Life of Father Hecker

by Walter Elliott

He tells her that the first bell rings at half-past four in the morning and the last at half-past nine at night. The time is divided between various common and private devotional exercises, including Mass, meditations, recitation of the office in common, study of the rule of the order, spiritual conferences, spiritual reading, and the like. Silence is broken only for an hour after dinner and another hour after supper. About an hour of out-door exercise is taken every day, and a long walk once a week and on feast-days. All of Thursday in each week and the more important feasts of the year are days of recreation, when silence need not be observed during the greater part of the day, and much relaxation is otherwise allowed. All Fridays are days of total silence and special devotion. The letter fails to mention the discipline, or flagellation, which was taken twice a week.

He ends thus: "The time of the novitiate is one year, and its object is to prove our vocation, and form the religious character—the heart. The exercises may seem too many to you, but to us they are quite otherwise. Their frequent changes prevent them from being monotonous, and their variety makes them agreeable. Our time passes without our taking count of it, and our joy is that of a pure conscience, and our happiness that of a clean heart."

It might seem a matter of peculiar difficulty for a free nature like Isaac Hecker's to conform to the stiff rules of such a system. But this was not the case, and a closer look into the matter shows that such a regimen is of much use to an earnest man, however free his character, at the outset of his spiritual career. Experience proves that one test of the genuineness of the interior disposition to serve God perfectly is readiness to surrender exterior peculiarities. There is nothing in the special graces of God which should hinder a placid acceptance of the routine of a novitiate. The merging of individual conduct into the common custom is the contribution which community life must exact from every member. If a man is to be a hermit he may act from individual impulses alone, though, even so, rarely without counsel. But if one would live and work with others, special graces and individual traits of character must not be allowed to interfere with a certain degree of uniformity. On the other hand, that uniformity should not be allowed to cripple the spontaneous action of natural independence, and the inspiration of graces which are personal.

It must be granted that with many souls a novitiate will tend to a routine use of religious aids. Yet it cannot be denied that its discipline forcibly concentrates the scattered purposes of life into one powerful stream. It contributes to symmetry of character. It furnishes efficacious tests of sincerity. It drills disorderly natures into regularity. It acquaints the beginner with the literature of his holy profession, and herein it is of priceless worth. And finally, it provides advisers of approved wisdom during the period of the spiritual life when counsel is most needed, as well as most gratefully accepted. But if it fails in each of these particulars, as no doubt it sometimes does, the novitiate may be said never to fail in detecting an inaptitude for the common life, if such exists; that is to say, a serious lack of the qualities which fit one to get along in peace with the brethren.

Into the novitiates of the religious orders, and into the seminaries which hold their place for the secular priesthood, the noblest men of our race have entered joyfully; some to be wedded to the Divine Spouse in the quiet seclusion of holy contemplation, and others, of the more militant orders, to be trained to follow worthily the standards of the apostolic warfare against vice and error.

The novice-master was puzzled by his three Americans, though Brother McMaster was easily comprehended—an over-frank temperament, impulsive, and demonstrative. Not only were his banners always hanging on the outward wall, but his plan of campaign also. The other two were a study, and Brother Hecker was a curiosity. Yet both were cheerful, obedient, earnest, courageous. The novice-master was annoyed at the Americans' incessant demand for the reason why of all things permitted, and the reason why not of all things prohibited; until at last Brother Walworth was named Brother Pourquoi. As to Brother Hecker, besides showing the same stand-and-deliver propensity, he occupied much of the time of conversation in philosophizing, plunging into the obscurest depths of metaphysical and ethical problems, using terms which were often quite unfamiliar to strictly orthodox ears, and exhibiting a fearless independence of thought generally conceded among Catholics only to practised theologians. Yet the novice-master was well pleased with both, though we shall see that his journey with Brother Hecker was for some time in the dark.

When the Fourth of July came around he learned that it was the great American holiday, and he called the three Americans to him and asked, "How do you celebrate your national holiday at home?" "By shooting off fire-crackers," they answered with a twinkle. This being out of the question, and the grand military parade which was next suggested also impracticable, Brothers Walworth and Hecker both exclaimed, "Ginger-bread!" "Take all you want," was the answer, "and go off on a long walk, and spend the day by yourselves." And of they went to wander among the ruins of the outposts of the old Roman republic, and make Fourth of July speeches in honor of the great new Republic beyond the sea. Those who have been novices themselves will not be surprised at the boyishness of these three manly characters under the circumstances.

Isaac Hecker's spirit was not anywise cramped by the routine exercises of the novitiate; he made them easily and well. He always seemed to his companions what he actually was, and what he described himself to be in his letters to New York, a cheerful and contented novice. But, as one of them since expressed it, he was not a "dude" novice, not the very pink of external perfection, and had a long period of interior trial. He did not exhibit at any time the least hesitancy about his vocation, for his mind was made up. Yet once, when he took a walk with Brother Walworth to visit a house of Recollects, Franciscans of the strict observance, both he and his companion were greatly struck by that charming poverty which the poor man of Assisi has bequeathed to his children; they did ask each other whether they had not made a mistake. This question, however, was but the expression of a shadowy doubt, vanishing as suddenly as it had come.

The novice-master was Father Othmann, and he was by universal testimony entirely competent for his place. He was himself the novitiate. Its austerities, and they were not trifling, its long and frequent prayer, its total seclusion from the world, all were refined and adjusted to each one by passing through his soul and being dispensed by his wisdom. Father Hecker regarded him as a very remarkable man. He was a student of character, and wise and sagacious in varying the application of religious influences according to temperament and spiritual gifts. Under him the danger of formalism, which occurs to one's mind immediately as the incessant round of exercises is mentioned, was rendered remote; for he gave his instructions, and especially used the chapter of faults, in a way to infuse into the souls of the novices the ever-recurring freshness of individual initiative. His model (after St. Alphonsus) was St. Francis de Sales. He followed him constantly in his doctrine and methods, and often spoke of him and quoted him. Of other methods and their advocates he spoke respectfully, but, however much they were in vogue, he did not follow them. Brother Hecker was a faithful student in his school and learned much from Father Othmann. The latter especially insisted on the principle of accepting Providence as the chief dispenser of mortifications. He had no objection to self-imposed spiritual exercises, but he did not positively favor them. He taught his young men that the traditional practices of devout souls as embraced in the routine of the novitiate, were good mainly to break the resistance of corrupt nature and render their souls pliant subjects of the Divine guidance in the interior life, as well as submissive to the order of God in the events of His external Providence.

The assistant novice-master, who took Father Othmann's place during his absence, was a Walloon. His name we have been unable to discover, but he was a holy priest, held up to the novices as their model and esteemed by them as the saint of the novitiate. He was a very pleasant man withal, and no doubt added in every way to the fruits of the long year of spiritual trial.