthood at St. Bonaventure Monastery in Detroit. Problems with theological and Latin studies plagued him. At ordination he was restricted from preaching or hearing confessions. For the next 20 years his sole ministry was to do odd jobs. He became the doorkeeper (or receptionist) at one Capuchin-run parish after another in New York City and Detroit. Greeting visitors, running errands, and carrying messages to other priests filled most of each day.
2) Listen to people’s needs and to what God wants to do.
While waiting to meet with other priests in the reception area of the parish, people shared their problems and sufferings with Father Casey. He would listen and maybe ask a few questions, then he would pray with them. He might lay his hands upon them to bless them, use holy water, read prayers from a prayer book or a Scripture passage or give them second class relics from a canonized saint. Many cures and miracles were reported. In the notebooks his superiors asked him to keep, he recorded thousands of requests and answers: healings from pneumonia, alcoholism, vision problems, infantile paralysis, cancer, convulsions, etc., as well as spiritual healings and conversions to Jesus Christ and the Church. When asked about these he replied, “The good God is a loving God. He just wants to fill needs.”
3) Healing and evangelization are meant to work together along with other prophetic gifts (charisms) of the Spirit.
At times Father Casey received divine prophecies and would inform a petitioner, “You’ll be healed by (such and such) an hour or day.” At other times he would prepare them to accept death. What he said led many to conversion.
4) Thank God for his mercy before any healing or evangelizing.
Father Casey invited everyone to express “humble confidence in God.” He called seekers to thank God for his loving care even before their prayers were answered or not answered. He encouraged, “Thanks be to God. … Let us thank him at all times and under whatever circumstances. ... Thank him frequently for, not only the blessings of the past and present, but thank him ahead of time for whatever he foresees.”
5) Healing and evangelizing need to be built on intercessory prayer.
Father Casey himself spent hours and hours each day praying for others’ intentions before the Blessed Sacrament. Often the friars would find him asleep on the chapel floor after a night in intercessory prayer.
6) Use gifts of healing and evangelizing to serve the poor.
As the Depression bore down on Detroit where Father Casey was stationed, he served in, and helped collect food for, a soup kitchen which his order started. At times, the kitchen fed more than 1,000 people a day. One day when the kitchen had run out of bread, Father Casey rose, blessed the soup kitchen aloud, and urged his brothers to be confident in God. Within moments, an entire truck load of donated bread arrived at the kitchen door.
7) Help others meet the healer and evangelizer-in-chief, Jesus Christ, in his body, the Church.
Father Casey invited those who came to him to be converted to God. In a word, he was an evangelist, zealous to spread the Catholic faith, while respectful of those from other faiths.
Father Casey was a flesh and blood model of how to minister the healing love of God and to evangelize in today’s hurting world. He combined humble listening with healing prayer, prophecy, wisdom, and a call to conversion. He taught people to pray in thanksgiving and intercession. He served the poor, the sick and suffering, while inviting all to be converted to Jesus Christ and be his disciples.
When Father Casey died in 1957, 20,000 people attended his Detroit wake and funeral. Soon a movement for his canonization began in Detroit. In 1995, Father Casey was given the title “Venerable.” According to Father David Preuss, OFM Cap., director of the Solanus Casey Center, a miracle needed to raise Father Casey to “Blessed” involved a woman with an incurable genetic skin disease. The Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints asked Pope Francis to declare Father Casey “Blessed” in May 2017. The beatification Mass of “Blessed Solanus Casey” will take place in Detroit on Saturday, Nov. 18. It is anticipated that some 60,000 people will participate.
(For four years, John J. Boucher served as director of religious education in St. Patrick Parish, Hudson, Wis., where Solanus Casey received his first Communion and confirmation. Mr. Boucher and his wife, Therese, have published numerous articles about Father Solanus Casey.)