Life of Father Hecker

by Walter Elliott

The Paulist Church also became well known for the attention paid to the public offices of religion, as well as for rubrical exactness in ceremonies, the greater feasts of the year being celebrated with all the splendor which a simple church-building and limited pecuniary means allowed.

Father Hecker was from first to last strongly in favor of congregational singing, and assisted to the best of his power in introducing it. It began in our church in modest fashion back in those early days, and was fostered zealously at the Lenten devotions and society meetings. It never failed of some good results, and has finally attained a flourishing state of success in this parish. His attention to the children was constant. No matter who had charge of the Sunday-school, as long as his health permitted Father Hecker was there every Sunday that he was at home, asking questions, talking to the teachers and children, enlivening all by his encouragement and cheerfulness. He was a martinet on one question, and that was cleanliness, and its kindred virtue, orderliness. He was never above working with mop, broom and duster indoors, and shovel and rake in the garden; and this trait added much to the appearance of things as well as to the comfort of all concerned in the use of the convent and the church.

Though assiduous in every parish duty, his favorite task was the relief of the poor. They multiplied in number in undue proportion to the increase of the parish, drifting out this way from the overcrowded quarters down town. Father Hecker enlisted the best men and women in the congregation in the work of caring for them, organizing a conference of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, in whose labors he joyfully and energetically participated.

The death of Father Baker was, humanly speaking, a loss to the community beyond all calculation, and was the great event of the first period of the Paulist community. Father Hecker had the very highest estimate of his holiness, and mourned him with the mingled sorrow and joy with which saints are mourned. The reader should get Father Hewit's Memoir of Father Baker if he would know his virtues. Father Hecker was often heard to say that few men understood his ideas so clearly as did Father Baker and had so much sympathy with them. And his death was the signal for an impulse whose power plainly indicated its supernatural origin. Up to that time there had been but two priests added to the community, and those who had offered themselves as novices and been rejected were, as a rule, little calculated to inspire hope. But from 1865 onwards good subjects, mostly converts, applied in sufficient numbers, and in a few years the missions were resumed. But what was of even more importance, the apostolate of the press, started in the publication of THE CATHOLIC WORLD the month in which Father Baker's death occurred, assumed a national prominence, and together with the Catholic Tracts and the Catholic Publication Society set the Paulists at work in their primary vocation, the conversion of non-Catholics to the true religion. To this, and to Father Hecker's lectures, we now turn. Of course we might dwell longer on the parish and the missions, about which there are many things of interest left untold, but only the lapse of time can sufficiently dissociate them from living persons to allow of their being made public.

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CHAPTER XXIX

FATHER HECKER'S LECTURES

THE suspension of the missions, if it was the result of necessity, was yet an aid to Father Hecker in devoting himself to public speaking in the interests of the Catholic faith. Between missions, it is true, he seized every favorable opportunity to address audiences on controversial topics, often doing so in public halls, as well as in churches. Meantime he could still further mature his plans, and, testing his methods by experiment, secure for future occasions a course of lectures fully suited to the end he had in view. More than ever did he study to fit himself for his apostolate. How, he asked himself, shall the living word be framed anew for our new people? How shall religious teaching be suited to the special needs of this age without detracting from the integrity and the venerable antiquity of the truth? He sought to answer these questions by recalling his own early difficulties, and by opening his soul to the voices of struggling humanity uttered everywhere around him. What men outside the Church were yearning for in matters social and religious was his incessant study. He read every book, he read every periodical which promised to guide him ever so little to know by what road Divine Providence was moving men's minds towards the truth. His eyes were ever strained to read the signs of God's providence in men's lives. And his conclusion was always the same: proclaim it on the house-tops that no man can be consistent with his natural aspirations till he has become a Catholic; preach it on the street-corners that the Catholic religion elevates man far above his highest natural force into union with the Deity—intimate, conscious, and perpetual.

As to systematic preparation for discourses to non-Catholics, Father Hecker had his own peculiar equipment. As the reader will remember, God had led him in no way more singularly than in his studies, and had led him straight. The doctrines of the Church were familiar to him, for they had quenched his soul's thirst. And he had preached them on the missions, the instructions on the Creed and the Sacraments falling to his share. He had given these waters of life to other souls, and knew their value. He was a close student of the dogmatic side of religion. He had, it is true, little taste for the refinements of theologians, unless they touched the questions of human dignity and the scope of the grace of Christ, which were vital ones to himself. He viewed religion with wide-sweeping glances, trying to discover every hill of vision or stream of sanctity. He had plain truths to teach, and he needed none other. He knew the organism of the Church in clergy and in people, for he had seen it both from without and within. He had felt the grip of authority fixed in his soul. He had agonized under the brand of punishment as it burnt into his flesh, and he had seen it changed into the badge of approval. Within and without he knew Catholicity, loved it daily more and more, and was daily more and more anxious to proclaim it to the world.

It was not from labored preparation of his lectures that success came to Father Hecker. Even those which seemed the most elaborately prepared he did not write out word for word. His verbal memory was not trustworthy, and he had to confide in his extemporizing faculty, which was very good, and which became in course of time quite reliable, giving out sentences clear, grammatical, and fit to print. "I have to produce a sermon for next Sunday," he once wrote to a friend. "For me a sermon is always a spontaneous production; I cannot get one up. The idea must arise and grow up in my own mind. It is usually hard labor for me to produce it outwardly and give it suitable expression." But the effort did not appear in the delivery, for his style, although emphatic, was easy and familiar; his delivery, if not altogether according to the rules of elocution, nevertheless gained his point completely. No word of his was dead-born. His voice was not always clear, as he often suffered from bronchial troubles, but it was not unpleasant, and had a penetrating quality, being of that middle pitch which carries to the ends of a large auditorium without provoking the echoes. His appearance was very dignified, his tall frame, his broad face and large features showing with striking effect. His action was simple and not ungraceful, though frequently exceedingly energetic. As he never sought emotional effects his power may be known by his unfailing success in holding his audience perfectly attentive throughout long argumentative discourses. Energy of conviction was one of the strongest forces he possessed, and it took the shape of a gentle constraint with which his positive utterances of Catholic principles compelled assent. Sincerity of belief and liberty of soul were admirably blended in his manner. He never appeared in public without attracting many representatives of the mottled sectarianism of our population; and this pleased him much, for he loved them, felt at home with them, and was full of joy at the opportunity of addressing them.