Where on earth has July gone?! So hard to believe this Sunday is August 1st! Because the Holy Father is still convalescing from his July 4 surgery, it was fairly quiet in the Vatican this week except for Sunday’s Mass for the First World Day of Grandparents and the Elderly, and an unprecedented trial that began in the Vatican on Tuesday.
For Pope Francis, July is traditionally the month in which he takes a kind of working vacation, remaining in the Vatican but reducing public appearances to the Sunday Angelus. He sends the occasional telegram or message to a group but in-person meetings are reduced to the minimum.
Today, for example, the Holy Father sent a telegram of condolences for the death on Thursday in Rome of French Jesuit Cardinal Albert Vanhoye. Vanhoye had turned 98 on July 24. An eminent biblical scholar, the cardinal was rector emeritus of the Pontifical Biblical Institute and former secretary of the Pontifical Biblical Commission. He led the 2008 Lenten Retreat for the Curia. The cardinal’s funeral in St. Peter’s Basilica is Saturday, July 31.
VATICAN INSIDER MEETS THE INSPIRATION FOR WORLD DAY OF GRANDPARENTS
I had the great joy of interviewing two dear friends, a dynamic duo – Catherine Wiley and Marilyn Henry – this week to talk about the first World Day of Grandparents and the Elderly. Catherine founded the Catholic Grandparents Association in the UK and Marilyn Henry coordinates CGA in the U.S. Grandmothers themselves, they tell us the riveting tale of how CGA came about and how a lot of work by Catherine over 12 years led to this new World Day! You will be very inspired by their remarkable story!
IN THE UNITED STATES, you can listen to Vatican Insider (VI) on a Catholic radio station near you (stations listed at www.ewtn.com) or on channel 130 Sirius-XM satellite radio, or on http://www.ewtn.com. OUTSIDE THE U.S., you can listen to EWTN radio on our website home page by clicking on the right side where you see “LISTEN TO EWTN.” VI airs at 5am and 9pm ET on Saturdays and 6am ET on Sundays. On the GB-IE feed (which is on SKY in the UK and Ireland), VI airs at 5:30am, 12 noon and 10pm CET on Sundays. Both of these feeds are also available on the EWTN app and on www.ewtnradio.net ALWAYS CHECK YOUR OWN TIME ZONE! For VI archives: go to https://www.ewtn.com/radio/audio-archive and write the name of the guest for whom you are serarching in the SEARCH box. Below that, will appear “Vatican Insider” – click on that and the link to that particular episode will appear.
JULY 30: FEAST DAY OF BLESSED SOLANUS CASEY
(Franciscanmedia.org: Blessed Solanus Casey’s Story (November 25, 1875 – July 31, 1957) – a story I really had to share as it is so inspirational!)
Barney Casey became one of Detroit’s best-known priests even though he was not allowed to preach formally or to hear confessions!
Barney came from a large family in Oak Grove, Wisconsin. At the age of 21, and after he had worked as a logger, a hospital orderly, a streetcar operator, and a prison guard, he entered St. Francis Seminary in Milwaukee—where he found the studies difficult. He left there, and in 1896, joined the Capuchins in Detroit, taking the name Solanus. His studies for the priesthood were again arduous.
On July 24, 1904, Solanus was ordained, but because his knowledge of theology was judged to be weak, he was not given permission to hear confessions or to preach. A Franciscan Capuchin who knew him well said this annoying restriction “brought forth in him a greatness and a holiness that might never have been realized in any other way.”
Photo from Solanus Casey Center
During his 14 years as porter and sacristan in Yonkers, New York, the people there recognized Solanus as a fine speaker. James Derum, his biographer writes, “For, though he was forbidden to deliver doctrinal sermons, he could give inspirational talks, or feverinos, as the Capuchins termed them.” His spiritual fire deeply impressed his listeners.
Father Solanus served at parishes in Manhattan and Harlem before returning to Detroit, where he was porter and sacristan for 20 years at St. Bonaventure Monastery. Every Wednesday afternoon he conducted well-attended services for the sick. A co-worker estimates that on the average day 150 to 200 people came to see Father Solanus in the front office. Most of them came to receive his blessing; 40 to 50 came for consultation. Many people considered him instrumental in cures and other blessings they received.
Father Solanus’ sense of God’s providence inspired many of his visitors. “Blessed be God in all his designs” was one of his favorite expressions.
The many friends of Father Solanus helped the Capuchins begin a soup kitchen during the Depression. Capuchins are still feeding the hungry there today.
In failing health, Solanus was transferred to the Capuchin novitiate in Huntington, Indiana, in 1946, where he lived for ten years until needing to be hospitalized in Detroit. Father Solanus died on July 31, 1957. An estimated 20,000 people passed by his coffin before his burial in St. Bonaventure Church in Detroit.
At the funeral Mass, the provincial Father Gerald said: “His was a life of service and love for people like me and you. When he was not himself sick, he nevertheless suffered with and for you that were sick. When he was not physically hungry, he hungered with people like you. He had a divine love for people. He loved people for what he could do for them—and for God, through them.”
In 1960, a Father Solanus Guild was formed in Detroit to aid Capuchin seminarians. By 1967, the guild had 5,000 members—many of them grateful recipients of his practical advice and his comforting assurance that God would not abandon them in their trials. Solanus Casey was declared Venerable in 1995, and beatified on November 18, 2017.
REFLECTION
His biographer James Patrick Derum writes that eventually Father Solanus was weary from bearing the burdens of the people who visited him. “Long since, he had come to know the Christ-taught truth that pure love of God and one’s fellowmen as children of God are in the final event all that matter. Living this truth ardently and continuously had made him, spiritually, a free man—free from slavery to passions, from self-seeking, from self-indulgence, from self-pity—free to serve wholly both God and man” (The Porter of St. Bonaventure’s, page 199).
Joan's Rome 