Father Solanus Casey, Revised and Updated. Catherine Odell
he prepared to leave Milwaukee, believing that his journey toward the priesthood had abruptly come to a halt. But then, diocesan seminary officials assured Barney that he did, indeed, seem to have a vocation, and suggested that he might be more suited to seminary study in a religious order. So, Barney took their advice and went to visit the Capuchin seminary in Milwaukee, also called St. Francis Seminary.
Once there, however, a great heaviness began to fill the young man. The hint of austerity, the unkempt beards, and the somber setting at the Capuchin seminary depressed him, and he left the Capuchins quickly. He headed home for Superior under a cloud that his prayers did not seem to lift. At twenty-five, and after four-and-a-half years of work, his dreams of serving the Lord were already dissolving, seemingly for no reason.
In the months that Barney was still wondering why he’d been dismissed, an editorial appeared in the Milwaukee Catholic Citizen. The editorial writer noted that Wisconsin state colleges, Marquette College in Milwaukee, and Sacred Heart College in Watertown, had all graduated a large number of Irish-Americans that year. But, the writer added, the graduating classes of Pio Nono College and of the diocesan seminary were composed entirely of German- and Polish-Americans. The Catholic Citizen challenge continued:
What is the explanation of the situation? Is there a dearth of vocations for the priesthood among the Irish-Americans of Wisconsin? Or is there something inhospitable about the atmosphere of St. Francis? We pause for meditation.
It’s likely that the editorial never came into Barney’s hands. He was disturbed, but his feelings were more confused than angry. He watched as his brothers pursued their goals. Jim became a mail carrier, while Maurice became a plumber and was traveling. John managed the dairy business for Bernard Sr. while studying law. Ellen, his oldest sister and now in her early thirties, had recently married Thomas Traynor. Edward was in high school but was thinking about the seminary himself, while the younger children were still in grade school. His siblings seemed to have no lack of direction and knowledge about the paths they needed to take.
In the throes of great distress, Barney succumbed to his bothersome throat ailment throughout the summer of 1896. His mother and sister Ellen tended to him and supported him in shouldering the pain in his spirit, but summer and autumn were still a torment for him. Two matters needed clarification in his mind: whether he had the call to the priesthood in the first place, and which religious order he was to join in order to study again for ordination. On August 23, he wrote a letter to Fr. Bonaventure Frey, provincial of the Capuchins. They had already agreed to accept him if he decided to join them. Barney wrote:
Dear Rev. Father:
I received your welcome letter of the 20th a few days ago. I would ask now what I should do with regards to books, clothes, etc., as also when your scholastic year begins. I suppose you were informed about my bill of $525.00 at St. Francis. What should I do about that before I go to join you? — supposing I could not pay cash.
Hoping to hear from you again soon I am, very Rev. Father!
Yours sincerely
Bernard F. Casey
Finally, toward the end of the year, after months of anxiety and prayer, Barney asked his mother and sister Ellen to join with him in praying a novena. He needed to have this matter of a vocation made clear. They readily agreed to his request and joined him in asking heaven for direction. Thus the novena began.
On December 8, on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, Barney was praying after receiving holy Communion at his parish church, Sacred Heart, in Superior. The novena was almost over. On this day, a feast of the Blessed Virgin, he made a private vow of chastity. No matter what decision was made about religious life, he would give his total devotion to God.
Then, in the midst of his quiet prayer, he received a very distinct message in his heart. The message said, “Go to Detroit.” Barney knew the meaning of that! It could only mean that he was to join the Capuchins, one of the three major branches of the Franciscan order. The Lord had been faithful and answered his prayer.
When he finally left Sacred Heart, Barney felt like a new man. His heart was filled with gratitude for the Lord’s goodness. He jogged home to tell his family of his new call to the Capuchins. Then he set about learning more about the order he was to enter.
Established in Italy as a separate branch of Franciscans in the seventeenth century, the Capuchins were named for the capuche, or hood, attached to their brown Franciscan robes. They were founded by Matteo da Bascio and two others in the sixteenth century. Da Bascio’s little band longed to follow the Rule of St. Francis “to the letter.” Theirs was to be a stricter observance and a life based on absolute poverty, such as St. Francis had lived.
The order quickly gained many members in Europe but was later diminished by plagues and political oppression. Around the time of its greatest decline in membership, in 1883, a Capuchin province was established in America, with its base in Detroit.
The two founders of the Capuchin outreach to America were Fr. Francis Haas and Fr. Bonaventure Frey. When they came, these two were not even Capuchins — they were diocesan priests from Switzerland — but they had a commitment to the Capuchin charism. The two priests had arrived in America in 1856, the year before Barney Casey Sr. arrived from Ireland. In the years that Barney Casey Sr. was founding a family and livelihood, the Capuchin founders were setting up missions in Wisconsin, Michigan, and near New York City.
The Capuchin history was impressive, but Barney Jr. contemplated it with mixed feelings. The message about going to Detroit wasn’t one he would have been likely to “invent” for himself. He had been uncomfortable at the Capuchin house he had visited in late spring. It was quite formal and austere. The Capuchin monks wore beards in imitation of St. Francis, and this bothered Barney. Not so much because of the beards themselves — his own father had always worn a beard — but because the Capuchins left their beards untrimmed out of respect for the Franciscan call to simplicity. The thought of that didn’t appeal to Barney Jr. at all. He was aware that his abhorrence of Capuchin whiskers was a minor factor. Yet, there was really nothing else about the prospect of joining the Capuchins that appealed to him, either.
Regardless of all these doubts, by December 20 he was ready to “go to Detroit.” Because it was so close to Christmas, his family wanted him to stay and spend the holiday with them. They knew that it would be years before they would see him again. But Barney would not yield. It was, he insisted, time to go.
In the midst of a blinding snowstorm, he left Superior on December 20 and headed southwest for St. Paul on the 11:00 p.m. train. From St. Paul, his train then headed east, pulling along slowly through drifting snow to Milwaukee. After a brief layover there, during which Barney stayed with Capuchins for the first time, he boarded a train again. Down through Chicago and over to Michigan, his train headed for his goal — Detroit.
On Christmas Eve, the train pulled into the station in Detroit at last. Barney located a streetcar and headed for Mt. Elliott Avenue. There, at 1740 Mt. Elliott, the young man finally arrived, well after dusk. Exhausted, he refused the offer of dinner. He was too tired. Upstairs, on the second floor, he was shown to his room: a simple, stark little space with a wooden door latch. The sight of it immediately renewed his fears of this Capuchin austerity. But, spent with the strain of travel, he pulled off his shoes and heavy coat, still wet with snow, pulled a blanket up over himself, and soon fell into a deep sleep.
Just before midnight, he awoke to the sound of hand chimes and the voices of men singing. They were singing Christmas carols in German. It was Christmas Eve! As the voices grew louder, Barney could hear other men getting out of bed and coming down the corridor to join their voices with the little group of carolers. Barney joined them, and his heart was lifted. The gloom over his decision to follow Our Lady’s orders and “go to Detroit” left him.
Down and around, through the darkened corridors, the carolers moved. Carrying candles, they roused the other Capuchins who then followed down into the chapel for Christmas Midnight Mass. It was a moving, joy-filled occasion and initiated a week or more of festivities.
Once that week passed, however, the same anxieties about his decision plagued Barney again. The