Four religious sisters with ties to Detroit explain how Blessed Solanus inspired their vocations enough to adopt his name
DETROIT — Next week, Detroit will celebrate the seventh feast day since Fr. Solanus Casey, OFM Cap., became the second American-born man to be declared a "blessed" during a capacity Mass at Detroit's Ford Field on Nov. 18, 2017.
The beatification Mass cemented the Capuchin friar and beloved "porter of St. Bonaventure" as one of the most well-loved priests to have ever served in the city of Detroit. On July 30, Detroit native Bishop Robert J. McClory of Gary, Ind., will celebrate Blessed Solanus' feast day Mass during a 6 p.m. liturgy at St. Bonaventure Monastery in Detroit, where the friar is buried, followed by the first-ever procession with a statue of Blessed Solanus through the streets of Detroit.
Blessed Solanus has inspired numerous vocations over the years, as priests, religious and even lay people adopt the Wisconsin-born and Detroit-adopted friar as a model of holiness in their own lives.
As Blessed Solanus' feast day approaches, Detroit Catholic asked four religious sisters with local ties to share in their own words how Fr. Solanus inspired their own vocations enough for them to adopt his name as their own.
Sr. Solana Wegienka, Franciscan Sisters, T.O.R. of Penance of the Sorrowful Mother (Toronto, Ohio)
I grew up in Canton, Michigan. My main parish was Our Lady of Good Counsel in Plymouth. Fr. John Riccardo was our pastor, and he had a huge impact on my life. He really helped me fall in love with Jesus.
My grandparents on my mom’s side had a really big devotion to Fr. Solanus. Both grew up in Detroit. Both were Polish immigrants — first-generation American. Both my grandma and grandpa’s funeral cards have Fr. Solanus on them. I thought it was just normal. He is the local saint. My Grandpa Joe actually met Fr. Solanus. He had a bunch of the second-class relics, the original ones of Fr. Solanus’ habit. He would keep that on his person. He taped it under his watch. After he passed away, I now carry it. It’s really special.
When I was 16, my friends persuaded me to attend a praise and worship night. There was a talk, and the speaker invited us to take some time to think about how Jesus fulfills your life. In all honesty, I was praying, “Lord thanks for letting me know what you want me to do with my life. I already know you want me to be a mom and veterinarian and go to Michigan State University (MSU). Thanks for letting me know already.” It was a very genuine prayer. Then the Lord spoke to me. It was the first time I heard his voice. “More beautiful than a bride on her wedding day.” It was a phrase that Fr. Riccardo had used to describe a sister on the day she took her first vows, how she was radiant and beautiful — more beautiful than a bride on her wedding day. That resounded in my heart, and I just knew Jesus was calling me to be his bride.
At Michigan State, I was still on the veterinary track, but was discerning the entire time. I lived in a discernment house through the Diocese of Lansing for two years. I had entrusted my vocation to Fr. Solanus. I prayed, “Help me. Help me get to the convent,” because I felt called to be a Franciscan. I felt really close to him in that way. He had a difficult formation and discernment time himself. I felt he understood the struggle.
After graduating from MSU, I moved to the city of Detroit. I would go to the Solanus Casey Center for Mass a couple days a week. I helped at the soup kitchen. Fr. Solanus loved the poor. That also was part of my call and discernment — wanting to be poor with the poor. I felt very close to him in that.
I ended up choosing the order I’m in because, during that time I was discerning, I told Fr. Riccardo about my calling. He connected me with the sister he had referred to in his homily. So I called her and said, “I think I have a vocation.” She was great. She described her religious order to me, and it was like checking all these boxes, with all these things I didn’t even know I wanted. So I ended up visiting our community, and after a period of time was able to enter.
When we enter our novitiate, we receive our new religious name. We are allowed to propose three names. The first one on the list was Solana (the feminine version of Solanus; in our order we only take feminine names). I remember I had looked up Solana in a baby name book, and it said it meant “sunshine.” I liked that. A few days later, I walked into the chapel, and the Lord was exposed in the Blessed Sacrament, and it really felt like it was just him and me. In my heart, I heard him greet me with the childhood song, “You are my sunshine. My only sunshine.” My face was beet red. That kind of sold it for me. I prayed, “Lord, this is the name I think you want to call me.” But I had never met anyone named Solanus, so I wasn’t sure. At the time it seemed kind of foreign (now it turns out there are a bunch of us!). Our Mother Superior discerned as I had, and decided that should be my name.
Sr. Solanus Mary Payne, Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal (Bronx, N.Y.)
My vocation is really tied up in Blessed Solanus. I didn’t grow up around many religious sisters, but Blessed Solanus was a joyful witness of religious life for me.
When I was in second or third grade at Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Parish in Beverly Hills, Michigan, Fr. James Cronk gave a homily at a school Mass and told us, “God is going to ask some of you to be priests and sisters. (It is such a clear memory.) You can say no to that,” he said, “and that’s OK. But nothing is going to make you happier than doing God’s will.” That struck me. At that point I had no desire to be a sister, but I decided that I wanted to do God’s will.
It was around the same time that our class took a trip to the Solanus Casey Center in Detroit. I had already known about Fr. Solanus Casey and was aware that my great-grandfather had met him and received a healing. But when I went and prayed at his tomb and heard the stories of his life recounted, I was touched by his joyful witness. His life was not glamorous. It was utterly simple. I thought the task of being porter sounded pretty boring, but the fact that he seemed to have been so joyful gave me confidence that there really is joy in God’s will.
I went on to study chemistry at the University of Detroit Mercy, and during my studies, the thought of religious life started coming back to me. The authentic witness of Fr. Solanus left an openness in my heart to a religious vocation, even though it wasn’t what I had imagined for my life. He provided encouragement and proof that it’s a beautiful life to be consecrated to God.
I went on the internet looking for communities, and I spoke to a few, but when I found the website for our sisters, the Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal, the website had a tab for the Father Solanus Casey Soup Kitchen in New York City. (Our sisters in Harlem have a soup kitchen dedicated to Fr. Solanus.) I said, “OK, I have to go visit.” So I went to New York City, and I felt right at home. I even saw the sisters serving the poor who came to the convent door, and I said, “That’s so much like Fr. Solanus!”
I felt very clear that the Lord had prepared this place for me and was simply inviting me to come spend my life with Him. In 2019, I graduated from university, entered as a postulant with the sisters and moved into Blessed Solanus Casey Convent in Harlem, New York! Our convent was named for him because he had lived there in the 1920s when it was a Capuchin friary. So, I got to live where he had lived, which was so special.
Toward the end of my postulancy, I began praying about entering the novitiate, and about what God might want my religious name to be. I met with our General Servant (this is the term we use for our Mother Superior), and we both felt clear that I should be named for Blessed Solanus.
When I was invested with the habit and veil, she announced that from now on I would be called Sister Solanus Mary of Holy Mother Church. (We get a title, too.) All the sisters were happy, but no one was too surprised, because Blessed Solanus has always been a close friend and a role model for me. His spirituality and teachings spoke to my heart and helped lead me to religious life in our community. As I continue seeking God’s will in my daily life, I desire to follow his example of joy, gratitude and confidence in the goodness of God.
Sr. Casey Marie Loyer, Dominican Sisters of Saint Cecilia (Nashville, Tenn.)
I grew up with Fr. Solanus in my life. Almost everyone in Detroit has a story about how one of their family members had gone to see Fr. Solanus, so I had one, too. My grandmother met him. She always talked about him. She always told me, “Fr. Solanus is going to be a saint one day.” I had a little badge with a piece of his habit. She had the real ones from when they first exhumed him. She sewed it onto my teddy bear because I had trouble sleeping at night. She said, “When you have trouble sleeping, you just talk to Fr. Solanus, and he will help you.” So I grew up talking to him. He was like my little friend.
I started paying attention (to my call) very young, I think in sixth grade. My religion teacher was Sister Maria Goretti (of the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Third Order of St. Francis). She said, “We all have a call, and we should pay attention to it, and maybe some of you are called to be sisters and priests, and you shouldn’t ignore that. So let’s all just take some time and ask the Lord where He is calling us.”
As a sixth grader, that’s not really what you want to hear, but I took some time to think about it. I heard the Lord. This picture in my mind just came — a picture of Sister Maria Goretti. I thought, “Oh no, this is not for me. I am not supposed to do this.” But it was enough to plant a seed in my young mind that maybe, maybe this is for me. We had sisters at our parish, and I always knew that they were so joyful. In my mind I could equate being a sister with being joyful. I knew that when I was praying, when I went to Mass, when I was part of youth group, I was joyful. So I thought those two things go together. Maybe religious life is for me.
After college I knew I had to make a decision. I needed to really discern what God’s call was for me. In Ann Arbor, they have a house called St. Catherine House for young women discerning God’s will in their life. I moved in. It gave me some time to figure things out before I went to graduate school or did something else. I had daily Mass and Eucharistic adoration and frequent confession and a spiritual director, and it gave me time to just focus on that. Once I did that, the little seed that Sister Maria had planted really sprouted. I could see God had created me to be His. I was meant to be His spouse.
I went on a mission trip down to Biloxi, Mississippi, with a group from St. Thomas the Apostle Parish, and on our way we stopped here in Nashville to spend the night. When I walked through the front door, it was like a brick hit me in the head. I saw the postulants, and I thought, “I think I am going to look like them one day.” I really felt I belonged there. It was like a breath of fresh air.
I joined the community, and when we choose our names, we can choose three. At the time, Fr. Solanus was a “Venerable.” He had not been beatified. But I had this story and this connection and this devotion. So, our Prioress General thought the same thing I did. She gave me the name and thought it was a good fit for me.
I did get to go to the beatification. My family is still in Detroit, so they were able to get tickets, and four of my sisters from here were able to come. They were able to stay with my family. A lot of my family members came. It was unbelievable. I think I cried through the whole thing. My grandmother had said he was going to be a saint one day. It’s like she was a prophetess.
There are so many great things about him I love. When I come home to Detroit to visit, of course we go see him. I think a lot about that. It seems every little city has their saint. It’s just so beautiful now, because Detroit has its saint. At the homily at the beatification Mass, the cardinal that came said, "Now we have a saint right here. He became holy right here!" I think that is such a great witness to the Church in Detroit. You can do it! You don’t have to be in Rome or Paris or anywhere else. You can live right here in Detroit, and God’s grace can transform you. Solanus Casey is proof of that.
Sr. Solanus Casey Danda, Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity (SOLT) (Phoenix, Ariz.)
I am originally from a small town near Indianapolis. When I was 17, a junior in high school, I went through a kind of experience of prayer when I learned prayer wasn’t meant to be a monologue, but a dialogue. We need to give God space to speak to us. As Mother Teresa (St. Teresa of Calcutta) says, the fruit of silence is prayer.
Through trying to quiet my heart and allow God to speak to me, I felt him calling me to be a sister. Actually, I had a lot of really good influences. I had the example of my mom’s faith and devotion to God. (She suffered from scleroderma, which eventually took her life.) My brother had wanted to be a priest since he was six or seven. That’s all I remember him wanting to be. And now he is a diocesan priest (in the Archdiocese of Indianapolis).
I didn’t necessarily see a lot of sisters, so it was really God putting the call on my heart, and I began to go visit different communities. I went to Franciscan University of Steubenville, where I encountered a lot of communities. But I actually met my community through mission work. I went on a spring break mission trip with the SOLT community I am now part of, and fell in love with it. I served as a volunteer youth minister at the mission in North Dakota on a reservation. After those two years, I joined the community. I was first assigned to Seattle, but after I took my perpetual vows, I was assigned to serve three years at Holy Redeemer Parish in Detroit.
I came to know Fr. Solanus very well. Our community has a deep connection with him. The founder of our community is (the late) Fr. James Flanigan. He had heard about Fr. Solanus and went out to meet him. He told Fr. Solanus about his vision and the charism for our community. Fr. Solanus’ response was to quote the Canticle of Simeon, confirming that vision.
As a matter of fact, when my name was announced at the ceremony, there were audible gasps in the community because there is such a connection we share with him because of Fr. Flanigan.
When I was praying about what name to choose, I really had a hard time figuring out what to submit. During prayer, I thought, “I love so many saints.” I didn’t know which one really stood out. Fr. Solanus had come to my mind early on because I was inspired by his story. But since I had only recently come to know about him, I kind of dismissed it because there were other saints I had been devoted to longer. I was about ready to say to our founder, “You pick,” — he was still alive at the time — but I realized I didn’t have that much courage.
I continued to pray about it, and Solanus came to my mind again. In our community, your name is meant to signify your mission, identity, and purpose in the Church. I remember thinking, “I know my mission, identity and purpose. But I don’t know the name that goes with it.” When I began praying about Fr. Solanus again, it just all fit. I was like, “Oh, this is it!” Everything fell into place. I was so struck by his childlike faith and confidence in God, his total surrender in all things and acceptance of the will of God. His incredible humility. His gratitude in all circumstances. His love and devotion to God and his life of prayer. His love for people. The way he was attentive to each person he saw. He saw God in them.
After that, Fr. Flanigan prayed about my name as well, and he approved my choice.
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