“We knew there was something different about Fr. Solanus,” said Capuchin Franciscan Brother Leo Wollenweber, who served as his assistant for six years. “But in the monastery he was just another one of the friars, and we didn’t know the deep impact he was having on so many people.”Free Republic
Eighty-five-year-old Brother Leo recalled that Fr. Solanus had “a great sense of humor. He would tell little jokes—often on himself. The friars would kid him a lot, too. He loved hot dogs smothered with onions and he loved baseball. Even when away from Michigan he would keep tabs on the Detroit Tigers. It was his simple and down-to-earth manner that made it easy for people to relate to him. No one seemed intimidated by him.”
One of his favorite pastimes was playing his violin. “He was no virtuoso,” said Br. Leo. When his fellow Capuchins saw him coming, fiddle in hand, they would sometimes busy themselves to avoid the one-man show. “But if his friends didn’t want to listen, he would take his violin into the chapel and play before the Blessed Sacrament.”
I became very attached to Ven. Fr. Solanus Casey after reading about him. The soon to be first US born male American saint "loved baseball." Oddly, his guild removed a great deal of information about him which used to be online, maybe to sell books, I don't know. There was a great picture of him playing baseball in full habit but I cant find it anymore. I carry a ... probably like a 10th class relic ("cloth touched to his tomb") with me. You might know Fr. Solanus Casey grew up in the Diocese of La Crosse. Fr. John Hardon was also a Detroit Tigers fan and would listen when he could to the broadcast on the radio, but of course I can't find that now either. *sigh* A conspiracy against the Tigers? I think so.
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