A couple of days before Solanus died, he told Fr. Gerald, “I look on my whole life as giving, and I want to give and give until there is nothing left of me to give.” On the morning of July 31 Msgr. Edward Casey, who had been spending a few days with Solanus, thought he seemed to rally a little. He left the room to write a report to the family. About that time a nurse and an orderly came in to bathe Solanus with oil. When they finished, they gently laid him back on the pillow. They heard him softly whisper something, but they could not understand him. Suddenly he sat up, stretched out his arms, and in a clear voice said, “I give my soul to Jesus Christ.” These were his last words. Lying back on the pillow, he breathed forth his soul. It was eleven o’clock in the morning, at the very hour and on the very date of his first Holy Mass, fifty-three years before. The sisters and the doctors, with Msgr. Edward, were consoled on entering the room to see the look of peace on Solanus’s face.
—from the book Gratitude and Grit: The Life of Blessed Solanus Casey,
by Brother Leo Wollenweber, OFM Cap, page 88-89
//Franciscan Media//