Life of Father Hecker

by Walter Elliott

"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 Paulist essentially, 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."