Life-size bronze figures of eight contemporary people at the Solanus Casey Center at the Saint Bonaventure Capuchin Monastery represent the Beatitudes of Christ in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:3–11.) Each of these individuals has shown through their life and ministry how to live Christianity in action.
The eight individuals chosen are:
- Blessed Mother Theresa (Blessed are the Merciful)
- Dorothy Day (Blessed are the pure in spirit)
- Martin Luther King Jr. (Blessed are the peacemakers)
- Monsignor Clement Kern of Detroit (Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice) who opened his church to alcoholics, gays and lesbians, social protesters, the unemployed and the homeless and became a vocal advocate for them;
- Jean Donovan (Blessed are those that mourn);
- Archbishop Oscar Romero ( Blessed are the persecuted);
- Takashi Nagai (Blessed are the Meek) who endured the atomic explosion in Nagasaki; and
- Catherine de Hueck Doherty (Blessed are the pure of heart) a Russian Baroness who opened shelters for the homeless.
Blessed Solanus Casey (November 25, 1870 – July 31, 1957) was an Roman Catholic priest and a professed member of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, known during his lifetime as a wonderworker, for his great faith, and for his abilities as a spiritual counselor – but especially, for his great attention to the sick, for whom he celebrated special Masses. He was beatified in November, 2017. His center was built in 2002.
