Life of Father Hecker

by Walter Elliott

"Father Hecker said: 'God is now visiting me with the profoundest desolation of spirit. I have the most deadly terror of death; if I yielded to it I should tremble from head to foot. Yet there is a spell on me which makes me wish that I may die without sensible faith and deprived of every present spiritual comfort. . . .' He also said many things about his continued and unbroken desolation of spirit these several years back. 'Yet,' said he, 'I never knew that God would permit me to come so near to Him and see so much of Him as I have.' Then he made me read to him the first chapter of the Book of Job. . . . After he had gone to bed I read to him part of an article in The Month on the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and he discoursed meantime to me most profoundly on that topic. And he added: 'One reason why I have always been so much interested in the doctrine of the Holy Ghost acting in the soul is a practical one, because I myself have never had any other director, though I have more than once opened my mind entirely to others and profited by their advice, but none was or could be really my director. Hence, too, I am so much attracted to saints who have had to struggle on alone like St. Catherine of Genoa, who was without a director for twenty-five years.'"

Towards the close of October, 1888, two months before death, Doctor Begen saw that the end was approaching. This was evident from a sudden and general failure of strength, the appetite, not much at any time, seeming now to vanish quite away, although Father Hecker's strong will forced down a little nourishment. This loss of strength caused the heart to work badly and to give an occasional sudden alarm. Internal congestions followed, relaxing the bowels and causing much bodily annoyance. Meantime he was hardly ever out of his room and many days he spent entirely in bed. His fits of depression of spirits were more frequent than usual and more saddening. He no longer rested at all, what sleep he got being produced by drugs and serving but to pass the time unconsciously. From the beginning of December he was apt to fall into a semi-comatose state, though generally in full use of his faculties. Some days before he died he seemed to realize that the long struggle was nearly over, and he no longer talked to the doctor or others of the medicines or of his bodily ailments, nor did he seem to think of them; and his mind appeared to have suddenly grown peaceful. The Scriptures as well as other books were read to him, as usual, up to the very evening before he died. On the night of the 20th of December, two days after his sixty-ninth birthday, the last sacraments were administered, Father Hecker receiving them without visible emotion but in full consciousness. During the following day he was quiet and apparently free from acute pain, the benumbed body refusing to suffer more; but the mind calm and attentive. When the morning of the 22d came all could see that his time was near at hand. In the middle of the forenoon the members of the community were gathered at the bedside, the prayers for the dying were read and the indulgence was given. As this was over the doctor arrived, and Father Hecker, who had gradually lost advertence to all around him, was roused by him into full consciousness, and gave the community his blessing, feebly raising his hand to make the sign of the cross and uttering the words in a light whisper. Then he sank away into unconsciousness and in an hour ceased to breathe.

And so Father Hecker died. Our beloved teacher and father, so blameless and brave, so gentle and daring, so full of God and of humanity, entered into his eternal beatitude.

Dying on Saturday, and so near Christmas, the funeral was delayed till Wednesday, the feast of St. Stephen, the body being embalmed. Christmas afternoon it was placed in the church and was visited and venerated by great throngs of people. A vast concourse attended the Requiem Mass the next morning, which was sung by Archbishop Corrigan surrounded by many priests, an eloquent sermon being preached by Father T. J. Campbell, the Provincial of the Jesuits. The body was placed in the vaults of the old cathedral.

The life we have been following is a harmonious whole from beginning to end. The child tells of the youth, the youth promises a noble man, and the promise is more than fulfilled. He was guileless; no dark ways of forbidden pleasure ever heard the sound of his footstep. There was no barter of conscience for ambition's prize. He was fearless; from beginning to end there was no halt from want of courage. Nor did he rush forward before the light came to show the road, though he often chafed and panted to hear the word of Divine command; he never moved at any other. But when the voice of God bade him forward he never flinched at any obstacle. The ever-recurring persuasion that there were so few who saw God's will as he saw it cut him to the heart, and the mystery of the Divine times and moments grew upon him with fatal force till the end, until he drooped and pined away with grief that he could but taste the first-fruits. Yet he was ever submissive to the Divine Will, to live, to die, to begin, to end the work, to be alone or to be of many brethren, to lead or to follow. Though a most active spirit, he was yet contemplative, and to unite the manifestation of the Holy Spirit in the inner and outer life was the end he always kept in view; but he was distinctively an interior man.

Few men since the Apostles have felt a quicker pulse than Isaac Hecker when the name of God was heard, or that of Jesus Christ or the Holy Spirit. Few men have had a nobler pride in the Church of Christ, or felt more one with her honor. Few men have grown into closer kinship with all the family of God, from Mary the great mother and the holy angels down to the simplest Catholic, than Isaac Hecker. But his peculiar trait was fidelity to the inner voice. "There are some," he once said, "for whom the predominant influence is the external one, authority, example, etc.; others in whose lives the interior action of the Holy Spirit predominates. In my case, from my childhood, God influenced me by an interior light and by the interior touch of his Holy Spirit." The desperate demand of Philip, "Lord, show us the Father and it is enough," was Father Hecker's cry all through early life. After the founding of his community, in 1858, his life was like an arctic year. From that date till 1872 there was no set of sun. The unclouded heavens bent over him ever smiling with God's glorious light; and its golden tints lit up all humanity with hope and joy. Then the sun went down to rise no more. The heavens were dark and silent, or rent asunder with wrathful storms, only a transient flash of the aurora relieving the gloom. When the light dawned again it was to beam upon his soul in the ecstasies of Paradise.

We know not what to say of his faults, nor can we think that he had any that were not to be traced to his eager love of God's cause, such as his overpowering men with pleading for God in their souls; or too easily crediting unworthy men who prated to him of liberty and the Holy Spirit; or over-fondness during his illness for playing in the lists of fancy at an apostolate denied him in the battle of active life; he repined at being forced to plan great battles in a sick-room. He could not help betraying a heart heaving with a pent-up ocean of zeal, while he was creeping about helplessly, often too feeble to speak above his breath. A lover of liberty, its only boon to him at last was liberty to accept and rivet upon himself the chain of patient love.

Some may say "Hecker was before his time." But no man is before his time if, having a divine message, he can get but one other to accept it, can arrest men's attention, can cause them to ponder, to ask why or why not, whether this be the day or only its vigil. The sower is not before his time though he dies before the harvest; there is a time to sow and a time to reap.

And now the tree is dead, but its ripe fruits are in our bosoms bearing living seeds, which will spring up in their time and give fruit again each according to its kind.

The life of Father Hecker is a strong invitation to the men of these times to become followers of God the Holy Ghost, to fit their souls by prayer and penance in union with Christ and his Church, for the consecration of liberty and intelligence to the elevation of the human race to union with God. We do not bid him farewell, for this age, and especially this nation, will hail him and his teachings with greater and greater acclaim as time goes on. As God guides His Church to seek her Apostolate mainly in developing men's aspirations for better things into fulness of Catholic truth and virtue, Isaac Hecker will be found to have taught the principles and given the methods which will lead most surely to success.