A Saint in the making

By Brother Philip Smith, C.S.C.

I came to South Bend in April of 2019 to assist in the Midwest Province Archives, and, eventually, to become the archivist. About eighteen months into the work of finding my way around the many shelves and boxes of historical documents,

I came upon three large storage boxes labeled Brother Columba O’Neill: Correspondence. These were pushed far back on a shelf where they should not have been stored. I had heard of this Brother. He was the University of Notre Dame “crippled” cobbler from about 1890-1923. Brother Columba was a holy brother.

Intrigued, I lifted one box off the shelf onto the floor, removed the lid, and was amazed to find hundreds upon hundreds of letters beginning in1912 and ending with those written six months after Brother Columba’s death on November 20, 1923. I lugged the boxes from the stacks into the workroom and like Odysseus, launched my ship upon the meandering and deep sea of this humble, crippled cobbler of the University of Notre Dame.

Similar to St. André Bessette, C.S.C, Brother Columba came from a poor, devoted, and humble background. Born John O’Neill in Mackeysburg, Pennsylvania in 1848, he was the fifth son of six children born to Michael and Ellen (McGuire) O’Neill. Twins were born in Kilkenny, Ireland and four more children in Mackeysburg, one of the scores of small mining camps in Pennsylvania. Sometime in the mid-19th century, these camps were gathered together and were known as Minersville. Miners and their families either gathered slate or dug for coal. In Bother Columba’s biography “These Two Hearts,” by Brother Ernest Ryan, C.S.C., the author of this scant fifty-seven-page book, speaks of Brother Columba’s father, Michael, of Irish descent, living in Mackeysburg which “sent it quota of men” to fight for the Union. His son John (Brother Columba) left Mackeysburg for Colorado and then on to California apprenticed to a shoemaker. He was 14 years old in 1862.

It was in California that John met an itinerant cobbler who told him that he had learned his trade at the Manual Labor School on the grounds of a place called the University of Notre Dame. Biographer Ryan uses his imagination to describe John’s reaction. “While looking toward the heavens a strange light seemed to come into John O’Neill’s eyes and a strange feeling of peace flooded his soul. Could it be that it was to Notre Dame that God was calling him? Would he with his misshapen feet be admitted into the Brotherhood?” John O’Neill was called to the Brothers and would be admitted!

Historical records indicate that John made his way to Indiana, to Notre Dame, and eventually, into the office of Father Edward Sorin, the school’s president. He was met at the university gate by porter Brother Francis Xavier Patois and by novice master Father Augustin Louage. This was in 1874, and John, the soon-to-be Columba, was admitted to the Brothers because, for Father Sorin, no man or woman offered a gift that was too small when it came to the president’s desire to foster the growth of Holy Cross and Our Lady’s University on the two lakes in South Bend, Indiana. When Sorin realized that this newcomer was a cobbler and a shoemaker, he was warmly welcomed.

Brother Columba was a professed member of Holy Cross for 49 years—all of them as a cobbler, but not all of those years at Notre Dame. Initially, he offered to go to either Bengal or Molokai, and over the next 45 years, he petitioned two provincials and the superior general to grant that request. Upon his death and burial in late November 1923, Brother Columba’s “wonderful cures” were known across the United States and in many foreign countries. Devotees of the Sacred Heart of Jesus reached out to him because of his intercessory ability with the Son of God on their behalf. During his lifetime, he was widely known as the Divine Healer and the Miracle Man of Notre Dame.

In May of 2021, I had gathered enough information about the Divine Healer to reach out to South Bend/Fort Wayne Bishop Kevin Rhoades. I wanted to share with him what I was beginning to pull together and to ask for direction. Expecting that I would be asked to meet the bishop in Fort Wayne, I was surprised when he wanted to come to South Bend and meet me in the archives on June 10. He and I spent over three hours in the archives and another hour at Notre Dame’s Holy Cross Cemetery where Brother Columba is buried. When we parted ways, I felt energized by the bishop’s enthusiasm for the cause. On June 14, Bishop Rhoades wrote a letter in support of the furthering the Columba research and his support for beginning the Cause for Servant of God Brother Columba.

On June 28, a diocesan canon lawyer called the archives asking three questions about Brother Columba: what is the year of his death (1923); where he died (in the Community House on the campus of the University of Notre Dame); and if he died a martyr (no). Because Columba died one hundred years ago in November of 2023, his cause is an ancient one: there would be no one alive who knew him to be interviewed.

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