"The decree, which places us, according to the Canons, under the authority of the Bishops, you will, of course, understand, does not in any way make us parish priests. The Pope could not tell us in it to commence another congregation, although this is what he, and Cardinal Barnabo, and Archbishop Bedini, and others, expect from us. He [the Pope] said that for him to tell us so [officially] would be putting the cart before the horse. These are his words."
On March 18: "It is customary here, before giving dispensation of vows to religious, to require them to show their admission into a diocese. As this was not required in our case, we are consequently at liberty now to choose any bishop we please who will receive us. 'Choose your bishop, inform him of your intentions, and if he approves, arrange your conditions with him.' These are the cardinal's words, and both he and Archbishop Bedini suggested New York. . . . My trip to Loretto has come to naught, as I can find no one to accompany me, and then my health, I fear, will not bear so much fatigue, I shall come back with some gray hairs; I thought to pull them all out before my return, but on looking this morning with that intention I found themtoo many.However, that is only on the outside; within all is right—young, fresh, and full of courage, and ready to fight the good fight."
The following is a memorandum of his second audience with Pius IX.:
"Yesterday, the 16th of March, the Pope accorded me an audience, and on my entering his room he repeated my name, gave me his blessing, and after I had kissed his ring he told me to rise, and said: 'At length your affairs are determined. We have many causes to decide, and each must have its turn; yours came finally, and now you have our decision.' 'True,' I replied, 'and your decision gives me great satisfaction, and it appears to me that it should be satisfactory to all concerned.' 'I found you,' he rejoined, 'like Abraham and Lot, and (making a motion with his hand) I told one to take this, the other that direction.' 'For my part,' I said, 'I look upon the decision as providential, as I sought no personal triumph over the General, but entertain every sentiment of charity towards him, and every one of my former religious brethren.' This remark appeared to move the Pope, and I continued: 'I thought of your Holiness' decision in the holy Mass of this morning, when in the Gospel our Lord reminds us not to decide according to the appearances of things, but render a just judgment; and such is the one you have given, and for our part we trust that you will receive in the future consolation and joy [from our conduct].' 'As you petitioned,' he said, 'with the other Fathers as one of the Congregation, in giving you dispensation I considered you a member of the Congregation.' 'So I understood it,' was my reply; 'and as a [private] person I felt no inclination to defend my character, but as a priest I felt it to be my duty; and in this regard your Holiness has done all that I have desired.' 'But you intend to remain,' he inquired, 'together in community?' 'Most assuredly, your Holiness; our intention is to live and work as we have hitherto done. But there are many [spiritual] privileges attached to the work of the missions very necessary to their success, and which we would gladly participate in.' 'Well, well,' he answered, 'organize, begin your work, and then demand them, and I will grant them to you. The Americans, however, are very much engrossed in material pursuits.' 'True, Holy Father,' I replied, 'but the faith is there. We five missionaries are Americans, and were like the others, but you see the grace of God has withdrawn us from these things and moved us to consecrate ourselves wholly to God and His Church, and we hope it will do the same for many of our countrymen. And once our countrymen are Catholics, we hope they will do great things for God's Church and His glory, for they have enthusiasm.' 'Yes, yes,' he rejoined, 'it would be a great consolation to me.' I asked him if he would grant me a plenary indulgence for my brethren and my friends in the United States. 'Well,' he said, 'but I must have a rescript.' 'I have one with me which perhaps will do,' I answered. Looking over it, he made some alterations and signed it. I knelt down at his feet and begged him to give me a large blessing before my departure, in order that I might become a great missionary in the United States—which he gave me most cordially, and I retired.
"His manner was very affectionate, and in the course of the conversation he called me'caro mio'and'figlio mio'several times. We could not desire to leave a more favorable impression than exists here in regard to us and our part in the recent transaction, and we have the sympathy of the Pope and the Propaganda. Rome will withhold nothing from us if we prove worthy of its confidence, and will hail our success with true joy. I look upon this settlement of our difficulties as the work of Divine Providence, and my prayer is that it may make me humble, modest, and renew my desire to consecrate myself wholly to God's designs."
He writes to the Fathers, March 27: "The seven months passed here in Rome seem to me an age; and have taxed me to that extent that I look forward to home as a place of rest and repose. When I think of the fears, anxieties, and labors undergone I say to myself—enough for this time. On the other hand, when I remember the warm and disinterested friends God has given us on account of these difficulties, and the happy issue to which His providence has conducted them, my heart is full of gratitude and joy. To me the future looks bright, hopeful, full of promise, and I feel confident in God's providence, and assured of His grace in our regard. I feel like raising up the cross as our standard and adopting one word as our motto—CONQUER!
"I have just received the documents for you to give the Papal benediction at the missions, and will send them. A letter reached here this week from the Bishop of Burlington, Vt., and it is strongly in our favor; it concludes by saying that all that we required to make us a religious Congregation was the special blessing of the Holy Father."
Again, on April 3: "Monsignor Bedini asked of the Pope the special benediction that Bishop De Goesbriand suggested, and he replied: 'Did I not give it to Père Hecker, and through him to his brethren, when he was here?' 'But,' answered Monsignor Bedini, 'give them this benediction this time on the request of the bishop.' And he answered: 'It is well; I do.' So there is a special blessing from the Holy Father in view of our forming a religious body. Indeed, that is so well understood here that several have inquired what name we intend to adopt, etc. Of course to all such questions my answer is: 'I can say nothing; the future is in God's hands, and we intend to follow His providence.' . . .
"Good Cardinal Barnabo looks upon us with a paternal regard, and when I expressed in your name how warmly we returned his affection, and what a deep gratitude we owed him, he was deeply moved, and replied that he did not deserve such sentiments, and that he had only done justice. Since the settlement of our affairs I have let no occasion pass to express our gratitude to those who have befriended us; and as for Cardinal Barnabo, Monsignor Bedini, Bishop Connolly, and Doctor Bernard Smith, Benedictine monk, they should be put at the head of the list of our spiritual benefactors and remembered in all our prayers. Now that we are a body, I would advise this to be done at once. The Holy Father stands No. 1; that is understood.
"How much I have to relate to you on my return! Many things I did not venture to write down on paper, and many I can communicate to no one else but you. How great is my desire to see you!—it seems that I have no other.
"I have taken passage for Marseilles on Tuesday after Easter, the 6th of April, and intend to take passage on theVanderbilt,which leaves Havre on the 28th. . . . I saw the General on Tuesday of this week, to take leave of him. After some conversation we left in good feeling, promising to praypro invicem.God bless him!"
Before leaving Paris Father Hecker received extremely affectionate letters of congratulation from his old friends, Fathers de Held and de Buggenoms.
The following is the decree of the Congregation of Bishops andRegulars:
"Certain priests of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer in the United States of North America recently presented their most humble petition to our Most Holy Lord Pope Pius IX., that in view of certain special reasons he would grant that they might be withdrawn from the authority and jurisdiction of the Rector Major and be governed by a superior of their own, immediately subject to the Apostolic See, and according to the [Redemptorist] Rule approved by Benedict XIV., of holy memory. If, however, this should not be granted to them, they most humbly asked for dispensation from their vows in the said Congregation. After having carefully considered the matter, it appeared to his Holiness that a separation of this kind would be prejudicial to the unity of the Congregation and by no means accord with the Institute of St. Alphonsus, and therefore should not be permitted. Since, however, it was represented to his Holiness that the petitioners spare no labor in the prosecution of the holy missions, in the conversion of souls, and in the dissemination of Christian doctrine, and are for this reason commended by many bishops, it seemed more expedient to his Holiness to withdraw them from the said Congregation, that they might apply themselves to the prosecution of the works of the sacred ministry under the direction of the local bishops. Wherefore his Holiness by the tenor of this decree, and by his Apostolic authority, does dispense from their simple vows and from that of permanence in the Congregation the said priests, viz.: Clarence Walworth, Augustine Hewit, George Deshon, and Francis Baker, together with the priest Isaac Hecker, who has joined himself to their petition in respect to dispensation from the vows, and declares them to be dispensed and entirely released, so that they no longer belong to the said Congregation. And his Holiness confidently trusts that under the direction and jurisdiction of the local bishops, according to the prescription of the sacred Canons, the above-mentioned priests will labor by work, example, and word in the vineyard of the Lord, and give themselves with alacrity to the eternal salvation of souls, and promote with all their power the sanctification of their neighbor.
"Given at Rome, in the office of the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, the 6th day of March, 1858.
"[L. S.] G. CARDINAL DELLA GENGA, Prefect.
"A., ARCHBISHOP OF PHILIPPI, Secretary."*
[* Nuper nonnulli ex Presbyteris Congregationis SSmi Redemptoris in provinciis Americæ Septentrionalis foederatis existentibus SSmum D. N. Pium PP. IX., supplici prece deprecabantur, ut eis ob speciales circumstantias concederet ab auctoritate et jurisdictione Rectoris Majoris subtrahi, ac a proprio Superiore Apostolicæ Sedi immediate subjecto juxta regulam a Benedicto XIV., sanctæ memoriæ, approbatam gubernari. Quod ad id eis datum non esset, dispensationem a votis in dicta Congregatione emissis, humillime expostulabant. Re sedulo perpensa, Sanctitas Sua existimavit hujusmodi separationem unitati Congregationis officere, et S. Alphonsi instituto minime respondere ideoque haud permittendum esse. Cum autem relatum sit oratores nulli labore parcere in sacris expeditionibus peragendis, et in proximorum conversione, Christianaque institutione curanda, et idcirco a pluribus Antistibus commendentur, visum est SSmo Domino magis expedire eos a præfata Congregatione eximi, ut in sacri ministerii opera promovenda sub directione Antistitum locorum incumbere possint. Quapropter Sanctitas Sua presbyteros Clarentium Walworth, Augustinum Hewit, Georgium Deshon, et Franciscum Baker, una cum presbytero Isaac Hecker, qui eorumdem postulationibus quoad dispensationem a votis adhæsit, a votis simplicibus, etiam permanentiæ in Congregatione SSmi Redemptoris emissis, hujus Decreti tenore, Apostolica auctoritate dispensat, et dispensatos, ac prorsus solutos esse declarat, ita ut ad eamdem Congregationem amplius non pertineant. Confidit vero Sanctitas Sua memoratos Presbyteros, qua opere, qua exemplo, qua sermone, in vinea Domini sub directione et jurisdictione Antistitum locorum, ad præscriptum SS. Canonum adlaboraturos, ut æternam animarum salutem alacriter curent, atque proximorum sanctificationem pro viribus promoveant.
Datum Romæ, ex Secretaria Sacræ Congregationis Episcoporum etRegularium, Die 6 Martii, 1858.
[L. + S.] G. CARDINAL DELLA GENGA, Præf.
A., ARCHIEPISCOPUS PHILIPPEN, Sec.]
NOTE.—I wish to add to this, that the relations between the Redemptorists and Paulists are, and I trust will continue to be, most amicable.
AUG. F. HEWIT, C.S.P., Superior.
________________________
DURING the seven months of Father Hecker's stay in Rome the band of American missionaries were busily occupied. Missions were given in the following order: Newark, N.J.; Poughkeepsie, Cold Spring on the Hudson, and Utica, N.Y.; Brandywine, Del.; Trenton, N.J.; Burlington, Brandon, East and West Rutland, Vt., and Plattsburgh, Saratoga, and Little Falls, N.Y. All these labors were undertaken subject to the authority of the Redemptorist Provincial and in a spirit of entire obedience. The mission at Little Falls closed on Palm Sunday, March 28, and the missionaries, with the exception of Father Baker, who was sent to Annapolis, Md., returned to the Redemptorist house in Third Street, New York. On the Tuesday after Easter, April 6, 1858, the official copy of the Pope's decision reached them, and they bade farewell to their Redemptorist brethren and to the community in which they had spent so many happy years, and witnessed, as Father Hewit has written, "so many edifying examples of high virtue and devoted zeal, to enter upon a new and untried undertaking."
Archbishop Kenrick, as soon as he heard of this, made a determined effort to secure Father Baker for the diocese of Baltimore, but the latter never for a moment faltered in his purpose to cast his lot with his brethren, and the archbishop gave up his claim upon him at the request of Cardinal Barnabo.
Their engagements called for two more missions before the season ended—one at Watertown, N.Y., and the other at St. Bridget's Church, New York City. The first of these opened on the 18th of April, and while waiting for that date the Fathers lived with Mr. George Hecker in Rutger's Place, saying Mass in his private chapel and following their religious rule as far as circumstances allowed, continuing meantime to obey Father Walworth, their former superior of the missions. They journeyed to Watertown, fearful lest the faculties for giving the Papal blessing and the mission indulgences should not arrive there in time. But late on Saturday night, April 19, they were received, much to the joy of the Fathers.
Here occurred a noteworthy coincidence. Watertown was at that time in the diocese of Albany, of which Bishop McCloskey was then the ordinary. He had received Father Hecker into the Church and had been his first guide in the spiritual life, and now he was the first to publicly welcome his brethren at the beginning of their new career. The following is from a letter of his to Father Walworth in answer to one announcing the recent changes:
"I am happy to hear that your difficulties have at length received their solution, and in a manner, I presume, as satisfactory as you could well expect. The future must now in great measure depend upon yourselves. You will, of course, have difficulties to surmount and prejudices to encounter, but I trust that with God's blessing your new community when once organized will continue from day to day to gain increased stability and strength, and be enabled to carry out successfully all its laudable aims for the good of our holy religion. The faculties already given you in this diocese you will not consider as being withdrawn by the act of your separation from the Redemptorist order, and there is nothing that I know of to interfere with your proposed mission in Watertown."
During the mission at St. Bridget's—that is, in the first half of the month of May—Father Hecker arrived in New York and measures were at once taken for the practical organization of the new community. Nothing was done hurriedly; a fair and full consideration of all questions from every point of view, which lasted until early in the month of July, enabled each one clearly to understand his new relation in its every aspect. Father Walworth not being entirely in agreement with the others, withdrew to the diocese of Albany and took charge of a parish; he returned again in 1861, remaining with the community till 1865, when his health becoming quite shattered, he reluctantly decided to withdraw altogether. It need hardly be said that the relations between him and the community have always been most cordial. Meantime the others, Fathers Hecker, Hewit, Deshon, and Baker, organized by electing the first-named the Superior, and drew up and signed what was termed a Programme of Rule. This was submitted to Archbishop Hughes and by him approved and signed on July 7, 1858. The Apostle of the Gentiles was chosen as patron, and the name selected was, The Missionary Priests of St. Paul the Apostle, which has been popularized into Paulists. The habit agreed upon was in form somewhat like that of the students of the Propaganda in Rome, black throughout, with a narrow linen collar and buttoned across the breast, being held at the waist by a cincture.
The Programme of Rule adopts an order of spiritual exercises similar to that observed by the Fathers while Redemptorists. A perpetual voluntary agreement takes the place of the vows as the security of stability, the members affirming that they are fully determined to promote their sanctification by leading a life in all essential respects similar to that led in the religious orders. Besides the chastity imposed upon them by the priesthood the other evangelical counsels of obedience and poverty are adopted and their observance enjoined upon the members, together with the daily and periodical exercises of community life. As to the external vocation, the missions are named as the basis of general apostolic labors, and parish work also, though in a subordinate degree. The entire document looks forward to a complete Rule to be drawn up and submitted to the Holy See at a future day, for which it actually furnished the outlines some twenty years afterwards. The approval of the Programme of a Rule by the Archbishop of New York gave the Fathers the canonical status anticipated by the decreeNuper nonnulli.This was confirmed by an official permission of the Holy See to the Archbishop of New York to establish the Paulist Institute in his diocese, with the consent of his suffragans, which was asked for and obtained.
A little more than a fortnight after these events Father Hecker wrote as follows to a friend:
"Before leaving Rome our Holy Father Pius IX. gave us his special blessing for the commencement of our new organization, promised us any privileges we might need to carry on our missionary labors, and held out the hope of his sanction, in proper time, of the rules which we might make. In my last visit to his Eminence Cardinal Barnabo he gave me advice how to organize, what steps were to be taken from time to time, and expressed a most lively interest in our undertaking. The same did Monsignor Bedini. On my return we organized as advised, wrote out an outline of our new institution and submitted it to the ordinary of this diocese, the initiatory step of all such undertakings. He gave it his cordial approbation, and said that he found no word to alter, to add, or improve. Thus we are so far regularly canonically instituted.
"Our aim is to lead a strict religious life in community, starting with the voluntary principle; leaving the question of vows to further experience, counsel, and indications of Divine Providence. Our principal work is the missions, such as we have hitherto given, but we are not excluded from other apostolic labors as the wants of the Church may demand or develop. . . . We begin early this fall our campaign of missions, and we never had before us so fine a list. One thing I may say, and I trust without boasting, we are of one mind and heart, resolved to labor and die for Jesus Christ, for the good of His holy Church, for the advancement of the Catholic faith. We have the encouragement of a number of bishops, and also, we trust, the prayers, sympathy, and assistance of the faithful. We shall have to face obstacles, opposition from friends and foes; but if we are the right kind of men and have the virtues which such a position as ours demands, our trials will only strengthen us and make us the better Christians. Every good work must expect opposition from pious men, and our minds are made up to that."
After St. Bridget's mission the little community found itself homeless, and it remained so till the spring of the year 1859. But during part of this period Mr. George Hecker, taking his family to the country, gave up his whole house to the Fathers, servants and all, making provision for the supply of every want in the most generous manner. For the greater portion of the time, however, especially between missions in the winter and spring of 1858-9, the Fathers depended for temporary shelter upon the hospitality of friends among the clergy and laity, even lodging for a short while in a respectable boarding-house in Thirteenth street, at a convenient distance from several churches and chapels where Mass could be said daily.
But in the spring of 1858 arrangements had been made with Archbishop Hughes for establishing a house and parish in New York. The present site of St. Paul's Church and convent, then in the midst of a suburban wilderness, was chosen, and, by dint of hasty collections from private friends and with the help of a very large gift from Mr. George Hecker, money enough was paid down to obtain the deeds. Sixtieth Street was not quite opened at the time, and this part of Ninth Avenue existed only on paper; but by energetic efforts made by all the Fathers and their friends, and by personal appeals in every direction, especially in the down-town parishes in which they had given missions, sufficient funds were raised to clear the ground and lay the foundations of a building which was to include both convent and church. Early in the summer of 1858 circulars asking assistance had been sent out to the clergy of the United States, and by this means also a considerable amount was secured, the very first answer with a handsome donation coming from Father Early, President of Georgetown College. In the spring of 1859 the Fathers rented a frame house on Sixtieth Street, just west of Broadway, fitted up a little chapel in it, and lived there in community till the new house was finished.
The corner-stone of the new structure was laid by Archbishop Hughes on Trinity Sunday, June 19, 1859, in the presence of an immense concourse of people. During that summer and fall every effort was made to keep the builders at work. The task was no easy one. The times were hard, the country still suffering from the effects of the financial crisis of 1857, the financial depression being aggravated by the ominous outlook in the political world. But the house was finally completed, and was blessed by Father Hecker on the 24th of November, the feast of St. John of the Cross, one of his very special patrons. This was within a few weeks of his fortieth birthday. On the 27th of the same month, the first Sunday of Advent, the chapel was blessed and Solemn Mass was celebrated in it. Thereafter the Fathers had to act as parish priests as well as missionaries. A few weeks before this the first recruit joined the little band in the person of Father Robert Beverly Tillotson, a convert, who, though an American, had been for some time a member of Dr. Newman's Oratory. He was a charming preacher and a noble character, much beloved by all the fathers, and especially by Father Hecker. He died, deeply mourned, in the summer of 1868, having given the community nine years of most valuable service. He came just in time to set free three of the Fathers for missionary duty, the other two remaining in care of the parish. This was at first small enough in numbers, though in territory it reached from Fifty-second Street to very near Manhattanville. The accession of Father Alfred Young, of the diocese of Newark, and the return of Father Walworth considerably relieved the pressure, though the rapid growth of the parish and the widening scope of the community's labors kept every one busy enough.
The newly-founded Paulist community was heartily welcomed by both clergy and people. Missions were given in various parts of the country, applications being often declined for want of time and missionaries. Several prelates, among whom were the Archbishops of Baltimore and Cincinnati, wrote to Father Hecker offering to establish the community in their dioceses; Bishop Bayley, of Newark, also wished to secure the Fathers, and he was especially urgent in his request. One has but to know the intensely conservative spirit of the Catholic hierarchy and clergy to appreciate how stainless must have been the record of the Fathers to elicit such testimonials of good-will just after they had fought a hard battle on the ground of authority and obedience. As to the Catholic laity, the following extract from a letter of the poet George H. Miles, whose early death some years after was so deeply lamented, shows how they regarded the new community. It was written from Baltimore under date of August 13, 1858:
"MY VERY DEAR FATHER HECKER: . . . Since we last parted you have been to me one of those grand, good memories we take to heart and cherish. I have loved you better than you could believe, for I felt that in the extremity of sorrow or temptation you were the man and the priest I would have recourse to, could my own wish be granted. You are not wrong in considering me a friend; that is, if much love may atone for little power to befriend. . . .Providentially,it now appears, you men have always had an individual force that detached you completely from yourconfrères.To me and to the multitudes you were never Redemptorists, never Liguorians, but Hecker, Walworth, Hewit, Deshon, Baker. I mean to utter nothing disrespectful to the society which has blessed this nation in training and developing you and your new body of preachers, but I maintain that you stood so completely apart from that society, so absolutely individualized, that, etc."
The three years following Father Hecker's return from Rome were exceedingly active ones. The missions were maintained, money collected for the purchase of the property and the building of the convent at the corner of Fifty-ninth Street and Ninth Avenue, and, after the opening of the new church in November, 1859, the regular duties of a city parish were added.
"I am hard at work," writes Father Hecker to a friend, in the very midst of these labors, "in soliciting subscriptions for our convent and temporary church. I have worked hard in my life, but this is about the hardest. However, it goes. I had, a couple of weeks ago, a donation of $200 from a Protestant. Yesterday a subscription of $90 from another.Sursum Cordaand go ahead, is my cry!" And, indeed, he was full of courage and conscience in the future, all his letters breathing a cheerful spirit.
Before giving Father Hecker's principles for community life, which we will do in the next chapter, it may be well to say a few words more about the attitude in which he and his companions had been placed, by the action of the Holy See, toward the Catholic idea of authority.
Just as he was about to sail for America he wrote to his brother George: "I return from Rome with my enthusiasm unchilled and my resolution to labor for the conversion of our people intensified and strengthened. I feel that the knowledge and experience which I have acquired are most necessary for the American Fathers in their present delicate position." And in truth his stay in Rome had prepared him for the new responsibilities in store for him. His sufferings there had purified his motives, his humiliations and his anguish had taught him the need of reliance, total and loving, on Divine Providence. He had studied authority in its chief seat, and he had done so with the depth of impression which a man on trial for his life experiences of the power of the advocates and the dignity of the judges. The result of that trial was of infinite benefit. The test of genuine liberty is its consonance with lawful authority, and in Father Hecker's case the newest liberty had been roughly arraigned before the most venerable authority known among men, tried by fire, and sent forth with Rome's broad seal of approval.
Without doubt the chief endeavor of authority should be to win the allegiance of free and aspiring spirits; but, on the other hand, no one should be so firmly convinced of the rights of the external order of God as the man who is called to minister to the aspirations of human liberty.
No man ought to be so vividly conscious of the prerogatives of authority as he who lays claim to a vocation to extol the worth of liberty. It was, therefore, fitting that Father Hecker should learn his lesson of the prerogatives of the visible Church from that teacher who has no master among men. At the same time Rome sent forth in the person of Father Hecker a living and powerful argument addressed to this Republic, that the Catholic Church is worthy of the heartiest allegiance of our citizens.
This providential aspect of the case should not be forgotten. When Father Hecker had been expelled from the Redemptorists it might have been thought that he was done for, and that if he had ever had a mission it had suffered total shipwreck, whether deserved or not. But in reality the very reverse was the truth. The disgrace of expulsion, the sudden horror of being thus cast out, a calamity which set him forth to all Catholics as a ruined priest, had but served to bring him into the notice of the supreme authority of the Church. And when in this God had wrought all His work His servant was purified within and mightily strengthened without. In his inmost soul he was conscious of his divine mission with a deeper certitude than ever before; and as he began his apostolate he bore on his arm the buckler of Rome, against which all the darts of enemies, if any should arise, would strike harmless and fall to the ground.
It was fitting that the Paulist community, appealing to the men and women of to-day with the credentials as well of their own individual independence as of the good will of the Pope and the Bishops, should be launched into existence from the very deck of Peter's bark, and furnished with all the testimonials of ecclesiastical authority short of canonical sanction. This was the more proper because, in a few years after the beginning of the community, European revolutionists were to be scourged with the Syllabus, whose every word agonized the souls of unworthy advocates of liberty. That Pontifical document has created a literature of its own in comment and explanation, some tying more knots in every lash and others mitigating its severity or palliating the errors it smote with such pitiless rigor. But the best interpretation of the Syllabus is the Paulist community. It is a body of free men whose origin was the joint result of the personal workings of the Holy Spirit in the soul of a man who loved civil and political freedom with a mighty love, and the decision of the highest court of Catholicity declaring him worthy of trust as an exponent of the Christian faith. If the Syllabus shows what the Church thinks of those who in the guise of freemen are conspirators against religion and public order, the approval of the Paulist community shows the Church's attitude towards men worthy to be free.
Nor was Rome's course chosen without weighing the consequences, without a full estimate of the public significance of the act. Father Hecker's adversaries fixed upon him every stigma of radicalism and rebellion possible in a good but deluded priest. For seven long months they poured into ears which instinctively feared revolt in the name of liberty, every accusation his doings and sayings could be made to give color to, in order to prove that he and the American Fathers were tainted with false liberalism. And he seemed to lend himself to their purpose. His guileless tongue spoke to the cardinals, prelates, and professors of Rome about nothing so much as freedom, and its kinship with Catholicity. He seemed to have no refuge but the disclosure of the very secrets of his soul. During those months of incessant accusation and defence Father Hecker talked Rome's high dignitaries into full knowledge of himself, until they saw the cause mirrored in the man and gave approval to both. Some, like Barnabo, were actuated by the quick sympathy of free natures; others, like Pius IX., arrived at a decision by the slower processes of the removal of prejudice from an honest mind, and the careful comparing of Father Hecker's principles with the fundamental truths of religion.
________________________
THE beginnings of the Paulist community having been sketched, it is now in order to state the principles with which Father Hecker, guided no less by supernatural intuition than by enlightened reason, intended it should be inspired; and this shall be done as nearly as possible in his own words. The following sentences, found in one of his diaries and quoted some chapters back, embody what may be deemed his ultimate principle:
"It is for this we are created: that we may give a new and individual expression of the absolute in our own peculiar character. As soon as the new is but the re-expression of the old, God ceases to live. Ever the mystery is revealed in each new birth; so must it be to eternity. The Eternal-Absolute is ever creating new forms of expressing itself."
What the new order of things was to be in the spiritual life could be learned, Father Hecker held, by observing men's strivings after natural good. The tendencies which shape men's efforts to secure happiness in this world, in so far as they are innocent, indicated to him what choice of means should be made to propagate the knowledge and love of God. According to this, the most successful worker for a people's sanctification will be kindred to them by conviction and by sympathy in all that concerns their political and social life. Men's aspirations in the natural order point out the highway of God's representatives. As these aspirations change from era to era, so do the main lines of religious effort change, the highways of one age becoming the byways of another. It is true that no method for the elevation of human nature to divine union, which the Church has sanctioned, ever becomes quite obsolete, but the merest glance at the differences between the spiritual characteristics of the martyrs, the hermits, the monks, the friars, shows that one form of the Christian virtues succeeds another in general possession of men's souls. The new spirit, without crowding the old one off its beaten track, follows men to the new ways whither the providence of God in the natural order has led them. "First the natural man," says St. Paul, "and then the spiritual." Different types of spirituality are brought forward by Almighty God to sanctify men in new conditions of life. Among the foremost of these are religious communities of men and women. Hence their duty to adjust themselves, as far as faith and discipline permit, to the circumstances of the times. The power of a religious community for good will be measured by its ability to elevate the natural to the supernatural without shocking it or thwarting it.
Now, every one knows that this age differs materially from past ones. It differs by a wider spread of education and an uncontrollable longing after liberty, civil, political, and personal.
Father Hecker was penetrated with the belief that the intelligence and liberty, whose well-ordered enjoyment he had witnessed in America, and which he loved so deeply himself, were divine invitations to the apostolate of the Holy Spirit. He was profoundly impressed with the certainty of the development, the extension, and the permanence of these political and social changes; and he knew that they demanded of men a personal independence of character far in advance of previous generations. And he knew, also, that for the sanctification of such men the aids of religion, though not changed in themselves, must be applied in a different spirit. Discipline and uniformity, though never to be dispensed with, must yield the first places to more interior virtues. The dominant influence must be docility to the guidance of the Holy Spirit dwelling within every regenerate soul. Applying this, towards the end of his life, to religious communities, Father Hecker wrote: "The controlling thought of my mind for many years has been that a body of free men who love God with all their might, and yet know how to cling together, could conquer this modern world of ours." The sentence may be taken as a brief description of the Paulist community as he would have it. And it is easily seen why free men loving God with all their hearts are suited to conquer this modern world; because men are determined to be free.
The following extracts from notes, letters, and diaries more fully develop this idea:
"A new religious order is an evidence and expression of an uncommon or special grace given to a certain number of souls, so that they may be sanctified by the practice of particular virtues to meet the special needs of their epoch, and in this way to renew the spiritual life of the members of the Church and to extend her fold. A new community is this, or it has no reason for its existence. The means to accomplish its special work are both new and old. It should lay stress on the new, and not despise but also make use of the old. 'The wise householder bringeth forth from his treasury new things and old.'"
"The true Paulist is a religious man entirely dependent on God for his spiritual life; he lives in community for the greater security of his own salvation and perfection, and to meet more efficiently the pressing needs of the Church and of humanity in his day."
"The Church always finds in her wonderful fecundity wherewith to supply the new wants which arise in every distinct epoch of society."
"A new religious community, unless its activity is directed chiefly to supplying the special needs of its time, wears itself out at the expense of its true mission and will decline and fail."
"We must realize the necessity of more explicitly bringing out our ideal if we would give a sufficient motive for our students and members, keep them in the community, bring about unity of action, and accomplish the good which the Holy Spirit demands at our hands. A Paulist, as a distinct species of a religious man, is one who is alive to the pressing needs of the Church at the present time, and feels called to labor specially with the means fitted to supply them. And what a member of another religious community might do from that divine guidance which is external, the Paulist does from the promptings of the indwelling Holy Spirit."
"A Paulist is a Christian man who aims at a Christian perfection consistent with his natural characteristics and the type of civilization of his country."
"So far as it is compatible with faith and piety, I am for accepting the American civilization with its usages and customs; leaving aside other reasons, it is the only way by which Catholicity can become the religion of our people. The character and spirit of our people, and their institutions, must find themselves at home in our Church in the way those of other nations have done; and it is on this basis alone that the Catholic religion can make progress in our country."
"What we need to-day is men whose spirit is that of the early martyrs. We shall get them in proportion as Catholics cultivate a spirit of independence and personal conviction. The highest development of religion in the soul is when it is assisted by free contemplation of the ultimate causes of things. Intelligence and liberty are the human environments most favorable to the deepening of personal conviction of religious truth, and obedience to the interior movements of an enlightened conscience. To a well-ordered mind the question of the hour is how the soul which aspires to the supernatural life shall utilize the advantages of liberty and intelligence."
"The form of government of the United States is preferable to Catholics above other forms. It is more favorable than others to the practice of those virtues which are the necessary conditions of the development of the religious life of man. This government leaves men a larger margin for liberty of action, and hence for co-operation with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, than any other government under the sun. With these popular institutions men enjoy greater liberty in working out their true destiny. The Catholic Church will, therefore, flourish all the more in this republican country in proportion as her representatives keep, in their civil life, to the lines of their republicanism."
"The two poles of the Paulist character are: first, personal perfection. He must respond to the principles of perfection as laid down by spiritual writers. The backbone of a religious community is the desire for personal perfection actuating its members. The desire for personal perfection is the foundation stone of a religious community; when this fails, it crumbles to pieces; when this ceases to be the dominant desire, the community is tottering. Missionary works, parochial work, etc., are and must be made subordinate to personal perfection. These works must be done in view of personal perfection. The main purpose of each Paulist must be the attainment of personal perfection by the practice of those virtues without which it cannot be secured—mortification, self-denial, detachment, and the like. By the use of these means the grace of God makes the soul perfect. The perfect soul is one which is guided instinctively by the indwelling Holy Spirit. To attain to this is the end always to be aimed at in the practice of the virtues just named. Second, zeal for souls; to labor for the conversion of the country to the Catholic faith by apostolic work. Parish work is a part, an integral part, of Paulist work, but not its principal or chief work—and parish work should be done so as to form a part of the main aim, the conversion of the non-Catholic people of the country. In this manner we can labor to raise the standard of Catholic life here and throughout the world as a means of the general triumph of the Catholic faith."
"I do not think that the principal characteristic of our Fathers and of our life should be poverty or obedience or any other special and secondary virtue, or even a cardinal virtue, but zeal for apostolic works. Our vocation is apostolic—conversion of souls to the faith, of sinners to repentance, giving missions, defence of the Christian religion by conferences, lectures, sermons, the pen, the press, and the like works; and in the interior, to propagate among men a higher and more spiritual life. To supply the special element the age and each country demands, this is the peculiar work of religious communities: this their field. It is a fatal mistake when religious attempt to do the ordinary work of the Church. Let religious practise prayer and study; there will always be enough of the work to which they are called."
"Are the Paulists Religious? Yes, and no. Yes, of their age. No, of the past; the words in neither case being taken in an exclusive meaning."
"As regards the growth of the Paulist, he must develop in an apostolic vocation—that is, in apostolic works, Catholic, universal; not in works which confine his life's energies to a locality. He must do the work of the Church. The work of the Church, as Church, is to render her note of universality more and more conspicuous to render it sensible, palpable. This is the spirit of the Church in our country."
The following refers to the second trait of the character above given: "A Paulist is to emphasize individuality; that is, to make individual liberty an essential element in every judgment that touches the life and welfare of the community and that of its members. Those who emphasize the community element are inclined to look upon this as a dangerous and impracticable experiment."
"Individuality is an integral and conspicuous element in the life of the Paulist.This must be felt. One of the natural signs of the true Paulist is that he would prefer to suffer from the excesses of liberty rather than from the arbitrary actions of tyranny."
"The individuality of a man cannot be too strong or his liberty too great when he is guided by the Spirit of God. But when one is easily influenced from below rather than from above, it is an evidence of the spirit of pride and that of the flesh, and not 'the liberty of the glory of the children of God.'"
What follows touches the relation between the personal and common life:
"Many other communities lay the main stress on community life as the chief element, giving it control as far as is consistent with fundamental individual right; the Paulists, on the contrary, give the element of individuality the first place and put it in control as far as is consistent with the common life."
"The spirit of the age has a tendency to run into extreme individuality, into eccentricity, license, revolution. But the typical life shows how individuality is consistent with community life. This is the aim of the United States in the political order, an aim and tendency which we have to guide, and not to check or sacrifice."
"The element of individuality is taken into account in the Paulistessentially,integrally, practically. But when it comes into conflict with the common right, the individual must yield to the community: the common life outranks the individual life in case of conflict. But the individual life should be regarded as sacred and never be effaced. How this is to operate in particular cases belongs, where it is not a matter of rule, to the virtue of prudence to decide."
"When the personality of the individual comes into conflict with the life of the community, the personal side must not be sacrificed, but made to yield to the common. In case of conflict, as before said, common life and interests outrank personal life and interests. It may be asked how, in the ordinary regulation and government of a community of this kind, the individual and common elements are to be made to harmonize? The answer is, that the one at the head of affairs must be a true Paulist that is to say, keenly sensitive of personal rights as well as appreciative of such as are common: where the question is not a point of rule, its decision is dependent on the practical sagacity and prudence of the superior more than on any minute regulations which can be given. He who interprets the acts of legitimate authority as an attack on his personal liberty, is as far out of the way as he who looks upon the exercise of reason as an attack on authority."
"How about persons of dull minds or of little spiritual ambition coming into the use of this freedom? First, no such person should be allowed to enter into the community: such persons should be excluded. Second, a full-fledged Paulist should have passed a long enough novitiate to have acquired the special virtues which are necessary for his vocation. Absence of supernatural light is the cause why a man is not fit to be a Paulist, for he cannot understand rightly or appreciate the value of the liberties he enjoys. He either is or he becomes a turbulent element in the community."
"A Paulist, seeing that he has so much individuality, should have a strong, nay, a very strong attrait for community life; he should be fond of the Fathers' company, prefer them and their society when seeking proper recreation, feel the house to be his home and the community and its surroundings very dear to him; in the routine of the day all the community exercises and labors are, in his judgment, of paramount obligation and importance.
"The civil and political state of things of our age, particularly in the United States, fosters the individual life. But it should do so without weakening the community life: this is true individualism. The problem is to make the synthesis. The joint product is the Paulist."
"A Paulist should cultivate personal freedom without detriment to the community spirit; and, vice versa, the community spirit should not be allowed to be detrimental to personal freedom. But when the individual life runs into eccentricity, license, and revolution, that is a violation and sacrifice of the community life."
"The duty of the Paulist Superior is to elicit the spontaneous zeal of the Fathers and to further it with his authority. For lack of one's own initiative that of another may be used, and herein the Superior offers a constant help. But the centre of action is individual, is in the soul moved by the Holy Ghost; not in the Superior of the community or in the authorities of the Church. And if he be moved by the Holy Spirit, he will be most obedient to his superior; and he will not only be submissive to the authority of the Church, but careful to follow out her spirit."
In explaining the routine of daily life Father Hecker said: "The member of a community who does not make the common exercises [of religion] his first care is derelict of his duty. A common exercise should be preferred to all other devotional practices or occupations whatever; as far as possible all other exercises ought to be made subordinate to common ones, which should never be omitted without permission of the superior."
Father Hecker was once asked: "Which would you prefer: to have a rule and manner of life adapted to a large number of men, embracing many of a uniform type, men good enough for average work, intended to include and seeking to retain persons of mediocre spirit, and having a dim understanding of our peculiar institute? or would you prefer the rule to be made only for a select body, composed of such men as ——and ——, and the like?'" [Answer:] "I should prefer the rule to be made for the smaller and more select body of men. Religious vocations are not common, but special. It is a fatal mistake for religious to take the place of secular priests."
No one can be misled by what he has read in the foregoing pages into the notion that Father Hecker had any other aim than the entire consecration of liberty and intelligence to the influence of the Holy Spirit. To know Father Hecker well was to be more deeply impressed with his longing for the reign of the Spirit of God in men's souls than even with his love of human liberty. In his esteem the worth of the latter was altogether in proportion to its aptitude for the former. His love of liberty was that of a means to an end—the perfect oblation of the inner man to God. He aimed at individuality because of his belief in the action of the Holy Ghost in the individual soul. Such action, he was quick to maintain, is given to every Christian, but it is to be looked for in a high degree in those who are called by a special vocation to assist independent characters to find the spirit of God within them; or, if already known, to obey His direction implicitly. Paulists after Father Hecker's heart would be men whom experience and study had rendered fit instruments for disseminating the knowledge of the ways of God the Holy Ghost in men's hearts; for instructing the faithful how to distinguish the voice of God in the soul from the vagaries of the imagination or the emotions of passion, and able to stimulate a ready and generous response to every call of God from within.
It is because of this indwelling of the Holy Spirit in every regenerate soul that Father Hecker so vigorously maintained that the freedom of the individual is a golden opportunity for the Catbolic apostolate, according to the text "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." Freedom, he affirmed, was in absolute consonance with Catholic doctrine. But he furthermore insisted that it has become the world-wide aspiration of men by interposition of Divine Providence and with a view to their higher sanctification; and however grossly abused, it is yet a direct suggestion to an apostolate whose prospects are in the highest degree promising. And this is the answer to the question which reasonable persons may well ask, namely: Why should the new institution differ so radically from the old ones, which were certainly works of God? Because the change of men's lives in the entire secular and natural order is in the direction of personal liberty and independence, and this change is a radical one. "The Eternal-Absolute is ever creating new forms of expressing itself." If, indeed, men's aspirations for liberty and intelligence be all from the powers of darkness, then let every longing for freedom be repressed and condemned, crushed by authority in the state, anathematized by the Church. But if men are yearning to be free, however blindly, because God by their freedom would make them holier, then let us hail the new order as a blessing; and let those who love freedom and are worthy of it use its privileges to advance themselves and their brethren nearer to immediate union with the Holy Spirit.
It has been seen that the important question whether the end of the new community would be better attained with the usual religious vows or without them was decided in the negative. They were not definitely rejected in the beginning; but starting without them, the Fathers were willing to allow experience to show whether or not they should be resumed. The lapse of time but confirmed the view that the voluntary agreement and the bond of fraternal charity were, under the circumstances, preferable as securities for stability and incentives to holiness.
There can be little doubt that Father Hecker's ideas on this feature of the religious state had been greatly modified between the writing of theQuestions of the Souland the end of the struggle in Rome. Much is said in that book of community life in the Catholic Church, and generally as rendered stable and its spirit of sacrifice made complete by the vows; and in the statement given in Rome to his five chosen advisers, he says that one reason for writing the volume named was to induce young men to enter the religious orders as the only means of perfection—meaning orders under vows. But when he was released from his own obligations and was confronted with the choice of means for following his vocation, the horizon broadened away until he could see beyond the institutions and traditions in which he had lived since entering the novitiate at St. Trond. His ideas of perfection in its relation to states of life underwent a change. Therefore he said, Let us wait for the unmistakable will of God before we bind ourselves with vows amidst a free people. He never depreciated the evident value of these obligations; indeed, he seldom was heard to speak of them. But he knew from close observation the truth of the words of the Jesuit Avancinus:
"The net (St. Matthew 13:44) is the Catholic Church, or, to take a narrower view, it means the station in which you are placed. As in a net all kinds of fish are to be found, so in our position, as in all others, there are good and bad Christians. . . . Should yours be a sacred calling, you are not, on that account, either the better or the more secure; your sanctity and your salvation depend on yourself, not on your calling." (Meditations,Fourteenth Friday after Pentecost)
It never entered into the minds of the Fathers to question the doctrine and practice of the Church concerning vows. But personal experience proves the lesson of history, that what religion needs is not so much holy states of life as holy men and Women.
Looking back into the past, Father Hecker saw St. Philip Neri, to whom he had a great devotion and for whose spiritual doctrine he had a high admiration. The following is from an exponent of that doctrine, and is much in point:
"Although our Fathers and lay brothers [Oratorians] make no vow of obedience, as do religious, they are, nevertheless, no way inferior in the perfection of this virtue to those who profess it in the cloister with solemn vows. They supply the want of vows with love, with voluntary promptitude, and perfection in obeying every wish of the superior. And it is a thing for which we must indeed thank God, that without the obligation of obeying under pain of sin, without fear of restraint or other punishment (except that of expulsion in case of contumacy), all the subjects are prompt in this obedience, even in things most humiliating and severe, according to the terms of the rule. All take pleasure in meeting the wishes of the superior, etc." (The Excellences of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri,p. 136. London: Burns & Oates.)
Father Hecker did not dream that by relinquishing the vows he and his companions in the Paulist community had cast away a single incentive to virtue capable of moving such men as they, or had even failed to secure any of the insignia adorning the great host of men and women in the Catholic Church whose entire being has been given up to the divine service. "The true Paulist," said he once, "should be fit and ready to take the solemn vows at any moment." He felt strongly the truth of the following words of the Jesuit Lallemant:
"A desire and hunger after our perfection, a determined will to be constantly tending towards it with all our strength—let this be always our chief object and our greatest care. Let us bear in mind that this care is more of the essence of religion [i.e., of a religious order] than vows themselves; for it is on this that our whole spiritual progress depends. Herein consists the difference between true religious and those who are so only in appearance and in the sight of men. Without this care to advance in perfection the religious state does not secure our salvation; but nothing is more common than to deceive ourselves on this point." (The Spiritual Doctrine of Father Louis Lallemant, S.J,p. 111. New York: Sadlier & Co.)
With regard to stability, men of stable character need no vow to guarantee adherence to a divine vocation, and men of feeble character may indeed vow themselves into an outward stability, but it is of little fruit to themselves personally, and their irremovability is often of infinite distress to their superiors and brethren. The episcopate is the one religious order founded by Our Lord, and its members are in the highest state of evangelical perfection; yet they are neither required nor advised to take the oaths or vows of religious orders.
Neither Father Hecker nor any of his associates had the least aversion to the vows. On the contrary, they had lived contentedly under them for many of their most active years, and it will be remembered of Father Hecker that he never found them irksome, had never known a temptation against them.
The question which arose was a choice between two kinds of community, the one fast-bound by external obligations to the Church in the form of vows, placing the members in a relation of peculiar strictness to the Canon Law; or another kind, in which the members trusted wholly to the strength of Divine grace, and their own conscious purpose never to give up the fight for perfection; which of these states would better facilitate the action of the Holy Spirit in the present Providence of God; and which of them would tend to produce a type of character fitted to evangelize a nation of independent and self-reliant men and women? The free community was chosen.
No doubt this involved some risk of criticism, particularly in the beginning, for it was a wonder to many that men should organize for a life-long endeavor after perfection and not swear to it, especially as none of the free communities existing in Europe had houses in America, for the Sulpicians belong to the secular clergy. And there was also danger of unworthy subjects creeping in under favor of a freedom they were unfit to enjoy. For it may be reproached against us that we are apt to be victimized by men ruled by caprice, indulging in extravagant schemes or deluded by wandering fancies; and also by superiors who would let everybody do as he pleased. No doubt such dangers are to be guarded against. But vowed communities do not claim to be free from difficulties. No state of life and no organization claims to be so perfect as totally to prevent abuse of power on the part of superiors or caprice and sloth on the part of members.
Both kinds of organized religious life have their difficulties: the one, the martinet superior and the routine subject; the other, the capricious subject and the lax superior. In one kind the bond of union as well as the stimulus of endeavor is mainly obedience, fraternal charity assisting; in the other it is mainly fraternal charity, obedience assisting; each has to overcome obstacles peculiar to itself.
What has been said in this chapter, besides serving to exhibit Father Hecker's principles as a founder, will be, we trust, a sufficient answer to the silly delusion which the Paulists have encountered in some quarters, that their society tolerates a soft life and supposes in its members no high vocation to perfection; or that the voluntary principle allows them a personal choice in regard to the devotional exercises, permitting them to attend or not attend this or that meditation or devotion laid down in the rule, as "the spirit moves them." This is as plain an error as another one which had much currency for years and which is not yet everywhere corrected: that the Paulist community was open to converts alone and received none others.
________________________
HAVING given in the preceding chapter Father Hecker's principles of the religious life in community, a more general view of his spiritual doctrine, as well as of his method of the direction of souls, naturally follows. And here we are embarrassed by the amount of matter to choose from; for as he was always talking about spiritual doctrine to whomsoever he could get to listen, so in his published writings, in his letters to intimate friends, and in his notes and memoranda, we have found enough falling under the heading of this
It need hardly be said that Father Hecker did not claim to have any new doctrine; there can be none, and he knew it well. Every generation since Christ has had His entire revelation. Development is the word which touches the outer margin of all possible adaptation of Christian principles to the changing conditions of humanity. But in the transmission of these principles from master to disciple, in practically assisting in their use by public instruction, or by private advice, or by choice of devotional and ascetical exercises, there is as great a variety of method as of temperament among races, and even among individuals; and there are broadly marked differences which are conterminous with providential eras of history. This was a truth which Father Hecker, in common with all discerning minds, took carefully into account.
His fundamental principle of Christian perfection may be termed a view of the Catholic doctrine of divine grace suited to the aspirations of our times. By divine grace the love of God is diffused in our hearts; the Holy Spirit takes up his abode there and makes us children of the Heavenly Father, and brethren of Jesus Christ the Divine Son. The state of grace is thus an immediate union of the soul with the Holy Trinity, its Creator, Mediator, and Sanctifier. To secure this union and render it more and more conscious was Father Hecker's ceaseless endeavor through life, both for himself and for those who fell under his influence, whether in cleansing the soul of all hindrances of sin and imperfection, or advancing it deeper and deeper into the divine life by prayer and the sacraments.
His doctrine of Christian perfection might be formulated as a profession of faith: I believe in God theFatherAlmighty; I believe in Jesus Christ the Only BegottenSonof the Father; I believe in the Holy Ghost theLife Giver,the spirit of adoption by whom I am enabled to say to the Father,My Father,and to the Son,My Brother.
He wished that men generally should be made aware of the immediate nature of this union of the soul with God, and that they should become more and more personally conscious of it. He would bring this about without the intervention of other persons or other methods than the divinely constituted ones accessible to all in the priesthood and sacraments. It was the development of the supernatural, heavenly, divine life of the regenerate man, born again of the Holy Ghost, that Father Hecker made the end of all he said and all he did in leading souls; and he maintained that to partake of this life which is "the light of men," many souls needed little interference on the part of others, and that in every case the utmost care should be taken lest the soul should mingle human influences, even the holiest, in undue proportion with those which were strictly divine.
"Go to God," he wrote to one asking advice, "go entirely to God, go integrally to God; behold, that is sincerity, complete, perfect sincerity. Do that, and make it a complete, continuous act, and you need no help from me or any creature. I wish to provoke you to do it. That is my whole aim and desire. Just in proportion as we harbor pride, vanity, self-love—in a word, self-hood—just so far we fail in integrally resigning ourselves to God. Were we wholly resigned to God He would change all in us that is in discord with Him, and prepare our souls for union with Him, making us one with Himself. God longs for our souls greatly more than our souls can long for Him. Such is God's thirst for love that He made all creatures to love Him, and to have no rest until they love Him supremely. If my words are not to your soul God's words and voice, pay no heed to them. If they are, hesitate not a moment to obey. If they humble you to the dust, what a blessing! He that is humbled shall be exalted."
"Peace is gained by a wise inaction, and strength by integral resignation to God, who will do all, and more than we, with the boldest imagination, can fancy or desire."
"May you see God in all, through all, and above all. May the Divine transcendence and the Divine immanence be the two poles of your life."
The natural faculties of the understanding and will, whose integrity Father Hecker so much valued, were to be established in a new life infinitely above their native reach, glorified with divine life, their activity directed to the knowledge of things not even dreamed of before, and endowed with a divine gift of loving. In this state the Holy Spirit communicates to the human faculties force to accomplish intellectual and moral feats which naturally can be accomplished by God alone. This is called by theologians supernatural infused virtue, and is rooted in Faith, Hope, and Love, is made efficacious by spiritual gifts of wisdom and understanding, and knowledge and counsel, and other gifts and forces, the conscious and daily possession of which the Christian is entitled to hope for and strive after, and finally to obtain and enjoy in this life.
That this union is a personal relation, and that it should be a distinctly conscious one on the soul's part, all will admit who think but a moment of the infinite, loving activity of the Spirit of God, and the natural and supernatural receptivity of the spirit of man. Although not even the smallest germ of the supernatural life is found in nature, yet the soul of man ceaselessly, if blindly, yearns after its possession. Once possessed, the life of God blends into our own, mingles with it and is one with it, impregnating it as magnetism does the iron of the lodestone, till the divine qualities, without suppressing nature, entirely possess it, and assert for it and over it the Divine individuality. "Now I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." An author much admired by Father Hecker thus describes the effects produced in the soul by supernatural faith, and hope, and love:
"These virtues are called and in reality areDivinevirtues. They are called thus not because they are related to God in general, but becausethey unite us in a divine manner with God,have Him for their immediate motive, and can be produced in us only by a communication of the Divine nature. . . . For the life that the children of God lead here upon earth must be of the same kind as the life that awaits them in heaven." (Scheeben'sGlories of Divine Grace,p. 222; Benziger Bros.)
To partake thus of the inner life of God was Father Hecker's one spiritual ambition, and to help others to it his one motive for dealing with men. He was ever insisting upon the closeness of the divine union, and that it is our life brought into actual touch with God, whose supreme and essential activity must, by a law of its own existence, make itself felt, dominate as far as permitted the entire activity of the soul, and win more and more upon its life till all is won. Then are fulfilled the Apostle's words: "But we all beholding the glory of the Lordwith open faceare transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord" (2 Cor. 3:18).
Here are some of Father Hecker's words, printed but a year or two before his death, which treat not only of the interior life in general, but in particular of its relation to the outer action of God on the soul through the divine organism of the Church:
"St. Thomas Aquinas attributes the absence of spiritual joy mainly to neglect of consciousness of the inner life. 'During this life,' he says (Opuscula de Beatitudine,cap. iii.), 'we should continually rejoice in God, as something perfectly fitting, in all our actions and for all our actions, in all our gifts and for all our gifts. It is, as Isaias declares, that we may particularly enjoy him that the Son of God has been given to us. What blindness and what gross stupidity for many who are always seeking God, always sighing for Him, frequently desiring Him, daily knocking and clamoring at the door for God by prayer, while they themselves are all the time, as the apostle says, temples of the living God, and God truly dwelling within them; while all the time their souls are the abiding-place of God, wherein He continually reposes! Who but a fool would look for something out of doors which he knows he has within? What is the good of anything which is always to be sought and never found, and who can be strengthened with food ever craved but never tasted? Thus passes away the life of many a good man, always searching and never finding God, and it is for this reason that his actions are imperfect.'
"A man with such a doctrine must cultivate mainly the interior life. His answer to the question, What is the relation between the inner and the outer action of God upon my soul? is that God uses the outer for the sake of the inner life.
"There seems to be little danger nowadays of our losing sight of the Divine authority and the Divine action in the government of the Church, and in the aids of religion conveyed through the external order of the sacraments. Yet it is only after fully appreciating the life of God within us that we learn to prize fittingly the action of God in His external Providence. Such is the plain teaching of St. Thomas in the extract above given.
"By fully assimilating this doctrine one comes to aim steadily at securing a more and more direct communion with God. Thus he does not seek merely for an external life in an external society, or become totally absorbed in external observances; but he seeks the invisible God through the visible Church, for she is the body of Christ the Son of God.
"Once a man's hand is safe on the altar his eye and voice are lifted to God.
"It is not to keep up a strained outlook for times and moments of the interior visitations, but to wait calmly for the actual movements of the Divine Spirit; to rely mainly upon it and not solely upon what leads to it, or communicates it, or guarantees its genuine presence by necessary external tests and symbols.
"Not an anxious search, least of all a craving for extraordinary lights; but a constant readiness to perceive the Divine guidance in the secret ways of the soul, and then to act with decision and a noble and generous courage—this is true wisdom.
"The Holy Spirit is thus the inspiration of the inner life of the regenerate man, and in that life is his Superior and Director. That His guidance may become more and more immediate in an interior life, and the soul's obedience more and more instinctive, is the object of the whole external order of the Church, including the sacramental system.
"Says Father Lallemant (Spiritual Doctrine,3d principle, chap. i. art. 1): 'All creatures that are in the world, the whole order of nature as well as that of grace, and all the leadings of Providence, have been so disposed as to remove from our souls whatever is contrary to God.'"