Life of Father Hecker

by Walter Elliott

IN serving the parish, the Paulists, led by Father Hecker, endeavored to utilize the individual qualities of each member, as well as the advantages of a community, so as to bring them to bear as distinct forces upon the people. What George Miles had said of them as missionaries, as quoted in a previous chapter, applied to them as parish priests, and told accordingly in result. Their personal excellences found free room for activity, without any lack of oneness of spirit and without interfering with harmony of action.

The missionary makes an efficient parish priest. Accustomed to severe labor as well as to very moderate recreation, he pours the energy of apostolic zeal into parochial channels. A high order of preaching is often the result, combined with tireless application to visiting the sick, hunting up sinners, and hearing confessions. On the other hand, the experience of regular parish duty is of assistance to the missionary when he returns to his "apostolic expeditions," as Pius IX. called them; he is all the better fitted to plan and execute his proper enterprises from having obtained a fuller knowledge of the ordinary state of things in a parish.

It will not be expected that a detailed account of the parish work of St. Paul's will here be given, or more than a brief summary of that of the missions. These latter were kept up with vigorous energy from 1858 till the close of the war in the spring of 1865. On April 4 of that year Father Baker died, and the missions, which had been a grievous burden to the little band, now became an impossibility. They were suspended till 1872, excepting an occasional one, given not so much as part of the current labor of the community, as to retain their sweet savor in the memory and as an earnest of their future resumption. But up to Father Baker's death this small body of men had preached almost everywhere throughout the country, getting away from the South just before the war blocked the road. Eighty-one missions had been given, hundreds of converts had been received into the Church and many scores of thousands of confessions heard. Numerous applications for missions were refused for want of men to preach them. Scarcely a city of any size in the United States and Canada but knew the Paulists and thanked God for their missions.

The Fathers conducted them in the same spirit as when they were Redemptorists, and followed, as the community still continues to do, substantially the same method. It is not easy to improve on St. Alphonsus. But they did not fail to bring out the qualities and call for the peculiar virtues demanded by Divine Providence in these times. Their preaching was distinguished by appeals to manliness and intelligence, as well as to the virtues distinctly supernatural. The people were not only edified by their zeal and religious discipline, but the more observant were attracted by the Paulists' freedom of spirit, and by their constant insistence on the use of the reasoning faculties to guide the emotions aroused by the sermons. The missionaries were men of native independence, and their religious influence was productive of the same quality. Great attention was paid to the doctrinal instructions. As to special devotions, the Paulists have never had any to propagate, though competent and willing to assist the pastor in his own choice of such subsidiary religious aids. Non-Catholics of all classes were drawn to hear the convert missionaries, and the exercises usually received flattering notices from the secular press. An unrelenting warfare was carried on against the dangerous occasions of sin peculiar to our country and people, and the Fathers were from the beginning, and their community is yet well known for particular hostility to drunkenness, and to the most fruitful source of that detestable and widespread vice, the saloon. Their antagonism to drunkenness showed their appreciation of its evil supremacy among the masses, and the condemnation of the saloon was a necessary result.

This attitude of the missionaries was often a bitter-sweet morsel to the pastors, nearly all of whom at that time had been trained in the Old World. They were glad of the good done, yet sorry to see their liquor-dealers put to public shame. One pastor is recorded as saying: "The only people that have looked sad at this mission are the first men in my parish, the rum-sellers." The following is a piece of evidence worth publishing, though it is but one of very many which could be produced. It is found in the Mission Record in Father Baker's handwriting:

"A Catholic one evening, on his way to the mission, stopped in a grog-shop and took a glass with the proprietor. 'Won't you go with me to hear the Fathers?' said the guest. 'No,' said the other, 'these men are too hard on us. They want all of us liquor-dealers to shut up our shops. If we were rich we could do it; but we an't—we are poor. These men are too high and independent; Father wouldn't dare to speak as they do. But after all,' continued he, 'they are good fellows; see the effect of their labors.' Then, taking out of his pocket a crumpled letter which he had received through the post-office, and which was badly spelled and badly written, he read as follows: 'SIR: I send you three dollars which I received by mistake three years ago from your clerk. And now I hope that you will stop selling damnation, and that God may give you grace to stop it. Yours: A Sinner.'"

Whatever may have been the misgivings of some, the opposition of the Paulists to the liquor-traffic was approved by the most enlightened and influential prelates and priests of the country, as is shown by the number of cathedrals and other prominent churches in which the missions were preached. It should be added that this antagonism to drunkenness, to convivial drinking, and to saloon-keeping, not only received the unanimous applause of the Catholic laity, but edified the non-Catholic public, and brought out many commendations from the secular press as well as from the police authorities of our crowded cities. A mission is a terror to obstinate evil-doers of all kinds, but to habitual drunkards and saloon-keepers it is especially so. The attitude of the Church in America on this entire subject, as officially expressed by the decrees of the Third Plenary Council and by its pastoral letter, fully justifies the action of Father Hecker and his companions.

As soon as the church in Fifty-ninth Street was opened the community exerted itself to make the surroundings attractive. The building occupied but a small part of the property, the rest of which was laid out in grass-plats and gravel walks; many shade-trees and some fruit-trees were set out, and a flower and vegetable garden planted. It was Father Hecker's delight to superintend this work, and to participate actively in it when his duties allowed. The grounds soon became an attractive spot, to which in a few years church-goers from all parts of the city began to make Sunday pilgrimages. They came in considerable numbers every Sunday to assist at Mass or Vespers in St. Paul's quiet, country-like church. Meantime the residents of the parish, not very numerous and nearly all of the laboring class, formed deep attachments for their pastors, and an almost ideal state of unity and affection bound priests and people together.

Nearly the entire region was covered with market gardens, varied with huge masses of rock, and groups of shanties. Very many of the parishioners of that early period lived in these nondescript dwellings, of which they were themselves both the architects and builders, a fact which added not a little to their quaint and picturesque appearance. The sites upon which these "squatters'" homes were placed, and over which roamed and sported their mingled goats, dogs, and children, are now occupied in great part by blocks of stately residences and apartment houses; but we know not whether the grace of God abounds more plentifully now than it did then. At any rate, whoever heard Father Hecker in those primitive days call his parish "Shantyopolis," could see no sign of regret on his part that he had a poor and simple people as the bulk of his parishioners.

Much attention was given to the preparation and preaching of sermons, with the result of a full attendance at High Mass on Sundays. Beginning with 1861, a volume of these discourses was published under Father Hecker's direction each year, till a series of seven volumes had been completed. These were very well received by the Catholic public, and were bought in considerable numbers by non-Catholic clergymen. They had an extensive sale, though when their publication was first proposed it was feared that they would not succeed. They are almost wholly of a strictly parochial character, brief, direct in style, abounding in examples from every-day life, and plentifully illustrated with Scripture quotations. Although Father Hecker preached regularly in his turn, only a few of his sermons were contributed to these volumes, but his suggestions and encouragement greatly assisted the other Fathers in preparing theirs, as indeed in all their duties, parochial and missionary. Some years after the series was ended two volumes of Five-Minute Sermons were published, providing short instructions for Low Masses on Sundays.