Life of Father Hecker

by Walter Elliott

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 your confrères. 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 Corda and 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.