Brother Columba's Path to Sainthood
The first saint from the Congregation of Holy Cross was a doorkeeper. One of the next may be a cobbler.
In 2022 Brother Columba O’Neill, C.S.C., was named a Servant of God, officially opening his cause for canonization. The modest shoemaker’s extraordinary devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus may have ushered in hundreds of miraculous cures for blindness, deafness, cancer, and polio. Word of his powerful prayers earned him the nickname the “Miracle Man of Notre Dame.”
Brother Columba was born in 1848 in Mackeysburg, Pennsylvania, and joined the Congregation of Holy Cross in 1874 after meeting Rev. Edward Sorin, C.S.C. Brother Columba was born with a foot deformity that caused a limp, so in his role as cobbler he often worked to create specialized shoes for those with foot and ankle problems. He was also keen to pray for those who were unwell.
Around 1890, Brother Columba began making badges with an image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus or the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and gifting them to people when they came to retrieve the shoes he repaired. In total, he made and distributed 40,000 badges, often along with instructions to pray a novena, a spiritual devotion consisting of recitation of the same prayers for nine consecutive days. The badges, along with Brother Columba’s prayers and favors, are said to have healed people. Brother Philip Smith, C.S.C., an archivist in the Midwest Province of the Congregation of Holy Cross, gathered 10,000 letters of correspondence, of which 1,400 attribute cures to Brother Columba’s prayers.
To many, the results of Brother Columba’s prayers for the intercession of the Sacred Heart of Jesus were astounding, says Brother Smith, the postulator of Brother Columba’s cause, but Brother Columba remained unshaken.
“He had such a sincere, childlike devotion to the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary that he was not really surprised that these cures took place. He may have been surprised that he was the vehicle, but he was not shocked at all that these things not only happened, but happened with a tremendous amount of frequency.”
Brother Smith believes Brother Columba’s humble example is powerful and necessary in modern society. “Brother Columba is an example we all need, especially right now when our nation is so polarized,” Brother Smith said. “He had a need to respond to the pain—physical, spiritual, or psychological—of anyone who wrote to him, whether they were Catholic or Protestant, learned or uneducated, rich or poor. He never turned anyone away. The common denominator was that if they acted with faith, as he instructed them, good things would follow. And we need that lesson today.”
The Vatican’s Dicastery for the Causes of Saints will now consider evidence of Brother Columba’s holiness and work. If approved, Pope Francis will decide if the evidence shows “heroic virtue” and if Brother Columba will be called Venerable. The final two steps, beatification and canonization, require evidence of miracles occurring after his death.
Other members of the Congregation of Holy Cross awaiting canonization include Blessed Basil Moreau, Venerable Patrick Peyton, Servant of God Theotonius Ganguly, Servant of God Flavian Laplante, and Servant of God Vincent McCauley.