Spotlight Exhibit — Path to Sainthood: Brother Columba O’Neill
102 Hesburgh Library, Rare Books & Special Collections
The Congregation of Holy Cross, Midwest Province Archives, holds a large collection relating to Brother Columba O’Neill, C.S.C. (1848-1923), dating from 1895 to 1997. This includes thousands of letters written to Brother Columba, who was known as the Miracle Man of Notre Dame and the Divine Healer.
John O’Neill was born in Mackeysburg, Pennsylvania in 1848 and entered the Congregation of Holy Cross in 1874. For the next 42 years, he labored in the humble capacity of a cobbler, repairing shoes and fabricating special shoes for people with foot and ankle problems.
Brother Columba had a remarkable devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and a greater love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Around 1900, he began making Sacred Heart badges (30,000 of them). Many were given to students when they came to pick up their shoes. He told them to pray a novena, say five times a day, for nine days (or more, if not cured), “Sacred Heart of Jesus cure me!”
As early as 1907, reports of many “miracles” wrought through the prayers of Br. Columba began arriving at Notre Dame. For years after his death in 1923, letters from South Bend and all over the world continued to arrive at Notre Dame. Of more than 10,000 letters in the collection, hundreds thank Brother Columba for cures, from chronic headaches to blindness. For 30 years after his death, people came daily to visit his grave on the Notre Dame campus.
Brother Columba died on November 20, 1923, in the Community House — now Columba Hall — from complications related to the Spanish flu. Br. Isidore Alderton wrote, “News of his death soon spread to the people of South Bend, and dozens of members of the community, sisters and strangers were lining up to pass before his casket. For the past two days and nights the parlor in the Community House has become a veritable shrine.”
Items on display in the spotlight exhibit are on loan from the Archives of the Congregation of the Holy Cross.
This exhibit is co-curated by Brother Philip Smith, C.S.C., Archivist, Midwest Province, Congregation of Holy Cross, and Aedín Clements, Irish Studies Librarian. This and other exhibits within the Hesburgh Libraries are generously supported by the McBrien Special Collections Endowment.
All exhibits are free and open to the public during business hours.
