The end of this period of his humiliations, which was not far from the end of his noviceship, is thus described: "One day after Communion I was making my half-hour thanksgiving in my room, when Père Othmann came in and examined me about my form of prayer. Oh! it was just then that I had reached the passive state of prayer:Idid nothing,Anotherdid everything in my prayer. From that time, having put me down in the gutter, the novice-master raised me up to the pinnacle, whereas I should have been in neither place." On another occasion he told how the change of prayer had happened: "I was on my knees one day after Communion, making a regular thanksgiving, when suddenly God stopped me, and I was told not to pray that way any more. Question: How were you told—what words were spoken to you? Answer: Cease your activity. I have no need of your words when I possess your will. 'Tis I, not you, who should act. My action in you is more important than your thanks. I cease to act when you begin, and begin to act when you cease. Be still—tranquil— listen—suffer me to act. Abandon yourself to me, and I will take care of you."
When in Rome, in the winter of 1857-8, he was compelled by circumstances, which will be told in their place, to make a written summary of his spiritual experience. In it he says: "My novitiate was one of sore trials, for the master of novices seemed not to understand me, and the manifestation of my interior to him was a source of the greatest pain. After about nine or ten months he appeared to recognize the hand of God in my direction in a special manner, conceived a great esteem (for me), and placed unusual confidence in me, and allowed me without asking it, though greatly desired, daily Communion. During my whole novitiate no amount of austerity could appease my desire for mortification, and several gifts in the way of prayer were bestowed on me."
On March 6, 1886, while in a state of almost utter physical prostration, he communicated to the writer the following: "Forty years ago, in my novitiate, God told me that I was to suffer in every fibre of my being." "Perhaps," was remarked, "you have not suffered all yet." Answer: "Perhaps not, but God has kept His promise in every limb, member, and function of my body." It may become necessary to refer again to these interior experiences. We leave them with the remark that his novitiate was characterized by a continuance of Divine interferences similar to those which had occurred at intervals from the time he was driven from home and business to seek the fulfilment of his aspirations.
The following is the record of a brave soul's failure to become a Redemptorist. It is given in a letter dated September 14, 1846: "Brother McMaster, who returns to the U.S., gives me the opportunity of writing a few lines to you," etc. It was a profound disappointment for Mr. McMaster to be obliged to return home a layman, and it shocked his companions. It is a little singular that Father Othmann told him that his vocation was not to be a religious, but an editor. He carried with him Brother Hecker's messages of affection to his friends and relatives, and rosaries of Isaac's own making for his mother and his brother George.
Writing to the latter, on August 26, 1846, after some tender and affectionate words, he says: "I have now nearly eight weeks until the time of taking the vows. Oh that it were but eight minutes, nay, eight seconds, when I shall be permitted, with the favor and grace of God, to consecrate my whole being and life to His sole service! Millions of worlds put on top of one another could not purchase from me my vocation. We make fifteen days' retreat before we take the vows. You must recommend me very particularly to the Rt. Rev. Bishop McCloskey; tell him the time of my taking the vows (Feast of St. Teresa, October 15), and give him my humble request to remember me at that time in his prayers."
On the feast of St. Teresa, October 15, 1846, therefore, the two American novices took their vows, and became members of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer. On the very morning of that event, at half-past eight, Brother Hecker wrote a letter to his mother, in which he goes over all of his trials and experiences in following the Divine guidance since he first quitted business. He breathes intense affection in every word, and writes in a solemn mood. We would give the letter to the reader entire, but that he has already learned what it narrates. It ends thus: "Dear mother, in half an hour I go to the chapel to consecrate my whole being for ever to God and His service. What peace, what happiness this gives me! To live alone for His love, and to love all for His love, in His love, and with His love!"
After the ceremony was over he wrote as follows to his brother John:
"DEAR BROTHER JOHN: This day, with the special grace of God, I have taken the holy vows of the Catholic religion, which are obedience, poverty, chastity, and final perseverance. These vows bind me to the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer for my natural life, and the Congregation in the same manner to me. Thanks to God for His kind Providence. My vocation is once for all, for ever settled, firmly fixed. During the year and more of my novitiate I have not had any temptation against my vocation, nor any desire on my part to return to the world.
"As you were not certain whether I would return after the novitiate or not, I suppose you left my name in connection with yours and brother George's in the firm. But now that this (separation) is certain, would it not be best for you to destroy that agreement we made with each other some time ago, that no future difficulty can or may arise? All this I leave to your judgments; and as for me, dear brothers John and George, in respect to the business, you may regard me as though I had never been connected with it, nor had any title or claim upon it whatever. I am simply your dear brother Isaac, who loves you from the depth of his heart. This love, be assured, will never be diminished by any event; whatever happens will only give me new motives to love you the more. My conduct is under your inspection, yours especially, dear John, as being the eldest of us three, and I trust your sincere love for me will not let any word or action of mine pass unnoticed which may be the least unpleasant to you.
"My love, my gratitude, and my prayers to and for you all. Remember me to all my friends.
"Your brother, ISAAC.
"St. Trond, October 15, 1846.
"I have forgotten to say that if you have not already made use of the things that I left, such as clothing, you should do so."
In bidding adieu to the novitiate we think Father Hecker's last meeting with his old novice-master, as we find it recorded in the memoranda, will be of interest: "Père Othmann was one of my best friends. Shortly before he died I happened to be in France (this was after leaving the Redemptorists), and I heard that he was extremely ill at the Redemptorist house at Nancy. I wrote to him that if he wished I would call and see him. He answered me at once, begging me to come immediately, as he desired above all things to see me before he died. So I made a journey to Nancy, and we had some hours of pleasant conference together, and I bade him farewell."
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THE day after the taking of the vows, Brothers Hecker and Walworth started by stage-coach for the house of studies, at Wittem in Dutch Limburg. The route lay nearly east through a country pleasant on account of the fertility of its soil and the industry of its inhabitants, and interesting from its churches, monasteries, and curious old villages. The travellers crossed the Meuse at Maestricht and reached their destination before nightfall. Wittem is a small town, thirty miles east of St. Trond and about ten west of Aix-la-chapelle. This part of Holland is entirely Catholic, and its people possess a fervor which has sent missionaries to the ends of the earth. Everywhere shrines were to be seen by the roadsides. The country is not so level as that west of the Meuse, and the Redemptorist students often made excursions among the hills, our young Americans admiring the shepherds guarding their flocks, with their crooks and their dogs.
The house of studies was an old Capuchin monastery, large and plain and very interesting. The friars had buried their dead under the ground floor, which enabled the students to dig up an abundant supply of skulls asmemento moristill the rector forbade it. The students were more numerous at Wittem than the novices had been at St. Trond. They were mostly Dutchmen, with a sprinkling of Belgians and a few Germans; but the language of the house was French or Latin. We have not been able to make quite sure of the name of the Rector; possibly it was Father Heilig, who certainly was there at this time, either in charge of the house or as one of the professors. The Master of Studies was Father L'hoir, who soon became one of Brother Hecker's dearest friends.
The two Americans found their fellow-students men of fine character and every way lovable, being earnest and devoted religious. They admired their thorough proficiency in all classical and literary studies, the result of old-world method and application. Mentally and physically they were splendid men. The whole race of Flemings and Dutch was found by our young recruits to be a grave and powerful people, although exceptional cases of mercurial temperament were not rare. Some curious individuals were to be found among them, as is more the case in European nationalities in general than in our own. Both Americans were much liked and respected by all their new-found brethren, though Brother Hecker, for reasons soon to be told, was sometimes ridiculed in a way that distressed him. Brother Walworth, having studied much before entering the order, was placed at once in the theological department and Brother Hecker in the philosophical. The former was even dispensed from one year of his theology, taking but two years of the three which formed the full course. The difference of studies separated the two companions almost wholly from each other, members of the two departments not being allowed even to speak together except on extraordinary occasions.
All went smoothly with Brother Walworth. Not so with Brother Hecker, who was expected to make two years of philosophy and meantime to increase his stock of Latin. But his faculties had been subjected to spiritual experiences of so absorbing a nature that he found study impossible. And when Brother Walworth was in due course ordained priest, in August, 1848, his companion was stuck fast where he had begun. It need not be said that so earnest a soul made every effort to study, but all was in vain. In the statement made in Rome ten years later, and referred to before, we find the following:
"My wish was to make a thorough course (of studies) and begin with philosophy. This the superior granted. My intellect in all scientific (scholastic) matters seemed stupid, it was with great difficulty that its attention could be kept on them for a few moments, and my memory retained of these things nothing. At the close of the first year (at Wittem) all ability to pursue my studies had altogether departed. This state of things perplexed my superiors, and on being asked what they could do with me, my answer was, 'One of three things: make me a lay brother; send me to a contemplative order which does not require scientific (scholastic) studies; or allow me to pursue, at my free moments, my studies by myself.' Instead of either of these they gave me charge of the sick, which was my sole (regular) occupation for the whole year following. During this year my stupidity augmented and reduced me to a state next to folly, and it was my delight to be treated as a fool. One day, when my fellow-students were treating me as such, and throwing earth at me, an ancient father, venerated for his gifts and virtues, suddenly turned around to them and with emotion exclaimed, 'You treat him as a fool and despise him; the day will come when you will think it an honor to kiss his hand.' At the expiration of the second year (at Wittem) the question came up again, what was to be done with me. My superior put this question to me, and demanded of me under obedience to tell him in writing how, in my belief, God intended to employ me in the future. Though the answer to this question was no secret to me, yet to express it while in a condition of such utter helplessness required me to make an act of great mortification. There was no escape, and my reply was as follows: It seemed to me in looking back at my career before becoming a Catholic that Divine Providence had led me, as it were by the hand, through the different ways of error and made me personally acquainted with the different classes of persons and their wants, of which the people of the United States is composed, in order that after having made known to me the truth, He might employ me the better to point out to them the way to His Church. That, therefore, my vocation was to labor for the conversion of my non-Catholic fellow-countrymen. This work, it seemed to me at first, was to be accomplished by means of acquired science, but now it had been made plain that God would have it done principally by the aid of His grace, and if (I were) left to study at such moments as my mind was free, it would not take a long time for me to acquire sufficient knowledge to be ordained a priest. This plan was adopted."
A more explicit statement of the supernatural influences by means of which God informed him of his mission was made in after years to various persons, singly and in common. It was to the effect that the Holy Spirit gave him a distinct and unmistakable intimation that he was set apart to undertake, in some leading and conspicuous way, the conversion of this country. That this intimation came to him while he was at Wittem is also certain; but it is equally so that he had premonitions of it during the novitiate. It was the incongruity of such a persuasion being united to a helpless inactivity of mind in matters of study that made Isaac Hecker a puzzle to his very self, to say nothing of those who had to decide his place in the order. Father Othmann, in bidding him farewell at St. Trond, had told him to become"un saint fou,"a holy fool; a direction based upon his excessive abstraction of mind towards mystical things, and his consequent incapacity for mental effort in ordinary affairs. Once, at least, during those two eventful years at Wittem, Father Othmann visited the place, and when he saw Brother Hecker he embraced him and exclaimed, "O here is the spouse of the Canticles!" His farewell injunction on parting at St. Trond had been perforce complied with.
It must have taken more than ordinary penetration to perceive anything but a kind of grandiose folly in Brother Hecker. The impulse to talk about the conversion of America, to plan it and advocate it, to proclaim it possible and prove it so, and to philosophize on the profoundest questions of the human reason, was irrepressible. This he did with an air of matured conviction and with the impact of conscious moral authority, but in terms as strikingly eccentric as the thoughts were lofty and inspiring, and in execrable French, the declaimer being known asminus habensin his studies and utterly incapable. All this was the very make-up of folly; and Brother Hecker was no doubt thought a fool. But how holy a fool he was his superiors soon discovered. We find the following among the memoranda:
"Père L'hoir was my superior in the studentate. He was a holy man and a good friend, but he was surprised at my state of prayer. He asked me how it could happen that I, a convert of only a few years, should have a state of prayer he had not attained though in the Church all his life and striving for perfection. I told him that it was God's will to set apart some men for a certain work and specially prepare them for it, and cause them, as He had me, to be brought under the influence of special Divine graces from boyhood. L'hoir then began to send anybody with difficulties to me, and God gave me grace to settle them. Then murmurs arose that he was too much under my influence, and he was removed from his position over the studies. But afterwards they replaced him; he was very efficient in his place."
The confidence of his superiors in Brother Hecker was shown by their causing him to receive tonsure and minor orders at the end of his first year at Wittem, though he had made no progress whatever in his studies.
The following notes are found in the memoranda:
"The time in my whole life when I felt I had gained the greatest victory by self-exertion was when, after weeks of labor, I was able to recite thePater Nosterin Latin.
"My memory finally failed me in my studies to that degree that at last I took all my books up-stairs to the library and told the prefect of studies I could do no more to acquire knowledge by study.
"Question.How long were you unable to study?Answer.Two years in Holland and one year in England. I never went to class those years. I was a kind of a scandal, of course, in the house. When I got a lucid interval of memory I studied, though much of the time I hadn't a book in my room. Yet, when they came to ordain me, I knew enough and was sent at once to the work of the ministry."
That his stupidity was not blameworthy is shown by the sympathy of Isaac's superiors; that it was not natural is known to our readers by their acquaintance with his native ability exhibited in his journals and letters. The difficulty was confined almost wholly to study; to fix his attention on the matter in the text-books, or to grasp it and hold it in memory, was beyond his power. Meantime his letters to his friends in New York and elsewhere were full of life. He kept a copy of a carefully written one, addressed to an old-time friend of the Brook Farm community. It is a model of brief statement of great truths, and proves that the social difficulty can only be fully remedied by the Catholic Church, which has an elevating force incomparably more powerful than any other known to humanity. The method used and the choice of arguments are peculiarly Isaac Hecker's own, and the tone, though affectionate, is one of authority, as that of an exponent of evident truth. His letters to his mother and his brothers are full of controversy, abounding in appeals to Scripture, to the voice of conscience, to the dictates of reason; and although the tone is one of deep affection, the attacks on Protestantism are keen, and the use of facts and persons as illustrations full of intelligence. Most of the letters which we have found were addressed to his mother, for whose conversion he had an ardent longing. With one of them he sends her a little manuscript treatise on true Bible Christianity which he had himself prepared. We give the reader extracts from two letters, the first from one to his brother John and the second from one to his mother:
"Your lamentation, dear John, on my separation from you, excites in me a great astonishment. To justify this separation it seems to me that you have only to open a page of the Gospels of Christ, and to read it with a sincere belief in the words and a generous love of the Saviour. As for me, I regret nothing so much as that I have not a thousand lives to sacrifice to His service and love. Yes, I love you all more than I ever did, and I would count nothing as a cost for your present and eternal good. Yet, by the grace of God, I love my Saviour infinitely, infinitely, infinitely more. Alas! when will those who profess to be Christians learn the significance of Christ's Gospels and His blessed example. I am not ignorant nor insensible of the love we owe to our parents and relatives—no, I am not insensible of this love; but in me it is all in Christ, as I would wish yours were. . . . I embrace you, dear brother, in the love of our crucified Lord."
"DEAR MOTHER: There have been times when, considering the wickedness of the world, sensible of its miseries and my own, and at the same time beholding obscurely and as it were tasting the things of heaven, I have longed and wished to be separated from the body. But when coming back to myself, and thinking that with the aid of grace I can still increase in God's love and hence love Him still more in consequence for all eternity, I feel willing to love and suffer until the last day, if by this I should acquire but one drop more of Divine love in my heart. And so it is, as St. Paul declares, that we should count the trials here as nothing compared with the glory that awaits us. Now, all these considerations, dear mother, join together to increase my desire to see you in the communion of the Holy Catholic Church, to which God has singularly given so many means of growing in grace," etc., etc.
Notwithstanding these marks of active intelligence, Brother Hecker could not study, except by fits and starts. Often he could not get through the common prayers, and in ordinary conversation his tongue would sometimes be tangled among the words of a sentence before he was half through with it. The reader has already learned that the penalties of utter stupidity were not unknown to the unwritten law of the Wittem studentate, notwithstanding that the young men were devout religious; and hence Brother Hecker must have had many hours of anguish. But we cannot suppose that his native cheerfulness was quite suppressed. His dulness of mind was accompanied, or rather was the result of, the close embraces of Divine love. It was the bitter part of that intimate communion with God which is granted to chosen souls. No doubt he was profoundly humiliated by the disgrace involved in his failure to study, but he was willing to suffer that external degradation which was the complement of and the means of emphasizing, the teaching of the Holy Spirit in his interior, as well as the means of purifying his soul more and more perfectly. In after years he related an instance of his lightness of heart, a natural quality which he shared with his companion, Brother Walworth. The bishop of some neighboring diocese, Aix-la-chapelle, if we remember rightly, happening to visit the house at Wittem, was told of the two American students. He conversed with them in the recreation, the language being French. Then he said: "I know how to read English, but I have never heard it spoken; can you not speak a little piece for me?" "Certainly," was the answer. After a moment's consultation the two young men in all seriousness recited together "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers," etc. No wonder that the prelate was astonished at the peculiar sound of English. Then he asked them for a song. "Oh of course," was the answer, and they sang in unison "The Carrion Crow," with full chorus and imitations.
Besides taking care of the sick, for which he was admirably fitted by nature, Brother Hecker made himself generally useful about the house. He spent much time working among the brothers in the kitchen, and the writer has heard him say that for nearly the whole of his stay in Wittem he baked the bread of the entire community. He also carried in the fuel for the house, using a crate or hod hoisted on his back.
In August, 1848, Brother Walworth was ordained priest, and it was decided that he and Brother Hecker, together with two young Belgian priests, Fathers Teunis and Lefevre, should proceed to England, the Redemptorists having been recently introduced there. As the cassock is not worn in the streets in England they were sent from Wittem to Liège and there equipped with clerical suits, the tailor being cautioned not to be too ecclesiastical in the cut of the garments. He produced a ridiculous compromise between a fashionable frock-coat and a cassock, the waist being high and tight and the tails full and flowing, and flopping about the young clerics' heels. As they journeyed from Liège to Amsterdam, and thence to London, people stopped and stared at them in their stylish array, and some laughed at them. In this instance Brother Hecker's chagrin was not overcome by his sense of the ludicrous, for he was naturally very sensitive of personal unbecomingness, and although not precisely a martinet for clerical exactness, he had strict notions of propriety.
The new Redemptorist foundation was at Clapham, three miles south of London Bridge. The house was a large, old-fashioned mansion and had been owned by Lord Teignmouth, a notorious anti-Catholic bigot. Some of the larger rooms had been thrown together into one, and this was used temporarily as a public chapel. Just as the young Redemptorists arrived, Father Petcherine was preaching to the congregation. He was a Russian convert, and the new-comers were astonished at his good English and his eloquence. He was one of the many extraordinary men who adorned the order at that time. He was master not only of his native tongue, but of English, German, Italian, French, and modern Greek, and could preach well in all of these languages. Clapham was reached on September 23, 1848, and shortly afterwards Father Walworth was sent to do missionary as well as parish work in Worcestershire, and remained there the greater part of the two years which were spent by our Americans in England.
From Clapham Brother Hecker wrote, on September 27, 1848:
"I am at present, dear mother, in a newly-established house in the city of London, having come here by order of my superiors to continue and finish my studies. Bodily I am nearer to you than I was, and naturally speaking I am much more at home here than I was on the Continent. But this is of little or no moment, for a good religious should find his home where he can best execute the will of his Divine Master. And would you not, dear mother, rather see me in China than in the United States if, by being there, I should be more agreeable to our Blessed Saviour, who left the house of His Father to save us poor abandoned sinners upon the earth? Our house here is situated somewhat out of the dense and busy part of the city, at Clapham; a fine garden is attached to it, and even in a worldly view I could not desire it to be more agreeable. And did not our Lord promise to give those who would leave all to follow Him, 'a hundred fold more in this world and life everlasting in the world to come'? Alas! how many profess to believe in the Bible and have no faith in the words which our Lord spoke," etc., etc.
The difficulties of Wittem were not abated at Clapham; rather they were aggravated by Brother Hecker having to deal with new superiors. "I remember seeing Hecker at Clapham, looking hopelessly into his moral theology," said Father Walworth to the writer. Father Frederick de Held, whom we left in Baltimore, had returned to Europe, being Provincial of the Belgian Province, which at that time included the English as well as the American missions. It must have seemed strange to him that Brother Hecker had been sent to England; he had no house of studies to put him into and could give him no regular course of instruction. We cannot even surmise what word was sent to Father de Held about this curious young man, whom early one summer's morning three years before he had seen flitting into Baltimore and out of it, taking with him the Provincial's leave to enter the novitiate. Perhaps the case had been sent to him because it was too perplexing for any authority less than his to settle. At any rate, it placed him in an awkward position, to decide the case of this lone applicant for orders, who had made no studies and could make none, and yet who was of so marked a character, so full of life, so zealous, working willingly about the church, eagerly working in the kitchen, talking deep philosophy and forming plans for the conversion of nations. His case was peculiar. The difficulty was not confined to the question of divinity studies. Brother Hecker's general education was scant, and his English [sic] was still faulty. And yet he was silently asking ordination in a preaching order, for which a thorough education is a prerequisite. Father de Held, therefore, is not to be condemned for his harshness as wanting in sympathy or in judgment of character. Gold is tried by fire, and fire is an active agent and a painful one. But Brother Hecker soon found both solace and assistance in a new friend.
We quote from the memoranda:
"Father de Held was superior at Clapham and for a year he treated me as Henry Suso says a dog treats a rag—he took me in his teeth and shook me. At last I went to him and begged him to settle my case one way or the other: ordain me, or make a lay brother of me, or take off my habit and dismiss me to another order; though I told him that would be like taking off my skin. Father de Buggenoms then went my surety. He had been my confessor at Clapham and was then absent. But he wrote to De Held that he would guarantee my conduct if ordained. De Held then changed and became my fast and constant friend."
This is the first mention we find of Father de Buggenoms. Father Hecker ever venerated him and cherished his memory as that of a saintly friend and benefactor.
On another occasion we find a fuller account of the same events:
"Only for Father de Buggenoms I should not have been ordained at all."
"Who was De Buggenoms?"
"A Belgian, and my confessor while I was at Clapham. I was there, not ordained, nor yet making my studies. I had been forced to give them up; I could not go on with them. De Held did not know what to make of me, and he treated me harshly and cruelly. Finally I went to him and told him my thoughts; I said I was absolutely certain I had a religious vocation; that he might compel me to take of the habit, but it would be like taking off my skin; and so on. After that interview De Held changed toward me and was ever after my warm friend. He was a very prominent member of the Congregation. You know he came within a few votes of being Rector-major. He was very warm in his sympathy with us during our trouble in Rome. Well, Heilig, a German, was about coming over to England as superior. He had been my director for two years. Before he came he wrote me a letter that gave me indescribable pain. He wrote that I must change—that I was all wrong, and so on. I answered that it was too late to change; that he had been my director for two years, knew me well, and had been cognizant of my state. If he wanted me changed he must do it for me, for I did not see how to do it for myself. When he came, De Buggenoms told him to have me ordained, set me to work at anything, and he (De Buggenoms) would be responsible for me in every respect. Heilig complied. I asked him afterwards why he wrote that letter. 'Because,' said he, 'I thought you needed to be tried some more.' 'Why,' said I, 'I have had nothing but trial ever since I came.'"
From this it would seem that the case was finally settled by Father Heilig after Father de Held's departure for the Continent, which took place, as well as we can discover, some time in the summer of 1849. Father Heilig's letter, written from Liège, is before us; it is dated the 24th of March, 1849. It is a complete arraignment of Isaac Hecker's spiritual condition. It is gentle, considerate, choice of terms, but condenses all that could be said to show that his young friend had been deluded by a visionary temperament, applying to himself what he had read in mystical treatises and the lives of the saints. The letter was indeed a deadly blow. Father Heilig had been Brother Hecker's confessor for two years at Wittem, and had at least tacitly approved his spirit; and now came his condemnation. No wonder that Isaac was profoundly distressed by it. Yet his conviction of the validity of his inner life was not shaken for an instant. Nor was the trial of long duration. We have found a letter from Father Heilig dated two months later than the one we have been considering, and it is full of messages of reassurance and encouragement. The intervention of De Buggenoms completed the work. It is possible that Father Heilig had not simply a desire to test Brother Hecker's humility, but, by studying the effect of the trial imposed, to remove doubts still lingering in his own mind. Some words in both the letters referred to lead us to this inference.
Father L'hoir had not forgotten his young friend, who received a letter from him a couple of months after leaving Wittem, which breathes in every word the tenderest utterance of friendship; and a year after, another one similarly affectionate, congratulating him on his ordination. This Father L'hoir must have been a noble soul to write so lovingly; we wish that space permitted us to give his letters to the reader.
Amongst the papers left by Father Hecker we found one carefully preserved, bearing date at St. Mary's, Clapham, the feast of St. Raphael (Oct. 24) 1848, a month after his arrival there. It is a manuscript of thirty-nine closely-written pages of letter-paper. It is an account of conscience made, no doubt, to Father de Held, though its preparation may have occupied some of his time before leaving Wittem. We will make some extracts. It begins thus:
"Before commencing what is to follow, I cannot resist making the confession of my feebleness and incapacity to express even conveniently those things which I feel it my duty to relate, that I may walk with greater security and quicker step in the way of God. It would not surprise me if one who has not taken the pains to investigate this matter sufficiently should doubt indeed whether such singular graces, seeing the faults I daily commit and my many imperfections, had really been given to such an individual. A similar remark to this was made by my last director. But this is a cause of much joy and consolation to me; (that is to say) that my interior life is hid and unknown to others except those who direct me. All that I can adduce in behalf of its truth and credibility are these words of sacred Scripture: Spiritus ubi vult spirat (the Spirit breatheth where He will); and, ubi autem abundavit delictum, superabundavit gratia (but where sin abounded there did grace more abound.)
. . . . . . . .
"At that time (towards the end of the novitiate) I felt a special attraction and devotion toward Our Blessed Lord in the Holy Sacrament and an almost irresistible desire of receiving the blessed Communion of Divine love. This desire so far from having abated has greatly increased, so that I have a constant hunger and thirst for Our Lord in the sacrament of His body and blood. If it were possible I would desire to receive no other food than this, for it is the only nourishment that I have a real appetite for. I cannot consider it other than the source and substance of my whole spiritual and interior life. The day on which I have been deprived of it I have experienced a debility and want of both material and spiritual life like one who is nearly famished. The doctrine of the real presence of our Lord seems to be with me a matter of conviction arising more from actual experience than from faith. At times, when I would make my visit, I am seized with such a violent love towards the Blessed Sacrament that I am forced to break off immediately, being unable to support the attraction of the Spouse, the Beloved, the Only One of my soul. For some time back, wherever I may be, or on whatever side I turn, I seem to feel the presence of Our Lord in the Sacrament in the tabernacle. It seems as though I were in the same sphere as our Lord in the sacrament, where there appears no time nor space, yet both are.
. . . . . . . .
"At times, especially during the great retreat before making the vows, I was as it were inebriated with love, so that I scarcely knew what I said or did.
. . . . . . . .
"This was the stage of my interior life on entering the house of studies at Wittem, October, 1846. Here the principal acts in all my spiritual exercises were those of resignation and conformity to the will of God, an entire fidelity to the inspirations and attractions of the Holy Spirit, and a total abandonment of myself to the conduct of Divine Providence. God seemed always engaged in my soul by means of His grace in repressing my own activity. The end of my proper activity, I said to myself, is its destruction. God commands a total and entire abandonment of the soul to Him in order that He may with his grace destroy and annihilate all that He finds in it against His designs and will. God at times seemed to demand of me a frightful and heroic abandonment of my soul to His good pleasure. God alone knows how to exercise the soul in virtue, and the Holy Spirit is its only true master in the spiritual life. Not only did the spirit of God excite and elicit in me voluntary acts of self-abandonment, but often my soul was as if stripped of all support, and placed, as it were, over a dark and unfathomable abyss, and thus I was made to see that my only hope was to give myself up wholly to Him. The words of Job well express this purgation of the soul when he says: 'The arrows of the Lord are in me, the rage whereof drinketh up my spirit, and the terrors of the Lord war against me.' (Here follow other quotations from the book of Job.) Sometimes these pains penetrate into the remotest and most secret chambers of the soul. The faculties are in such an intensive purgation that from the excessive pain which this subtile and purifying fire causes they are suspended from their ordinary activity, and the soul, incapable of receiving any relief or escaping from its suffering, has nothing left but to resign itself to the will and good pleasure of God. Though enveloped with an unseen but no less real fire, suffering in every part, limb, and fibre from indescribable pains, fixed like one who should be forced to look the sun constantly in the face at midday, she is nevertheless content, for she has a secret consciousness that God is the cause of all her sufferings, and not only content—she would suffer still more for His love."
[Here follows an account of the mortifications to which this interior pressure drove him, shortening of sleep, wearing hair-shirts, severe discipline, abstinence and fasting, and the like.]
. . . . . . . .
"There were no penances that I have read of that seemed to me impossible. The vilest habits and other things that I was allowed to wear and to use gave me the greatest pleasure. The thought of not having wherewith to cover my nakedness, to be contemned, ridiculed, and spit upon, gave me an extreme joy. My delight consisted in wanting that which is considered necessary . . . all this I did not only do without reluctance, difficulty, and pain, but with great pleasure, ease, and joy. They seemed as nothing, and I was as though I had scarcely need of a body in order to live, or, in other words, it seemed that I lived for the most part independent of the body.
"It was about this period that God gave me the grace which I had long desired and sighed after: to be able to act and suffer without the idea of any recompense. I call it a gift, for although I had so long wished and demanded of God the power to act and to love Him disinterestedly, still I was unable to do so. I felt myself a slave and hireling in the service of God, and this mortified me and made me much ashamed of myself. But when this grace was given, which happened unexpectedly, I could not forbear going immediately to my director to express my joy of the favor I had received, and the freedom and magnanimity of soul which it inspired me with. I do not mean to say that the soul has no idea of any recompense, for she has it tacitly, but this is not her formal intention in her actions; for she is to such a degree animated to act for the good pleasure and sole glory of God, that she quasi forgets all else. . . .
"Sometimes I have felt singularly present and in intimate communion with certain of the saints, such as St. Francis of Assisi, St. Bonaventure, St. Thomas, St. Peter of Alcantara, our holy father Alphonsus, etc. During this time—and sometimes it is for many days—the life, the virtues, the spirit with which the saint acted occupies almost exclusively my mind. I seem to feel their presence much more intimately and really than that of those who are around me. I understand and comprehend them better, and experience a more salutary influence from them than perhaps I would have done had I lived and been with them in their time. . . . Twice I remember having experienced in this manner the presence of Our Blessed Lord. While this lasted I felt myself altogether another person. His heroic virtues, His greatness, tenderness, and love seemed to inspire me with such a desire to follow Him and imitate His example that I lost sight of all things else. His presence excited in me a greater love and esteem for the Christian virtues than I could have acquired otherwise in years and years. . . .
"About the commencement of the second year of studies, during some weeks my faculties were drawn and concentrated to such a degree towards the centre of my soul that I was as one bereft of his exterior senses and activity. Before the vacation I had desired to pass that time in solitude and retreat, but it was not allowed."
We have omitted much of this singular document, including detailed accounts of supernatural occurrences, and also quotations from the works of Görres, St. Teresa, St. John of the Cross, St. Bonaventure, Father Rigoleu, Richard of St. Victor, Scaramelli'sDirectorium Mysticum,and other mystical writings. These references he had collected to certify to the reality of his experience.
Throughout all these three years of trial he had employed what he calls his "lucid intervals" of mental power in studying in his own way, God aiding him inHisown way to the destined end, as He had hindered him from choosing any other way. These intervals seemed so slight in his memory that the reader has seen his statement that he had not studied at all. When he had been a year at Clapham he was found, on examination, to be well enough prepared, as he had promised he would be. Having been ordained sub-deacon and deacon at old Hall College, by Bishop Wiseman, he was ordained priest by the same prelate in his private chapel in London. The event took place on the 23d of October, 1849, the feast of the Most Holy Redeemer. Father Hecker said his first Mass the following day at Clapham, that being the feast of St. Raphael the Archangel: one year from the date of his account of conscience written out and given to his superiors.
The following is from a letter to his mother announcing his ordination:
"DEAR MOTHER: You have been doubly blessed by Almighty God within the past few weeks. Your youngest son has been ordained priest in God's one, holy, Catholic Church, and prays for you daily when he offers up to God the precious body and blood of His beloved Son, our Lord; and besides you have received, by the marriage of another of your sons [George], a new daughter, who, being also a child of the Holy Church, must be kind, dutiful, pious, fearing God, and loving above all things our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Are not these, dear mother, blessings? Do they not convey to your heart joy and consolation? They ought and surely do. Your latter days dear mother, will be your happiest."
The remainder of the letter is filled with exhortations to enter theChurch, and arguments drawn from Scripture.
We may mention a letter written to Father Hecker by Father Heilig on the eve of the former's departure for America; a message full of affectionate good wishes and claims of friendship and union in prayer with the singular young pilgrim from the Western World.
The following extracts from the memoranda may be of interest as embodying Father Hecker's views of how to study divinity, resulting from his own experience in preparing for the priesthood:
"March, 1884.—I told Father Hecker, in course of conversation, about my reading the life of the Curé of Ars. He said: 'A saintly man indeed, and one gifted with a supernatural character to an extraordinary degree. But it seems to me that his biographer misunderstood him somewhat. He seems to admit that the Curé of Ars had a naturally stupid mind, because he had so much difficulty in getting through his studies for the priesthood. The truth, probably, was that just at that time the supernatural action of the Holy Spirit came upon him and incapacitated him for his studies. But everything about his after life shows that, though a rustic man, he had a good mind, a keen native wit, quick and clear perception. I had something the same difficulty myself.
"During my novitiate and studies one of my great troubles was the relation between infused knowledge and acquired knowledge; how much one's education should be by prayer and how much by study; the relation between the Holy Ghost and professors.
"In the novitiate they were all too much on the passive side— unbroken devotional and ascetic routine. In the studentate, too much on the active side—leaving nothing for infused science and prayer as a part of the method of study. They soon broke me down. I told them so. If I went on studying I would have been driven mad. Let me alone, I said. Let me take my own way and I will warrant that I will know enough to be ordained when the time comes. They said I was a scandal. Then they sent me to England to De Held. I am persuaded that in the study of divinity not enough room is given to prayer and not enough account made of infused science."
________________________
"I WOULD not have become a priest had I lived in Europe, for I never had or could have any strong attrait for sacerdotal functions. But I felt that the Church in America was in need of all the help that could be given by her children for the work of the priesthood." Father Hecker said this when near his end, and a full knowledge of his character bore him out in it. The sacerdotal, the ecclesiastical, were qualities which he had assumed with full consciousness of their sanctity, yet they united with his other characteristics in a way to leave traces of the point of contact. He was certainly an edifying priest, and to hear his Mass was to be spiritually elevated by his joyous fervor. But you would never say of him "he is a thorough ecclesiastic, he is a typical priest." The external aids of religion he imparted with a reverence which displayed his faith in his priestly character as a dispenser of the sacramental mysteries of God. But the other mysteries of God which are hidden in his providential guidance of men, he could expound with the instinctive familiarity of a native gift; the voice of God in nature, in reason, and in conscience, and its response in revelation, he could elicit with a power and unction rarely met with. He has left the following words on record: "After my ordination the duties of the sacred ministry appeared to me most natural; the hearing of confessions and the direction of souls was as if it had been a thing practised from my childhood, and was a source of great consolation."
The year spent in England after ordination was occupied by Father Hecker mainly in parochial duties at Clapham and some neighboring stations attended by the Redemptorists of that house. Father Walworth enjoyed some missionary experience with Fathers Pecherine and Buggenoms, but Father Hecker had only been at one or two small retreats—one at Scott-Murray's estate in company with Father Ludwig and another at that of Weld-Blundells in Lancashire; but in neither of these had he preached or given any instructions, serving only in the confessional and in hunting up obstinate sinners. He certainly did preach once before leaving England, perhaps only once, and that was at Great Marlowe, near London, in the church built by the Hornihold family. It was on Easter Sunday, 1850, and was well remembered by Father Hecker and referred to in after years. He thought the sermon a good one as a beginning, but it seems to have given him no encouragement, and we venture to think that if it profited his hearers somewhat it also amused them a little. He needed a teacher, and he found one in Father Bernard, the newly appointed provincial of the American province.
In 1850 Father Bernard Joseph Hafkenscheid* was made Provincial of the Redemptorist houses in America. His patronymic was too formidable for ordinary use, and he was universally known as Father Bernard. He was in the prime of life on taking this office, and although he had spent twenty years on the missions in Holland, his native country, in Belgium and England, he yet showed no signs of these labors; he continued them for fourteen years longer, for the most of the time in the Netherlands, his death resulting from accident in 1865. By common consent he is ranked in the highest order of popular preachers. He had entered the community from the secular priesthood shortly after his ordination; he had made a brilliant course of studies at Rome, which was crowned by the doctorate of the Roman College. He was physically a tall, powerful man, and of majestic bearing. His features were full of intelligence, his glance penetrating, his voice clear, sympathetic, and vibrating, his gestures expressive. If half that is handed down of Father Bernard be true, he was a wonderful preacher of penance and of hope, his high gifts of natural eloquence served by a perfect education and inspired by a most enthusiastic love of the people.
[* The reader is referred to his life by Canon Claessens (CatholicPublication Society Co.) It is all too brief, yet is a good summaryof the career of the great Redemptorist missionary, one of St.Alphonsus' noblest sons.]
He was a popular preacher in the best sense of the term, calm in demeanor and simple in language as he opened, but when at the point of fervor pouring forth his soul in a fiery torrent of oratory, whose only restraint was the inability of the human voice to express all that the heart contained. In style impassioned, he yet often chose language bordering on the familiar, but was not vulgar. He is an instance of the fallacy of the saying that the preacher must stoop to his auditory if he would be popular. Father Bernard was ever true to himself, never appeared less than an educated priest and grave religious, and yet he was a most popular preacher. The great truths of eternal life are a universal heritage, and the use of plain words is not getting down from good style even in the literary sense, and a familiar manner is a trait of affection. We have stopped the reader for this moment with Father Bernard because he was Father Hecker's teacher of mission preaching and instructing, and was ever beloved by him as an appreciative friend and a wise and indulgent preceptor. He had made his first visit to America with Father de Held in 1845, but remained only a few months to acquire information and gain impressions for a report to the Rector Major. He made a second voyage in January, 1849, acting as superior of the American houses, as Vice-provincial, and remained about eighteen months. The United States now forming a separate province and Father Bernard made Provincial, he demanded Fathers Hecker and Walworth as his subjects, and they were given to him.
A letter from Father Hecker announces his departure for New York as fixed for some time in October, 1890; but delays occurred, and the following is an extract from one to his mother, dated January 17, 1851; it says that the departure is fixed for some day the same month:
"Oh! may Almighty God prosper our voyage, and may His sweet and blessed Mother be our guide and protector on the stormy sea. And may my arrival in America be for the good of many souls who are still wandering out of the one flock and away from the one shepherd! I hope that to no one will it be of more consolation and benefit than to you, my dearest mother."
The ship was named theHelvetiaand sailed from Havre the 27th of January, the captain being a genuine down-east Yankee, and the crew a mixed assortment of English and American sailors. Father Bernard's party consisted of Fathers Walworth, Hecker, Landtsheer, Kittell, Dold, and Giesen, and the students Hellemans, Müller, and Wirth, the American fathers having come to Havre from London by way of Dover, Calais, and Paris. The weather was unfavorable during nearly the entire voyage, the ship being driven back into the English Channel and forced to anchor in the Downs. They were beaten about for two weeks before they got fairly upon the Atlantic, and while crossing the Newfoundland banks were in danger from icebergs. Nearly all the party were more or less sea-sick, including Father Hecker. This did not prevent his attempting the conversion of the boatswain, who seemed the only hopeful subject in the ship's company. There were a hundred and thirty steerage passengers, emigrants for the most part from Protestant countries, though a party of Garibaldian refugees and a few equally wild Frenchmen enlivened the monotony of sea-life by some bloody fights. There were but two cabin passengers besides the Redemptorists, and the former being confined to their staterooms by nearly continual sea-sickness, the cabin was turned into a "floating convent," to borrow Father Dold's expression in a long letter descriptive of the voyage, given by Canon Claessens in hisLife of Father Bernard.
The wintry and stormy voyage had already tested the missionaries' patience for some weeks, when Father Bernard informed the captain that he and his companions were going to make a novena to St. Joseph to arrive at New York on or before his feast, March the 19th. "St. Joseph will have to do his very prettiest to get us in," was the answer. And when the ship was still far to the east, being off the banks, and the weather quite unfavorable, and only three days left before the feast, the captain called out: "St. Joseph can't do it—give it up, Father Bernard." But the latter would still persevere; and that night the wind changed. The Yankee ship now flew along at the rate of fourteen miles an hour. When the eve of St. Joseph's Day came they were wrapped in a dense fog, and the captain, dreading the nearness of the coast, hove to. When day dawned the fog lifted, and the ship was found to be off Long Branch, and a wrecked ship was seen on the shore; she had been driven there during the night. The pilot soon came aboard and they sailed through the Narrows and into the harbor of New York, having spent fifty-two days on the ocean. As they approached the city a little tug-boat was seen coming to meet them. It bore George and John Hecker and Mr. McMaster, whose cordial greetings were the first welcome the young Redemptorists heard on their return to the New World. They were soon at their home in the convent in Third Street, and on the sixth of April following the first mission was opened in St. Joseph's Church, Washington Place, New York.
Here is Dr. Brownson's greeting, from his home in Chelsea, Mass., received by Father Hecker soon after his arrival:
"My very dear friend, you cannot imagine what pleasure it gives me to learn of your arrival in New York. . . . I want to see you much, very much. You have much to tell me that it is needful that I should know, and I beg you to come to see me. Tell your superiors from me that your visit to me will be more than an act of charity to me personally, and that it is highly necessary—not merely as a matter of pleasure to us two—that we should meet; and tell them that I earnestly beg to have you come and spend a few days with me. I am sure that they will permit you to do so in furtherance of the work in which I as well as you are engaged, and I have a special reason for wishing to see you now. I would willingly visit you at New York or anywhere in the United States, but there is no place so appropriate as my own house. . . . I am more indebted to you for having become a Catholic than to any other man under heaven, and while you supposed I was leading you to the church, it was you who led me there. I owe you a debt of gratitude I can never repay . . . Come, if possible, and as soon as possible."
At the Third Street house the new-comers found Father Augustine F. Hewit, a convert from the Episcopal Church, in which he had tarried for a few years on his way from Calvinism to the true religion. He had been a secular priest for a short time previous to entering the order. He was directed to join the newly-formed missionary band, and was destined to be more to Father Hecker than any other man, and to succeed him as superior of the Paulist community.
After more than five years' absence Father Hecker thus finds himself in America, the land of his apostolate, a member of a missionary community whose external vocation is the preaching of penance, and the conversion of sinful Catholics to a good life. A mission is a season of renewal of the religious life among the people of a parish. It is a course of spiritual exercises in which the principles of religion are called forth and placed in more active control of men's conduct, and by means of which their emotional nature is stimulated to grief for sin, love of God, yearning for eternal happiness. The sermons and instructions are given twice, and sometimes oftener, each day, during the early mornings and in the evenings. These exercises are conducted in the parish church, but not by the parish clergy. The people see among them the members of a religious order, men set apart, by the interior touch of the Holy Spirit and the public approval of the church, for this particular work—powerful preachers, confessors as indefatigable as they are patient, priests full of masterful zeal, moving in disciplined accord together against vice. The call they address to the people is the peremptory one: "Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Their words are given forth not from the usual pulpit, but from a platform at the communion railing, and in the presence of a high black cross set up in the sanctuary. They wear no surplice or stole while preaching, the only insignia of their office being a crucifix on their breasts. The bishop usually extends to them greater powers than are commonly given for reconciling sinners who have incurred ecclesiastical censures. The Holy See empowers them to extend the most abundant spiritual favors in its gift in the form of indulgences, and the pastor informs the congregation several Sundays beforehand that he expects the entire Catholic population of his parish to attend the mission and receive the sacraments.
To be absorbed in such labors as above described was not the primary object of Father Hecker's vocation, but he accepted his place joyfully as chosen by the evident will of God. The missionary life was never in his eyes what the reader might surmise it to be—a mere interlude in his career, a period of patient waiting. Such is far from having been the case. The missions are eminent works of Catholic zeal, and there is not any vocation known to the active ministry which may not commute with them on equal terms. Human nature has never felt influences more deeply religious than those set at work by missions, recalling the effects of the preaching of the Apostles themselves. Remorse of conscience, loathing for sin, terror at the divine wrath, confidence in God, sympathy for our crucified Saviour, the ecstatic joy of the new-found divine friendship, utter contempt for the maxims of the world, iron determination to love God to the end—these are the sentiments which, by the preaching of missions, are made to dominate entire parishes in a degree simply marvellous. Nor can it be said that these dispositions are fleeting. Allowing for exceptions, especially in large cities, their permanency is often an evidence of the solidity of the motives which inspired them, as well as of the supernatural graces which gave them life. Every missionary will bear witness, as Father Hecker often did, that he has never assisted at a mission in which he was not profoundly impressed by the tears of hardened sinners. Every parish priest, however much he may regret the backsliding of some, will testify to the valuable results of missions among his people: the quickening of faith and the revival of supernatural motives, drunkards reformed, restitutions made, lust cleansed away, families united, the church thronged with worshippers, saloons deserted. Father Hecker never thought that all this was too dearly bought by the dreary toil of the confessional, the discomforts of for ever changing residences and living in strange places, nor even by the growing nerve-troubles which the fathers are often subject to, from brains superheated over and over again in the burning fires of mission preaching. Father Hecker did not think the privileges of such a life too dearly bought even by the postponement of his proper apostolate, and was ever glad of his labors as a missionary.
They schooled him in public speaking. In his antecedents there was abundant reason for diffidence, and he knew full well that what was good enough language for an harangue to the Seventh Ward Democracy would be ridiculous in a Catholic pulpit. Nor was he deceived into the notion of his ability to preach because he could influence men in private. Conversation is not public speaking, and the defects of grammar, or any other such defects, if pardoned in an earnest and honest man in private interchange of views, if committed on the public rostrum are unpardonable and are usually fatal. Father Hecker found in the incessant practice of the missionary platform, and in the assistance of his present superior, exactly what he needed by way of preparation. Besides the mission sermon at night—the great sermon, as it was called—there is a short doctrinal instruction at the same service and a moral one on the sacraments or commandments in the morning. These became his share of the mission preaching, and the school in which he acquired that direct, convincing, and popular manner of discourse for which he was afterwards renowned as a lecturer.
We find the following among the memoranda:
"When I came over to America with Fathers Bernard and Walworth, Bernard wanted to know what I could do. Well, by that time I had given up all hopes of any public career. I couldn't preach. My memory and intellectual faculties generally were so influenced by my interior state that theology was out of the question. The lights that God had given me about the future state of religion in this country were still clear as ever, but I thought that I should have to confine myself to imparting them to particular and individual souls whom the providence of God should throw in my way; for I was persuaded that the Redemptorist community was unfitted for the future work I had caught a glimpse of and I was entirely contented to live and die a Redemptorist, and was quite certain that I should. So, when Bernard asked me what I could do, I told him to get me some place as chaplain of a prison or public institution of charity, as that was about all that I was capable of. But he thought differently.
"My first instructions on the missions were almost word for word given me by Bernard. I didn't seem to have a single thought of my own."
To preach, whether to Catholics or to non-Catholics, one must learn how, and Father Hecker with all his gifts knew that this gift seldom comes from above except by way of reward for steady labor. The opportunity of the missions, and of Father Bernard as a guide, was eagerly accepted in lieu of the prison chaplaincy.
The missions also enabled him to know the Catholic people. The non-Catholics he already knew from vivid recollection of his own former state and from that of his early surroundings; Brook Farm and Fruitlands had completed his knowledge of the outside world; but the Redemptorist novitiate and studentate and his sojourn in England did not give him a similar knowledge of the Catholic people, priesthood, and hierarchy. To the average looker-on Catholicity is what Catholics are, and Catholics in America viewed from a standpoint of morality were then and still are a very mixed population. Why the fruits are worse than the tree is a sore perplexity even to expert controversialists, and Father Hecker had need to equip himself well for meeting that difficulty, a patent one in the rushing tide of stricken immigrants then pouring into America. The missions are an unequalled school for learning men. All men and women in a parish are made known to the missionary, for they walk or stumble through his very soul.
Nor can one fail to see the use of missions as an evidence to the non-Catholic public itself of the supernatural power of Catholicity over men's lives. To practical people like Americans there is no oral or written evidence of the true religion so valid as the spectacle of its power to change bad men into good ones. Such a people will accept arguments from history and from Scripture, but those of a moral kind they demand; they must see the theories at work. A mission is a microcosm of the church as a moral force. It shows a powerful grasp of human nature and an easy supremacy over it. It is an energetic, calm, and clean-sweeping influence for good, bold in its choice of the most sublime truths of supernatural religion as the sole motives of repentance. And it uniformly achieves so complete a victory over the best-entrenched vices that non-Catholic prejudice is invariably shaken at the spectacle. And in America the pioneer work of the apostolate must be to remove prejudice. The character of the men who conduct these exercises, their courage, intelligence, devotedness, discipline, and ready command of the people; the indiscriminate humanity which rushes to hear them, to pray, to confess their sins, to listen with mute attention—long before day-break and in the hours of rest after work—all regardless of social differences or of moral ones, soon become well known to the public and generally excite comment in the press. All this contributes to prepare non-Catholics to hear from the same teachers the invitation which our Lord intended in saying: "Other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also must I bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd."
Furthermore, it was necessary that Father Hecker should be made personally known to the bishops and priests of the country. The time was coming when he would have a public cause to advance, and their approval is a necessary sign of divine favor. Now, the missionary is closely studied by them and soon is intimately known, for there are too many things in common between priests but that they can readily test each other. Before the Paulist community had been organized, Father Hecker had been the guest of the most prominent clergymen of the entire United States, and of many even in the British Provinces, and was a well-known man throughout the Catholic community. Meantime the humiliations of his study-time had been quickly recovered from, if they had ever been a real hindrance to public effort, and we find no sign of protest on his part or of request to be let off from giving instructions beyond his answer to Father Bernard as above recorded. As he loved his vows as a Redemptorist, so he loved the work of the missions, because they were God's will for him; because they are a work of the highest order of good for souls; because the reputation of Catholicity is always raised in a community by a mission, and a good name is necessary for a controversial standing; because in them he daily learned more of men and of the means to win them; and because the members of the divine order of the episcopate and secular priesthood must be well known by him and he well known to them before any extensive work could be done among non-Catholics; and the missionary becomes a familiar friend everywhere he goes. Hence controversial sermons were sometimes preached during the missions, lectures of the same sort given after them, and during their continuance many converts received into the church. Father Hecker, as we have tried to show the reader, was a very observant nature, always learning lessons from life, and ready to try his 'prentice hand on what material offered in the way of converting Protestants at every opportunity public and private.
Nevertheless, the missions could not be made the ordinary channel of direct influences for turning sceptics and Protestants to the true religion. The attempt to make them so, involving, as it does, a notable interspersion of controversial sermons, has never been tried by the Redemptorist or Paulist Fathers to our knowledge, and when done by others has resulted in not enough of controversy for making solid converts, and too little penitential preaching for the proper reformation of hard sinners among Catholics. Father Hecker fully appreciated this. He threw himself into the mission work just as it was with the utmost ardor, and learning from Father Bernard how to prepare the matter for the morning and evening instructions, his natural gifts, together with hints and suggestions from his brethren, supplied him with the best possible manner of giving them. The writer has often served on missions in parishes where Father Bernard's new-formed band had preached in former years, and the testimony is universal that as a doctrinal and moral instructor Father Hecker was unequalled among missionaries. He was so frank, so clear, so lively, so impressible, and, in a certain way, so humorous, that he carried the people away with him. And he carried them all, high and low, learned and simple. With persons of education his homely words did not break the charm, nor did his simple but extremely well chosen illustrations do so—all taken, as they were, from common life or the lives and writings of the saints. He never preached the great sermons and never aspired to do it. He never sought to arouse terror or to be pathetic. He always reasoned and instructed. In truth, he was not competent to deal adequately with such subjects as Death, Judgment, and Hell—that is to say, as they are preached at missions, for the emotions have honest rights on such occasions, and Father Hecker acknowledged his deficiency in emotional oratory. But, to tell you the qualities of true sorrow, or to show you how to make a true confession, to picture the manliness of virtue and the dignity of the Christian state, he was unsurpassed. And the general effect remaining after his instructions was always a bright understanding of just what to do for a good life, with many happy examples to aid the memory, together with a strong personal affection for the holy man who showed religion to be a most happy as well as most reasonable service of God. To his penitents in the confessional he was ever most kind and patient. "No school of perfection," he once said, "can equal the self-denial necessary to hear confessions well." God is now rewarding him, we trust, for the cheerful, often even bantering, words of encouragement he gave to the multitudes of poor sinners who knelt at his feet during the toilsome years he spent on the missions; and for the enlightenment and encouragement of his big-hearted influence, and for his trumpet notes of hope in the early morning instructions. After the hard pounding of the night sermons it is always sought to pick the sinner up out of the dust and to hearten him by the early instructions, as well as to guide him to the precise methods and means of reform and of a good life for the future. As to the sacrament of penance, the saying of St. Alphonsus is a maxim with us all: "Be a lion in the pulpit, but a lamb in the confessional."
The reader must indulge us in thus dwelling so long on the Catholic missions, for we are inclined to say many words of praise of so lovely a life, in which the same men sow and reap a great harvest in the same week, expend their vitality in preaching the word and administering the sacraments and comforting sinners who are wholly broken down with the truest contrition.
In 1851 the American Redemptorists had before them a missionary field almost untouched. Public retreats had been given from time to time in the United States by Jesuits and others, but the mission opened at St. Joseph's Church, New York City, on Passion Sunday, 1851, was the first mission of a regular series carried on systematically by a body of men especially devoted to the vocation. The merit of inaugurating them is chiefly due to Father Bernard, who had no hesitation in getting to work with his three American fathers; though Father Joseph Müller, rector of the Third Street convent, and Rev. Joseph McCarron, the rector of St. Joseph's Church, had something to do in arranging the details and in facilitating the work. Several Redemptorists from Third Street helped in the confessionals.*
[* Observers of coincidences will be interested to notice the arrival of the missionaries in America on St. Joseph's day, under the Provincial Bernard Joseph Hafkenscheid, to open their first mission at St. Joseph's Church, the pastor being Joseph McCarron, the mission having been negotiated by Joseph Müller, the rector of the Third Street convent. Father Hecker had a special devotion for St. Joseph.]
We have space for only the following extracts from the brief record of the missions, preserved by the fathers. They illustrate how earnestly Father Hecker worked. In the record of the second mission at Loretto, Pa., we find this:
The instructions and Rosary were generally given by Father Hecker, who received from the people the name of "Father Mary." . . . During the first few days the people did not attend well; but after Father Hecker had gone through the village and among a clique of young men who were indifferent and disaffected to the clergy, and the evil geniuses of the place, and after some fervent exhortations had been made to the people, they flocked to the mission and crowded the church.
At Johnstown, Pa.: After two or three days a man happened to die on the railroad, and all the men at that station, perhaps a hundred in number, accompanied the corpse to the church. Father Hecker seized the opportunity to address them and to give them a missionferveroso.And the next day he went on horseback, accompanied by the pastor, Father Mullen (since Bishop of Erie), to several stations and addressed the men, inviting them to attend the mission. The result was successful. Procession after procession marched in, filling the church, and numbers of them stayed all day, lying on the grass about the church. . . . Father Hecker called out a noted politician, who had not been to the sacraments for many years until the mission, to receive the scapular as an example, and the good man did not fail to receive a plentiful supply of holy water from the vigorous arm of the said father.
The following entry in the record under date of February, 1852, made after a mission given in St. Peter's Church, Troy, N.Y., will be of interest to missionaries, and to others who are observant of their methods: "At Youngstown, Pa., (the preceding December) the experiment of preaching from a platform had been successfully tried and was repeated here, as at other missions since (Youngstown). On the platform a large black cross, some ten feet or more in height, was erected, from the arms of which a white muslin cloth was suspended. This use of cross and platform has thus been regularly introduced into the missions." Previously it had been the custom to erect a large cross out of doors in front of the church as one of the closing ceremonies of the mission.