Abstract
This essay examines Solanus Casey’s collected “Notes about Special Cases” as a spiritual classic, or work of theological literature. It proposes that Solanus Casey’s “Notes” function as a modern form of Christian memoria or memory, combining elements of medieval libri vitae and libri miraculorum to create a communal archive of prayer, remembrance, and healing. Drawing on analysis of medieval miracle and confraternity books alongside modern techniques for interpreting prayer, I propose that Solanus’s “Notes” call on readers to take part in his active practice of prayer through their own physical witness, personal prayer, and liturgical participation. These findings suggest that, while often not perceived as a theologian, Solanus Casey offers us a veritable theological magnum opus in his prayerful embodiment of “Notes.”
Introduction: “Notes” as the Spiritual Made Material
At first glance, the material world seems far from the spiritual. Yet, at pilgrimage sites like the Solanus Casey Center, deference is paid to the artifacts left behind by the Detroit Blessed. The Center invites pilgrims on a “journey to holiness,”1 not just through an exploration of Solanus, but of Christian life as a whole. Beyond the main entryway, some of Casey’s few possessions are displayed in a museum-like space, including his violin, habit, and rosary.2 These belongings reflect few possessions allowed to a friar and are indicative of Casey’s vow of poverty. This study is rooted in the material and is thus most interested in a series of Casey’s notebooks that were used to track his encounters with people over decades of his ministry. The Center, and this study, acknowledges the “transitoriness of material objects,”3 as stated in a label placed near the display case full of Solanus’ possessions. However, I contend that devotional objects have the power to shape and embody powerful spiritual practices like those of Solanus. One of these aforementioned notebooks sits in a glass case at the Center,4 and while unassuming, it embodies Solanus’s theological magnum opus.
The modest exterior of this notebook is similar to that of Casey’s own, brown-robed mendicant appearance. It is no illuminated manuscript; the pages are not gilt with gold. Rather, they are inhabited by Casey’s faded cursive shorthand instead of colorful calligraphy. But do not let the outward simplicity of this notebook fool you; inside are housed decades of reflections and prayers co-created through spiritual consultation with the faithful. It serves as Solanus’s veritable theological masterpiece, yet it presents itself as nothing more than a scribbled collection of notes. Casey was not known to be a master theologian. In fact, his theological abilities were doubted throughout his lifetime, ultimately leading to his life as a “simplex priest,”5 after his ordination who was never given permission to preach or hear confessions. This paper asserts that, despite the concerns of his teachers and superiors, Casey was a wise friar and a masterful theologian. I will do so through an analysis of Casey’s “Notes About Special Cases” (referred to as “Notes”) as theological literature. Through this analysis, I posit that his spiritual practice of maintaining “Notes” – something his superiors required of him beginning in 19236 – is analogous to the practice of medieval memoria. Therefore his “Notes” act as a form of modern memoria, providing him and others with the tools to live prayerful lives, and perhaps, the ability to catalyze miracles.
Method: Prayer as Literature
Admittedly, this paper takes a more academic approach to a Blessed who was not considered particularly academic himself. However, this analysis honors Solanus for the theologian he is rather than the one his superiors and teachers told him he was. My exploration of the medieval might seem far removed from the time period of such a modern Blessed, but as a member of the Capuchin order that maintained a stricter interpretation of St. Francis’s Rule than other First Order Franciscans,7 Casey was steeped in Franciscan traditions dating back to the 13th century. For this reason, viewing the works of Solanus through a medieval lens is appropriate.
This paper is a study in the field of spirituality, which can be defined as “the experience of conscious involvement in the project of life-integration through self-transcendence toward the ultimate value one perceives.”8 By analyzing Solanus’ “Notes” as a spiritual classic, this paper further embraces the notion that spirituality is a “theological science theological science that seeks the evangelical mobility of Spiritual classics.”9 “Spiritual classic” itself refers to a “foundational text that [has] been used over centuries to gain valuable insights into beliefs and practices in the development of Christian spiritualities.”10 In our case, the spiritual classic that I seek to analyze is the collection of Casey’s “Notes.” While not yet centuries old, “Notes” gives us authentic insight into Christian practices, especially those of prayer intentions and is a source worth consulting over the ages. Finally, relying on Walter Principe’s trilevel definition of spirituality11 – 1) the real or existential level, 2) the school of life level and 3) the scholarly investigation level – it is appropriate to examine the physical practices that reflect and shape one’s religious beliefs as a critical aspect of spirituality. The physical practice that I focus on here is Solanus’ devotional writing in the form of multiple notebooks that included the prayer intentions and names of those he enrolled in SMA or “Notes”.
I use the term “Notes” to refer to seven published notebooks that Solanus began to compile in 1923 under the heading “Notes on Special Cases.”12 My study focuses on volumes three and four of the “Collected Writings Attributed to the Servant of God Father Solanus Casey, O.F.M. Cap,” which include notebooks number one, four, five, six, seven, eight, and ten. Both volumes were transcribed from Solanus’ original handwritten notes and are presented as “brief notes, day by day, concerning requests or favors through the seraphic Mass Association.”13 While the writing I analyze was originally housed in seven separate notebooks, I refer to them as a unified work as they constitute a continuous document recording prayer intentions and potential miraculous developments that Solanus was ordered to write at the behest of his superiors in 1923. Because of these notebooks’ singular purpose, I refer to all seven of them as “Notes.”
My focus on Casey’s incarnation of thoughts, hopes and prayer into the physical form of his notebooks is informed by material religion scholars such as David Morgan and Caroline Walker Bynum. Morgan’s claim that “materiality mediates belief” is the driving insight undergirding of this essay.14 Likewise, Walker Bynum’s exploration of medieval “dissimilar similitudes” or the paradox of how “objects can be ‘like’ something that is Other”15 inspire my core claims that a friar himself can function as a living book of prayers, or “Notes”. Medieval examples such as chastity functioning as a garment or “Hail Mary” prayers serving as roses for the Virgin Mary16 allow me to make such claims.
In addition to this material lens, I will be combining the methodology of modern prayer book analysis with the study of medieval memoria, which includes texts such as libri vitae (books of life or confraternity books) and libri miraculorum (books of miracles). To do this I will leverage the work of medieval scholars such as Mary Carruthers and Rachel Koopmans alongside scholars of modern prayer analysis like Tania Ap Siôn and Rafał Cekiera. Through this interdisciplinary process, I hope to analyze Casey’s “Notes” in a way that is faithful to his historical context and ancient Franciscan heritage, while approaching them as a spiritual classic. After this methodological introduction it is now time for a brief history of the life of Blessed Solanus Casey.
“Deo Gr.”: The Life and “Notes” of Bl. Solanus Casey
Casey’s journey to the Capuchins began after witnessing violence perpetrated against a young woman while he was working as a streetcar operator. Shortly after this shocking event, Casey sought new direction in life by entering the seminary to become a priest.17 Casey’s quest for priesthood was met with increasing academic setbacks. His first foray into the seminary was at St. Francis de Sales Seminary in Milwaukee, where working in his non-native language, German, eventually led to poor grades and his dismissal.18 Encouraged by his seminary professors to pursue a religious vocation Casey eventually joined the Capuchins at St. Bonaventure’s in Detroit. This decision also proved academically difficult as the Midwest Capuchins were also a German speaking community, and Latin continued to be the language of instruction.
As he progressed towards his ordination, Casey’s prospects for the priesthood looked grim. Even before his first profession of vows he was required by his superiors to sign an attestation professing no claim to ordination, something he did a second time before his profession of final vows due to his “lack of talents” (1898) and “defective studies” (1901).19 True to his vow of obedience, Casey accepted the uncertainty of not receiving ordination into the priesthood. Fortunately, Casey did eventually receive priestly ordination in 1904. He did not, however, receive “faculties” or permission to hear confessions or preach. This meant he was reduced to a sacerdotus simplex or “simplex priest.”20 This distinction went on to shape Casey’s entire ministry, placing him in subordinate positions such as porter or sacristan. However, it is these very roles that led to the creation of his magnum opus—“Notes.”
Though he was unsuccessful academically, Solanus still possessed a great degree of theological wisdom. Myths surrounding Solanus’ “simplex” status have led to a belief that his “status restricted him from any sacramental ministry other than celebrating Mass,”21 when, in reality, he is known to have performed the sacrament of baptism three hundred recorded times.22 These myths regarding his diminished status create a sense that Solanus had a limited capacity for theological reflection, when that is not the case. I seek to assert that Casey was a theologian in his own right and “Notes” serves as the culmination of his life of theological reflection and spiritual practice.
Casey began his work on what I refer to as “Notes” in 1923 at Our Lady of Angels in Harlem while serving as a porter.23 He began keeping a record of prayer intentions and those that were seemingly answered at the request of the Father Provincial, Fr. Benno. It is these recorded intentions that make up the seven notebooks this paper analyzes. As a porter, Casey had been enrolling guests in SMA, a prayer association where devotees donated a sum of money benefiting the Capuchin missions for “remembrance through prayers and Masses.”24 This task had long been his ministry as he had already been enrolling people since 1906.25 Word had steadily spread that SMA enrollment by the hand of Solanus Casey often resulted in prayers being answered,26 “favors from God,”27 or even miracles. In order to maintain a record of the events surrounding Solanus’s growing reputation as a “miracle worker,”28 Fr. Benno ordered Casey to keep a record of the answered prayers of SMA enrollees. After receiving this order from his superior, Solanus “obtained a twelve-by-ten-inch letter-type book”29 and under his first entry dated November 18, 1923, recorded the request as, “Father Provincial wishes notes to be made of special favors reported as through the Seraphic Mass Association.”30 . Thus, “Notes About Special Cases” was inaugurated as an act of obedience to his superiors. Throughout the remainder of his Capuchin ministry, Casey would minister to those seeking guidance and healing, often enrolling them in SMA. Over the course of his lifetime, the one notebook would multiply, and his record of SMA enrollees and their prayer intentions would eventually fill seven such notebooks.
From then on, “his duties as Porter and Director of the Seraphic Mass Association…was to be his primary apostolate for the remainder of his life.” 31 However, his work did not just include writing their names into an enrollment book32 and taking note of their prayers. Casey offered spiritual counsel to those who sought him out at the door of the monastery. A key part of this pastoral counseling included encouraging some to perform a “spiritual or corporeal work of mercy” or others to enroll in SMA as a way to demonstrate a “sign of ‘expectant faith.’”33 His counseling and care did not end when they left the monastery; it continued in prayer through the very act of their entry into Casey’s “Notes” and, if they agreed, within the SMA enrollment book. It is likely that his notebooks also “were made as reminders to keep these people in his prayers, for he prayed constantly for all those who brought their troubles to him.”34 Casey wasn’t merely keeping records, he was entering peoples’ prayers both into his notebooks and into his heart for consideration in prayer. This community of notebook entries was also remembered in turn by the entire Capuchin order in Mass, the very mechanism that Casey attributed all his reported miracles to when questioned by Fr. Benno.35
Solanus’s enrollment work spanned time and geographical distance. He maintained his journal after moving from Harlem to Detroit, from Detroit to Brooklyn, and from Brooklyn to Huntington. Only during the last year of his life was he ordered by his superiors to stop accepting visitors and thus recording new entries in his “Notes.”36 Over the course of his life, Casey left behind seven such notebooks. In these notebooks were 6,000 cases, 700 of which include notations referring to healings or later developments.37 Many are labelled in his shorthand with the brief prayer of thanksgiving—“Deo Gr.”38
These notebooks constitute the focus of my analysis. Throughout this study, I refer to them as one, continuous book of “Notes” even though they were divided into seven individual notebooks. I do so because spiritually and practically these notebooks were a continuation of Fr. Benno’s orders to document “special cases” in 1923. Casey took this order to heart and in doing so, authored a text that brought together a eucharistic community that encompassed New York, Detroit, and beyond. To begin my textual analysis of Casey’s “Notes,” I now turn to similar monastic documents that resemble his work. This will require a journey through time to the medieval period in Europe.
Medieval Memoria in the 20th Century
The medieval period might seem like a strange place to find parallels to Casey’s modern-day “Notes,” but it is rife with similar textual artifacts. Before exploring these documents, it is first necessary to define the concept of memoria. Multiple definitions of this term exist, but I will explore the ones that I find most closely align with Solanus’s writings. In an exploration of early-medieval liturgical prayers of remembrance, Eva-Mari Butz determines that memoria “represents a type of cultural-historical practice [that] plays a central societal role in the form of prayers of remembrance in the context of the liturgy.”39 Butz’s exploration of confraternity books, or liber vitae, listing the names of the faithful to be remembered in Mass reveals something strikingly similar to Solanus’s “Notes.” Just like “Notes,” these books serve as spiritual reminders to pray for the enrolled. These medieval confraternity books overlap very strongly with SMA’s Mass intentions. They group together rulers and families and thus act as witnesses to both history and the function of liturgical remembrance of individuals during the Eucharist. The community that these books portray transcends life and time, uniting the dead and the living. She finds that “by inclusion in the liturgy the unity expressed in the diptychs is…a means of asking God to perpetuate this unity now and into eternity.”40
Flipping through Casey’s “Notes” in the present has a similar feeling of weight. Not because of their physicality, but because they contain the combined total of thousands of names and lives that were together woven into the worship of the Capuchin community. Rosamond McKitterick notices a more social function at play in confraternity books. She finds a confraternity codex maintained by monks “embodies the abbey and the local society in which it was embedded.”41 McKitterick reflects on the modern parallels of war and loss within these texts when the lives of “those killed in Magyar attacks” are cut short in the record.42 She movingly compares this to parish churches in Europe that recorded members lost during World War I. Casey’s notebooks fulfill this same historical witness, particularly during the outbreak of World War II. During this period, a reader will notice that his prayers are largely concerned with the lives of soldiers. One entry, among many others, prays, “E’d Trees – 12 – reported ‘missing in action over Germany.’”43 While he is initiating prayer, Casey is also creating historical memoria that reflects the war and loss present in his community.
Mary Carruthers presents the most complicated definition of memoria, but it is critical to Solanus’s role as a friar and his life work of prayer. She sees memoria as a “universal thinking machine” or the “craft of thinking.”44 Medieval monks were expected to hone their memoria as a tool used to create a monastery’s most valued product—prayer.45 It is worth briefly mentioning that “memory” in the medieval period did not have the humdrum connotations it does today, rather it acted as creative, intellectual thought.46 Medieval memory was even praised by saints; Carruthers quotes St. Aquinas who once stated that “a thing is said metaphorically to be written on the mind when it is firmly held in memory.”47 This definition seems complex, but it might parallel the function of Casey’s “Notes.” As mentioned earlier, his notebooks may have functioned as a personal reminder to pray and whom to pray for. While “Notes” may have bolstered his personal practice of prayer, they also enhanced the prayer of his Capuchin community by providing more details about SMA enrollees who were prayed for during the Mass. Using Carruthers’s model, we can imagine that Casey was employing the simple act of notetaking as a mnemonic device to craft prayer, prayer that was activated a variety of times, such as when entering an individual’s name within his book, when he and his Capuchin brothers remembered their names during celebration of the Mass, and on a later date when he could have re-read the names during prayerful meditation. Casey’s series of notebooks functioned as technology that allowed him and his community to enhance their practice of prayer both through the act of recording them as physical memoria and potentially revisiting the names in private and communal prayer. I would like to go one step further than St. Aquinas in his description of memoria. In Solanus’s case, we can imagine that the works of “Notes” were not only written on his mind, but on his very heart as he lifted them up in daily prayer to God. As a friar, formed in the practice of mental memoria, Casey transcended the physicality of these “prayer books” to the point of embodying “Notes” through his prayerful actions. Metaphorically one could suggest that Solanus became his “book of prayers.”
Libri Miraculorum: Recording Miracles
“Notes” thus serves as medieval memoria in the modern day. By combining various interpretations of medieval history, I conclude that memoria, both today and in the Middle Ages, remembers and reminds. “Notes” does this as well. Solanus’s notebooks remember historical, social and liturgical bonds through the contents of the Capuchin Order’s prayer intentions which Solanus made his own. These include names, personal narratives, and historical events. The notebooks also remind Casey and his fellow friars of their prayerful purpose, directing their thoughts to individuals and the community as a whole. Now that we have a working theory of how “Notes” may have functioned, I would like to turn to the presence of miracles within the notebooks.
This pivot requires yet another trip to the past, to a time where “acceptance of the miraculous” was a “basic dimension of life.”48 Of course, that period is again the Middle Ages. When searching for the best genre parallel for Solanus’s “Notes,” I was constantly reminded of medieval books of miracles, or libri miraculorum. I am not the first to draw this comparison; in an exploration of prayer guestbooks left out in Hungarian Marian shrines, Krisztina Frauhammer determines that modern prayer intentions resemble medieval miracle books.49 Frauhammer explains that these books were written by keepers of shrines to give validity to special graces that could be expected at a pilgrimage location. While popular in the medieval period, Frauhammer explores a shrine miracle book dated from 1696-1896. The book, attached to a Marian shrine, often includes “general expressions of gratitude”50 not dissimilar to Solanus’s frequent use of “Deo Gr.” that punctuates his “Notes.”
Frauhammer’s study offers a bridge between the modern era and older libri miraculorum, justifying an exploration of these miraculous medieval texts. The miracles reported in these books give us a window into the lives of those who lived hundreds of years ago. The range of problems medieval people faced are reflected in the miracle stories themselves, demonstrating the very “needs and aspirations” of the faithful.51 Rachel Koopmans approaches these miracle books as literary collections themselves, noting that the personal stories that make up these miracles expose the anxieties, dreams, and the very self of those who related their stories to the shrine’s keeper.52 Koopmans invites readers to consider the individual behind these miracle narratives, noting that “we must keep those individuals before us.”53 She provides us with an understanding of how much we know and do not know about the creation of the stories themselves. The crafting of these long texts took place in the collaboration of religious and lay people, since the lay are largely featured throughout them. Koopmans describes the process as:
monks and canons listening patiently, for days, months, and sometimes years to stories about stomach aches, sexual misadventures, sick children, swollen legs, shipwrecks, and stolen coins, and then devoting resources of their scriptoria to committing these stories to parchment.54
This sense of collaboration and counsel is deeply rooted in Casey’s “Notes.” Imagine Solanus as a medieval monk, sitting down with a member of the faithful who tearfully relates to him the details of their struggles with illness along with their hopes and fears. So many of the stories they once related to Solanus are lost to us, including their body language, exact words, and Solanus’s own reactions. Koopmans notes that the monks recording miracles “inevitably deaden and radically simplify”55 others’ stories. This is not intentional; it is because it is impossible to contain all the nuance of a one-on-one personal encounter of such spiritual depth. While his entries are brief, Solanus’s “Notes” impart us with a sense of this personal interaction between friar and layperson. When able, he notes down details of his conversations, such as the way someone likes their steak chop cooked,56 the amount of money someone is hoping to raise,57 or the tender beauty of a blind child dancing.58 When reading Solanus’s “Notes,” we are both near and far to the people he prays for, just like our relationship to the Christian faithful as far back as the medieval period.
Decoding Prayer
Today we still record names in the modern equivalent of confraternity books in the form of parish bulletin intentions. Similarly, we document our thanksgiving in intention books placed in church vestibules rather than libri miraculorum. Perhaps we now enter our names into libri vitae with the click of a computer mouse, but the prayerful intention is still the same. Scholars still understand the value of recorded prayer, and many have taken up the study of the content of Christians’ very conversations with God. Tania ap Siôn notes that, through the study of the prayers of ordinary people, we can gain insight into “ordinary theology.”59 Ordinary theology is a term introduced by Jeff Astley, referring to the “theology and theologizing of Christians who have received little or no theological education of a scholarly, academic, or systematic kind.”60 This understanding that theology does not only exist in the expensive tomes of the academy, but also in the humble notebooks of the faithful, supports the notion of Solanus’s “Notes” as a theological work. Notably though, Solanus did not work alone; believers joined him in his compilation of “Notes” as he added their names and struggles to his book. In constructing prayer intentions with other believers, Solanus was also constructing a theological community through spiritual conversation that was recorded throughout their magnum opus—“Notes.”
Recent trends in prayer analysis have demonstrated that prayers can give researchers an idea of individuals’ “own understanding of religious or spiritual issues.”61 In reviewing a written prayer, a reader can tease out answers to questions, such as the faithful’s image of God, their perception of a relationship with God, and the significance of written prayer to them.62 This, of course, all constitutes “ordinary theology.” The most interesting of these deductions is that prayer analysis can reveal an individual’s views of God as merciful, harsh, loving, or jealous. In a study analyzing prayer intentions left in a hospital book, researchers Wendy Cadge and M. Daglian determined that a majority of prayer writers “imagine a God who is accessible, listening, and a source of emotional psychological support.”63 In an astonishing conclusion, they note that despite Americans’ widespread belief in miracles, the very word “miracle” is rarely mentioned and that the prayers were mostly “framed in broad psychological language without mention of specific disease results.”64
This result mimics that of Solanus’s “Notes.” In his near 6,000 entries that constitute “Notes”, the word “miracle” (or variations and misspellings of the word) occurs only 49 times. Even within “Notes”, which was created at the behest of his superiors to document supposed miracles, Solanus rarely uses the term. In fact, his own title for this body of work, “Notes on Special Cases” makes an effort to avoid use of the word “miracle” itself and opts for the much humbler “Special Cases.” This is a staggeringly low number for the quantity of entries that Solanus made, suggesting that those who sought his counsel were perhaps doing it more for spiritual guidance or his witness, rather than the guarantee of a miracle. Of course, it is possible that Casey chose to not record enrollees’ mention of the word “miracle.” However, he never completely avoids it; usually only using the term when reporting another’s words or presenting a hopeless case in which “only a miracle [is] left to hope for.”65 This analysis of “Notes” reveals that the faithful likely consulted with Solanus for his loving presence and prayerful guidance rather than sole in search of a miracle. Avoidance of the term “miracle,” most strikingly in his title of the notebooks, also reveals Solanus’ own theology. He did not see himself as an alleged “miracle man,” but rather as one who could provide counsel and spiritual intervention in the form of SMA enrollment and the prayers it promised. Like Cadge and Daglian conclude in their analysis of modern prayer intentions, Solanus’s “Notes” demonstrate a belief in a God who is accessible, listening, and a source of support, rather than an entity who could be called on for consistent miraculous healings.66 Casey himself embodied these qualities through his prayerful witness in the creation of “Notes,” serving as a compassionate lister who could provide emotional and spiritual support. With this in mind, we now turn to a case study from “Notes” itself.
“The Individuals Mattered”: Veronica Rose
Only after taking us on a journey through the Middle Ages to today are we ready to approach Solanus’s “Notes.” This exploration of medieval memoria, though distant in time, has reminded us that the creation of social and liturgical memory is possible through a physical list of names and prayers. However, it is not the combined total of these names that are my only interest, but rather the individuals. As McKitterick asserts in her study of medieval libri vitae, “the individuals mattered.”67 This is also true for Solanus’s notebooks. While the crowds that came to see him filled the waiting room of the monastery, he paid individual attention to each person that sat across from him. One such individual was Veronica Rose. As I read thousands of stories in “Notes,” Veronica’s narrative stayed etched into my memory. In her entry, we see Solanus’s theology and act of prayerful memoria come to light in the most active and involved sense.
Veronica appears in multiple entries throughout Solanus’s notebook; we meet her for the first time not long after he arrives in Detroit on September 6, 1925; the entry reads:
Paralisis Cured…Veronica Rose 19, only child, of Albert Rose, Boston Boulivard, paralized now about two yrs. And on her back most of that time recently in considerable pain – is enrolled To-day 2nd time perpetually. Promises are made in her b-half of more frequent Communion – and gift in Honor of little Fl. St. Terese if Veronica be spared.68
Upon reading this, we are left with many questions. Is Veronica’s “paralisis” actually cured if her family has re-enrolled her in SMA? Since we are presumably reading a book of miracles, one is left with the hope that her battle with paralysis ends here and that Solanus is simply recording another healing. A reader might almost pray along with the text that Veronica’s name does not re-enter the notebook. One is also made quickly aware of our distance from Veronica and her family; it feels just as far as when reading a medieval confraternity book. But we can bridge the gap through careful reading. For example, since many modern Catholics know that Thérèse of Lisieux is associated with roses, we might assume that the “gift” on behalf of “St. Terese” is promised due to Veronica’s surname, “Rose.” A reader might experience a moment of intimacy with the Rose family due to their seemingly spiritual namesake—St. Thérèse.
Our hope is unfortunately short-lived, for months later Veronica reappears. “Will 3rd Enrollment Help?!!!”69 Solanus wonders. What follows is a heart-wrenching series of entries taking place from September 29, 1926, until what appears to be October 9, 1926 (though his dating is unclear). In them Veronica seems to recover slightly, only to take a turn for the worst. Solanus is also present in the narrative. At a certain point he briefly reports meeting Veronica in the hospital. Upon seeing her regain consciousness,
Fr. S. whispers: “That is right Veronica. Keep smiling and God bless you…..in your better moments ask Jesus to strengthen you in resignation to this cross.” She whispers the answer, nodding with a little smile, “I do ask Him.”70
Here we see that Solanus’s prayer life is an active one. Not only does he record names and prayers in his books, but he takes the petitions to heart, visiting the ailing when he is able. However, entry into his book and the SMA cannot save Veronica’s life. After months of struggle and at the end of a series of violent convulsions, “she passes from time to Eternity. R.I.P.”71 But despite the lack of a physical miracle, her death is not in vain. Solanus does not begrudge God for failing to save Veronica, nor does he encourage her family to do the same. He remembers her death as a victory; while no miracle occurred, the family’s loss is not without God’s presence. He writes:
Her fearful struggle is over and [she] reposes in triumph as a beautiful child of fifteen. – a joy to behold. Thanks be to God for her cross and for her evident victory.72
Solanus’s theology is on full display in these entries. He does not act as a “miracle man,” confident that he can deliver quasi-magical healing to the ailing Veronica. Instead, he commits her to his memoria by repeatedly inscribing her name in his book and through his active memory of visitation and consultation with her and her parents. The kind of memoria present in “Notes,” and thus Solanus himself, is not the passive remembrance of tragedies or illnesses. Rather, his memoria is that of Biblical remembrance, echoing Christ’s call in Luke 22:19 to “do this in remembrance of me” through action and imitation rather than passive memory. This remembering is “affective…and goal-oriented,” bearing little resemblance to our modern understanding of “memory.”73 In his “Notes,” Solanus calls us to participate in his active memoria, through both prayer and physical witness to the ill and suffering. And most importantly, he shows us that sometimes real miracles are not exactly what we expect.
When I set out to read through all of Solanus’s notes, I was expecting to encounter a modern-day liber miraculorum that consisted of miracle after miracle. However, I was quickly stunned by its seeming lack of miracles. Most entries, such as Veronica’s, don’t seem to end as happily as one might expect. Instead of serving strictly as a liber miraculorum or liber vitae, “Notes” acts as a physical piece of modern-day memoria. Solanus’s book of memoria is his theological magnum opus. The prayer intentions recorded by Casey were so laced with hope, gratitude, and even resignation to “beautiful death”74 that they strike me as nothing short of miraculous. While not every entry contains a textbook miracle, they function as a testament that God’s loving presence does not need to be miraculous in order to be recognized and therefore appreciated. Veronica Rose’s story is evidence of this.
Conclusion: Embodying Prayer Journals
I will now briefly humble Solanus, for after spending so much time with him, I now know that it is what he would want. The reported miracles that he documented throughout “Notes” were never, in his own formulation, the work of his own spiritual power. Rather, they were the work of the SMA, or more specifically, the action of remembering enrollees during the Mass. He was no miracle worker, but rather God’s instrument, the pen that remembered individuals in prayer. Solanus “refused to be identified with the positive results…It was the SMA, not he that was the source of their help.”75
Solanus’s assertion has powerful pastoral connections. As part of the Body of Christ, all the faithful who participate in liturgical remembrance are responsible for these communal healings of the unwell. Mass intentions are a time-honored tradition that brings all believers together in liturgical participation and communal healing.76 Thus, all are called by the example of Solanus to create modern memoria through Eucharistic participation and the remembrance of the entire Body of Christ in prayer. Memoria is not limited to devoted Capuchins like Solanus; lay and religious alike can participate in catalyzing communal prayer for healing.
Effectively, Solanus co-authored “Notes” alongside his faithful enrollees using their testimony and experience. Together they constructed memoria that allowed for prayerful remembrance in the liturgy and the possibility of miracles, both big and small. Solanus Casey’s “Notes” thus function as a modern form of Christian memoria, combining elements of medieval devotional writing to create a community archive of prayer, remembrance, and healing.
Through committing his prayer intentions to paper, Solanus in a sense became “Notes,” showing us that physically writing down prayer allows one to remember each name and story that we encounter. What Casey inscribed on the page he also inscribed on his heart. His notebooks serve as monuments, allowing us to pray through time for SMA enrollees in the past, present, and future. Not only do his books act as a reminder to pray in silence, but rather to actively pray through physical witness in our own ministries. “Notes” constructs its own genre, serving as a book of miracles, prayer, and a repository of Solanus’s theology. These unassuming seven notebooks are a testament to the spirituality of the material and the possibility and promise of prayer written down.
I encourage those who read this paper to practice this memoria in their own lives, whether through prayerfully entering intentions into their own notebooks or taking some time each day to pray with Solanus’s “Notes.” Through committing the Body of Christ’s struggles to paper, we can all embody Solanus’s prayerful spirituality and allow our hearts to become books of prayer that we offer to God. This paper is therefore written as its own kind of prayerful memoria dedicated to Veronica Rose and all those who have been, or will be, enrolled in the SMA.
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