Solanus Casey: The Story of Father Solanus » (Revised)

To this day, having known a few such great people, I still think that Father Solanus was the saintliest person I ever knew. -- From the Foreword by Fr. Benedict J. Groeschel, C.F.R.

Father Solanus Casey, a gentle, compassionate Capuchin priest from Wisconsin, was the son of Irish immigrants. Although he worked most of his life as a monastery doorkeeper, he was often heralded as a 20th-century saint.

People flocked to Father Solanus. Those looking for cures from cancer, heart disease, and tuberculosis. Those seeking help for broken marriages, broken hearts, and broken lives. Those wanting to find spiritual health and renewal. He was remarkably low-key in his approach, but visitors continued to seek him out even after his poor health demanded a move to a small town in Indiana.

In 1957, at the age of 86, Father Solanus died at exactly the hour he had started his first Mass, on the same day in July, fifty-three years earlier. Pope John Paul II declared him "venerable," the first official step toward sainthood. In showing others that a life-giving faith and a love of God can be both powerful and simple, Father Solanus is a source of encouragement and a model of virtue for the modern world.