Greeting the Beatification of a Simple Priest--Blessed Solanus Casey

"Barney" Solanus Casey is being beatified in a ceremony  in Detroit, Michigan on November 18, 2017.  Casey will be the second  American born male to be beatified. Cardinal Angelo Amato, the head of the Congregation for the Cause of Saints will celebrate the Beatification Mass. Among the 70,000 in attendance at Ford Field will be four Cardinals and 218 Capuchin Friars.

The beatification of Fr. Solanus Casey is remarkable for a  Wisconsin farm boy born in 1870.  When Casey was called to the priesthood, he academically struggled at the seminary since instruction was in German.  Thus, Casey was just ordained just a sacredos simplex and served in the early and mid-Twentieth Century as a lowly porter for the Capuchins friaries in Yonkers, Harlem, Manhattan and for 21 years in Detroit.  

Despite not being able to give homilies or hear confessions, Fr. Casey had a remarkable impact.  His reputation grew as a compassionate holy man who founded a soup kitchen in Detroit in 1929.  Casey became well known as a priest  who could relate with people. Fr. Casey was also known as an ordinary Detroiter who enjoyed Coney Island hot dogs and the Detroit Tigers.  

Yet Fr. Casey drew people to him from his holy reputation and as a miracle worker who had a knack at helping get prayers answered.   In his vocation as porter, Fr. Casey lent a listening ear and a caring heart to those who came to him. Fr. Casey would also offer visitors an opportunity to join a Capuchin Mass Memorial Society, in which he scrupulously wrote down their petitions and updated the log with how prayers were answered.  

In 1954, Fr. Casey suffered a severe case of eczema over his entire body and was transfered back to Detroit to receive better medical case.  Alas, complications set in and he died of untreatable psoriasis.  It was estimated that 20,000 people showed up to mourn Fr. Casey's passing from this world. But when Fr. Casey's remains were exhumed in 1987, his corpse was incorrupted, save for a little decomposition around the elbows.  

After Fr. Casey's death, lay friends of the Capuchins sought permission to create a Father Solanus Guild.  As early as 1966, there were 24 reports of cures attributable to Fr. Solanus. Fr. Casey was named Venerable in 1995. 

Normally, the Catholic beatification process involves the recognition of a miracle associated with a Servant of God.   The Miracle which was recognized by the responsible Vatican  dicastry is from 2012 when a Panamanian woman who visited Fr. Casey's tomb who suffered from an incurable skin disease but was healed by praying for Solanus Casey's intercession.

Bayonne Nun Beatified-- Sister Miriam Teresa Demjanovich

On October 4, 2014, Miriam Teresa Demjanovich will be beatified at the Gothic styled Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark, New Jersey.  When Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints Cardinal Angelo Amato declares Demjanovich beata, it will be the first time it has been done on American soil.

Miriam Teresa Demjanovich was born on March 26, 1901 to Slovakian  immigrants in Bayonne, New Jersey.  Miriam was the youngest of seven children born into a very religious family.  She was baptized in the Byzantine-Ruthenian Catholic Church 

After graduating high school in 1917, Demjanovich wanted to become a Carmelite, but had to care for her sick mother.  When her mother died during the influenza outbreak in 1918, she enrolled in the College of St. Elizabeth and graduated with highest honors with a BA in literature.  She taught for a year  at Academy of Saint Aloysius in Jersey City, New Jersey.  Miriam again sought to join the Carmelites in the Bronx, but was encouraged to wait due to her health issues.  She decided to join the Sisters of Charity, Convent Station in December, 1924 but had to delay due to her father's health issues.  She received her religious habit in May 1925.  By December, 1926, Miriam had repeated health issues which required hospitalization.  Demjanovich had complications from an appendicitis surgery and died in May, 1927.  Demjanovich  remained a Byzantine rite Catholic throughout her life despite serving as a sister in a Roman rite community.

This brief biography may prompt people to wonder why the Church recognizes Demjanovich entrance into heaven. While Miriam was a postulate and novice, she only took her vows in articulo mortis in April, 1927.  Demjanovich's cause for beatification was advanced by the Sisters of Charity in 1945 because of her saintly life as  her striving for perfection in her religious life, her spiritual writings and intercessions with God.  

In December, 2013, Pope Francis approved the miracle of a boy whose eyesight was completely restored from macular degeneration after praying for the intercessions of Miriam Teresa Demjanovich. 

During Miriam Teresa Demjanovich's short life on Earth, she wrote two plays, and several poems.  At the behest of her spiritual director Benedictine Fr. Benedict Bradley, she wrote 26 conferences on religious life which were published posthumously as The Greater Perfection.    It was extraordinary that such a task was given to a novice but Fr. Bradley proclaimed:

 “I believed that she enjoyed extraordinary lights, and I knew that she was living an exemplary life,” he stated. “I thought that, one day, she would be ranked among the saints of God, and I felt it was incumbent upon me to utilize whatever might contribute to an appreciation of her merits after her death.”

Demjanovich's spiritual writing seemed to blend spiritual wisdom from Eastern and Western Christendom.  Her quote about everyone seeking union with God and being called to live the Will of God  is inspiring and challenging.

Her Litany of Love poem demonstrates her deep faith and joy in the Christian life

Lord, have mercy on us;
Christ, have mercy on us;
Lord, have mercy on us;
Jesus, hear us,
Jesus, lovingly hear us.
God, the Father of heaven, have mercy on us.
God, the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us.
God, the Holy Ghost, have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy on us.
Jesus, my Well-Beloved
Jesus, my Strength
Jesus, Light of my mind
Jesus, Power of my will
Jesus, Fire of my Love
Jesus, Life of my life
Jesus, Life of my soul
Jesus, Soul of my life
Jesus, Soul of my soul
Jesus, my Ceaseless Delight
Jesus, my Rapturous Bliss
Jesus, my infinite Joy
Jesus, True Peace of my soul
Jesus, my only Existence
Jesus, my Own
Jesus, my Heaven
Jesus, my Magnificent Love
Jesus, my Eternal Repose
Jesus, my Vehement Desire
Jesus, my Crucified Spouse
Jesus, my King
Jesus, my God
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghose; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. 

Archbishop Oscar Romero Speaks About the Truth

Óscar Romero was the fourth bishop of San Salvador, El Salvador.  He led the church there during a turbulent time.  Progressives bemoaned his appointment in 1977, as his conservative reputation did not align with priests openly favoring Marxism.  But Romero’s weltanschauung became shaped by the estrangement of secular governments to the faith.  Moreover, when the Revolutionary Government right wing junta came to power in 1979, Archbishop Romero dared to speak up against human rights abuses, poverty, social injustice, torture and assassinations.

Divine Provence Chapel after Romero's assassination

Archbishop Romero was assassinated as he elevated the chalice of Divine Blood while celebrating Mass at “La Divina Provincia" Chapel in San Salvador on March 24th, 1980.  Monsenior Romero was fatally shot one day after he urged 
Salvadoran soldiers to be Christians and stop carrying out the government’s agenda of repression and basic human rights. 




{Actual audio of Archbishop Romero's assassination 03/24/1980}

At the martyred prelate’s funeral, the representative of the Holy See Mexico City Archbishop Ernesto Cardinal Corripio y Ahumada eulogized Romero as “a beloved, peacemaking man of God” and that “his blood will give fruit to brotherhood, peace and hope.”  Alas, these words were uttered as the crowd of 250,000 mourners were pelted with smoke bombs and were shot at by rifles from rooftops, with between 30 and 50 fatalities. 

In La Violencia Del Amor (The Violence of Love) , a collection of Archbishop Óscar Romero’s teachings, he seemingly anticipated the suffering that the Church needed to endure to remain faithful and challenge secular society to follow divine teaching.

La iglesia tiene que sufrir por decir la verdad, por señalar el pecado, para arrancar de raíz el pecado. Nadie quiere tener un punto delicado tocado, y por lo tanto una sociedad con tantas llagas tics cuando alguien tiene el coraje de tocar y decir: 'Hay que tratar eso. Hay que deshacerse de eso. Creer en Cristo. Convertíos'.

The church must suffer for speaking the truth, point out sin, to uproot sin. Nobody wants to have touched a sore spot, and therefore a society with so many sores twitches when someone has the courage to touch and say, 'You have to try that. We must get rid of it. Believing in Christ. Repent '. 

                                  

While Archbishop Romero was martyred by a right wing paramilitary, the Church may have to stand firm against militant secularism and progressive praetorianism. 

In  2010, Chicago Archbishop Francis Cardinal George opined: 

I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human history.

As he gave the Keynote to a College of Cardinal's meeting at St. John Lateran's Basilica in February 2012, New York Archbishop Timothy Cardinal Dolan deflected any insinuations of glory that some might associate with being a  a cardinal.   Dolan, the jocular President of the U.S. Council of Catholic bishops jested: 

"Holy Father, can you omit the 'shedding of your blood' when you present me with the biretta?" 
The pope responded-- "Of course not! We are but 'scarlet audio-visual aids' for all of our brothers and sisters also called to be ready to suffer and die for Jesus." 

This is a reminder of Archbishop Romero’s witness to the truth to the point of his death.

With Western progressive governments pushing same sex marriage, broad ability to divorce and liberal abortion, leaders in the Church who wish to defend traditional, scripturally inspired societal practices which chaff against the current.  Moreover, the application of Obamacare’s HHS Qualified Health Plan Contraception Mandate is anathematic to following their faith as well as the natural right of free exercise of religion as guaranteed by the Constitution. 

The fervency of faith and fearlessness for speaking the gospel certainly ought to be qualities considered when the College of Cardinals has its mid-March conclave in the wake of Pope Benedict XVI's abdication,[Ed. note which eventually chose Pope Francis].

POST SCRIPTUS 02/03/2015  Pope Francis has decreed that Oscar Romero, the slain Archbishop of El Salvador, is a martyr for the faith.  A date has not been set for Blessed Oscar Romero's beatification.