HOW BROTHER HECKER MADE HIS STUDIES AND WAS ORDAINED PRIEST
THE day after the taking of the vows, Brothers Hecker and Walworth
started by stage-coach for the house of studies, at Wittem in Dutch
Limburg. The route lay nearly east through a country pleasant on
account of the fertility of its soil and the industry of its
inhabitants, and interesting from its churches, monasteries, and
curious old villages. The travellers crossed the Meuse at Maestricht
and reached their destination before nightfall. Wittem is a small
town, thirty miles east of St. Trond and about ten west of
Aix-la-chapelle. This part of Holland is entirely Catholic, and its
people possess a fervor which has sent missionaries to the ends of
the earth. Everywhere shrines were to be seen by the roadsides. The
country is not so level as that west of the Meuse, and the
Redemptorist students often made excursions among the hills, our
young Americans admiring the shepherds guarding their flocks, with
their crooks and their dogs.
The house of studies was an old Capuchin monastery, large and plain
and very interesting. The friars had buried their dead under the
ground floor, which enabled the students to dig up an abundant supply
of skulls as _memento moris_ till the rector forbade it. The students
were more numerous at Wittem than the novices had been at St. Trond.
They were mostly Dutchmen, with a sprinkling of Belgians and a few
Germans; but the language of the house was French or Latin. We have
not been able to make quite sure of the name of the Rector; possibly
it was Father Heilig, who certainly was there at this time, either in
charge of the house or as one of the professors. The Master of
Studies was Father L'hoir, who soon became one of Brother Hecker's
dearest friends.
The two Americans found their fellow-students men of fine character
and every way lovable, being earnest and devoted religious. They
admired their thorough proficiency in all classical and literary
studies, the result of old-world method and application. Mentally and
physically they were splendid men. The whole race of Flemings and
Dutch was found by our young recruits to be a grave and powerful
people, although exceptional cases of mercurial temperament were not
rare. Some curious individuals were to be found among them, as is
more the case in European nationalities in general than in our own.
Both Americans were much liked and respected by all their new-found
brethren, though Brother Hecker, for reasons soon to be told, was
sometimes ridiculed in a way that distressed him. Brother Walworth,
having studied much before entering the order, was placed at once in
the theological department and Brother Hecker in the philosophical.
The former was even dispensed from one year of his theology, taking
but two years of the three which formed the full course. The
difference of studies separated the two companions almost wholly from
each other, members of the two departments not being allowed even to
speak together except on extraordinary occasions.
All went smoothly with Brother Walworth. Not so with Brother Hecker,
who was expected to make two years of philosophy and meantime to
increase his stock of Latin. But his faculties had been subjected to
spiritual experiences of so absorbing a nature that he found study
impossible. And when Brother Walworth was in due course ordained
priest, in August, 1848, his companion was stuck fast where he had
begun. It need not be said that so earnest a soul made every effort
to study, but all was in vain. In the statement made in Rome ten
years later, and referred to before, we find the following:
"My wish was to make a thorough course (of studies) and begin with
philosophy. This the superior granted. My intellect in all scientific
(scholastic) matters seemed stupid, it was with great difficulty that
its attention could be kept on them for a few moments, and my memory
retained of these things nothing. At the close of the first year (at
Wittem) all ability to pursue my studies had altogether departed.
This state of things perplexed my superiors, and on being asked what
they could do with me, my answer was, 'One of three things: make me a
lay brother; send me to a contemplative order which does not require
scientific (scholastic) studies; or allow me to pursue, at my free
moments, my studies by myself.' Instead of either of these they gave
me charge of the sick, which was my sole (regular) occupation for the
whole year following. During this year my stupidity augmented and
reduced me to a state next to folly, and it was my delight to be
treated as a fool. One day, when my fellow-students were treating me
as such, and throwing earth at me, an ancient father, venerated for
his gifts and virtues, suddenly turned around to them and with
emotion exclaimed, 'You treat him as a fool and despise him; the day
will come when you will think it an honor to kiss his hand.' At the
expiration of the second year (at Wittem) the question came up again,
what was to be done with me. My superior put this question to me, and
demanded of me under obedience to tell him in writing how, in my
belief, God intended to employ me in the future. Though the answer to
this question was no secret to me, yet to express it while in a
condition of such utter helplessness required me to make an act of
great mortification. There was no escape, and my reply was as follows:
It seemed to me in looking back at my career before becoming a
Catholic that Divine Providence had led me, as it were by the hand,
through the different ways of error and made me personally acquainted
with the different classes of persons and their wants, of which the
people of the United States is composed, in order that after having
made known to me the truth, He might employ me the better to point
out to them the way to His Church. That, therefore, my vocation was
to labor for the conversion of my non-Catholic fellow-countrymen.
This work, it seemed to me at first, was to be accomplished by means
of acquired science, but now it had been made plain that God would
have it done principally by the aid of His grace, and if (I were)
left to study at such moments as my mind was free, it would not take
a long time for me to acquire sufficient knowledge to be ordained a
priest. This plan was adopted."
A more explicit statement of the supernatural influences by means of
which God informed him of his mission was made in after years to
various persons, singly and in common. It was to the effect that the
Holy Spirit gave him a distinct and unmistakable intimation that he
was set apart to undertake, in some leading and conspicuous way, the
conversion of this country. That this intimation came to him while he
was at Wittem is also certain; but it is equally so that he had
premonitions of it during the novitiate. It was the incongruity of
such a persuasion being united to a helpless inactivity of mind in
matters of study that made Isaac Hecker a puzzle to his very self, to
say nothing of those who had to decide his place in the order. Father
Othmann, in bidding him farewell at St. Trond, had told him to become
_"un saint fou,"_ a holy fool; a direction based upon his excessive
abstraction of mind towards mystical things, and his consequent
incapacity for mental effort in ordinary affairs. Once, at least,
during those two eventful years at Wittem, Father Othmann visited the
place, and when he saw Brother Hecker he embraced him and exclaimed,
"O here is the spouse of the Canticles!" His farewell injunction on
parting at St. Trond had been perforce complied with.
It must have taken more than ordinary penetration to perceive
anything but a kind of grandiose folly in Brother Hecker. The impulse
to talk about the conversion of America, to plan it and advocate it,
to proclaim it possible and prove it so, and to philosophize on the
profoundest questions of the human reason, was irrepressible. This he
did with an air of matured conviction and with the impact of
conscious moral authority, but in terms as strikingly eccentric as
the thoughts were lofty and inspiring, and in execrable French, the
declaimer being known as _minus habens_ in his studies and utterly
incapable. All this was the very make-up of folly; and Brother Hecker
was no doubt thought a fool. But how holy a fool he was his superiors
soon discovered. We find the following among the memoranda:
"Père L'hoir was my superior in the studentate. He was a holy man and
a good friend, but he was surprised at my state of prayer. He asked
me how it could happen that I, a convert of only a few years, should
have a state of prayer he had not attained though in the Church all
his life and striving for perfection. I told him that it was God's
will to set apart some men for a certain work and specially prepare
them for it, and cause them, as He had me, to be brought under the
influence of special Divine graces from boyhood. L'hoir then began to
send anybody with difficulties to me, and God gave me grace to settle
them. Then murmurs arose that he was too much under my influence, and
he was removed from his position over the studies. But afterwards
they replaced him; he was very efficient in his place."
The confidence of his superiors in Brother Hecker was shown by their
causing him to receive tonsure and minor orders at the end of his
first year at Wittem, though he had made no progress whatever in his
studies.
The following notes are found in the memoranda:
"The time in my whole life when I felt I had gained the greatest
victory by self-exertion was when, after weeks of labor, I was able
to recite the _Pater Noster_ in Latin.
"My memory finally failed me in my studies to that degree that at
last I took all my books up-stairs to the library and told the
prefect of studies I could do no more to acquire knowledge by study.
"_Question._ How long were you unable to study? _Answer._ Two years
in Holland and one year in England. I never went to class those
years. I was a kind of a scandal, of course, in the house. When I got
a lucid interval of memory I studied, though much of the time I
hadn't a book in my room. Yet, when they came to ordain me, I knew
enough and was sent at once to the work of the ministry."
That his stupidity was not blameworthy is shown by the sympathy of
Isaac's superiors; that it was not natural is known to our readers by
their acquaintance with his native ability exhibited in his journals
and letters. The difficulty was confined almost wholly to study; to
fix his attention on the matter in the text-books, or to grasp it and
hold it in memory, was beyond his power. Meantime his letters to his
friends in New York and elsewhere were full of life. He kept a copy
of a carefully written one, addressed to an old-time friend of the
Brook Farm community. It is a model of brief statement of great
truths, and proves that the social difficulty can only be fully
remedied by the Catholic Church, which has an elevating force
incomparably more powerful than any other known to humanity. The
method used and the choice of arguments are peculiarly Isaac Hecker's
own, and the tone, though affectionate, is one of authority, as that
of an exponent of evident truth. His letters to his mother and his
brothers are full of controversy, abounding in appeals to Scripture,
to the voice of conscience, to the dictates of reason; and although
the tone is one of deep affection, the attacks on Protestantism are
keen, and the use of facts and persons as illustrations full of
intelligence. Most of the letters which we have found were addressed
to his mother, for whose conversion he had an ardent longing. With
one of them he sends her a little manuscript treatise on true Bible
Christianity which he had himself prepared. We give the reader
extracts from two letters, the first from one to his brother John and
the second from one to his mother:
"Your lamentation, dear John, on my separation from you, excites in
me a great astonishment. To justify this separation it seems to me
that you have only to open a page of the Gospels of Christ, and to
read it with a sincere belief in the words and a generous love of the
Saviour. As for me, I regret nothing so much as that I have not a
thousand lives to sacrifice to His service and love. Yes, I love you
all more than I ever did, and I would count nothing as a cost for
your present and eternal good. Yet, by the grace of God, I love my
Saviour infinitely, infinitely, infinitely more. Alas! when will
those who profess to be Christians learn the significance of Christ's
Gospels and His blessed example. I am not ignorant nor insensible of
the love we owe to our parents and relatives--no, I am not insensible
of this love; but in me it is all in Christ, as I would wish yours
were. . . . I embrace you, dear brother, in the love of our crucified
Lord."
"DEAR MOTHER: There have been times when, considering the wickedness
of the world, sensible of its miseries and my own, and at the same
time beholding obscurely and as it were tasting the things of heaven,
I have longed and wished to be separated from the body. But when
coming back to myself, and thinking that with the aid of grace I can
still increase in God's love and hence love Him still more in
consequence for all eternity, I feel willing to love and suffer until
the last day, if by this I should acquire but one drop more of Divine
love in my heart. And so it is, as St. Paul declares, that we should
count the trials here as nothing compared with the glory that awaits
us. Now, all these considerations, dear mother, join together to
increase my desire to see you in the communion of the Holy Catholic
Church, to which God has singularly given so many means of growing in
grace," etc., etc.
Notwithstanding these marks of active intelligence, Brother Hecker
could not study, except by fits and starts. Often he could not get
through the common prayers, and in ordinary conversation his tongue
would sometimes be tangled among the words of a sentence before he
was half through with it. The reader has already learned that the
penalties of utter stupidity were not unknown to the unwritten law of
the Wittem studentate, notwithstanding that the young men were devout
religious; and hence Brother Hecker must have had many hours of
anguish. But we cannot suppose that his native cheerfulness was quite
suppressed. His dulness of mind was accompanied, or rather was the
result of, the close embraces of Divine love. It was the bitter part
of that intimate communion with God which is granted to chosen souls.
No doubt he was profoundly humiliated by the disgrace involved in his
failure to study, but he was willing to suffer that external
degradation which was the complement of and the means of emphasizing,
the teaching of the Holy Spirit in his interior, as well as the means
of purifying his soul more and more perfectly. In after years he
related an instance of his lightness of heart, a natural quality
which he shared with his companion, Brother Walworth. The bishop of
some neighboring diocese, Aix-la-chapelle, if we remember rightly,
happening to visit the house at Wittem, was told of the two American
students. He conversed with them in the recreation, the language
being French. Then he said: "I know how to read English, but I have
never heard it spoken; can you not speak a little piece for me?"
"Certainly," was the answer. After a moment's consultation the two
young men in all seriousness recited together "Peter Piper picked a
peck of pickled peppers," etc. No wonder that the prelate was
astonished at the peculiar sound of English. Then he asked them for a
song. "Oh of course," was the answer, and they sang in unison "The
Carrion Crow," with full chorus and imitations.
Besides taking care of the sick, for which he was admirably fitted by
nature, Brother Hecker made himself generally useful about the house.
He spent much time working among the brothers in the kitchen, and the
writer has heard him say that for nearly the whole of his stay in
Wittem he baked the bread of the entire community. He also carried in
the fuel for the house, using a crate or hod hoisted on his back.
In August, 1848, Brother Walworth was ordained priest, and it was
decided that he and Brother Hecker, together with two young Belgian
priests, Fathers Teunis and Lefevre, should proceed to England, the
Redemptorists having been recently introduced there. As the cassock
is not worn in the streets in England they were sent from Wittem to
Liège and there equipped with clerical suits, the tailor being
cautioned not to be too ecclesiastical in the cut of the garments. He
produced a ridiculous compromise between a fashionable frock-coat and
a cassock, the waist being high and tight and the tails full and
flowing, and flopping about the young clerics' heels. As they
journeyed from Liège to Amsterdam, and thence to London, people
stopped and stared at them in their stylish array, and some laughed
at them. In this instance Brother Hecker's chagrin was not overcome
by his sense of the ludicrous, for he was naturally very sensitive of
personal unbecomingness, and although not precisely a martinet for
clerical exactness, he had strict notions of propriety.
The new Redemptorist foundation was at Clapham, three miles south of
London Bridge. The house was a large, old-fashioned mansion and had
been owned by Lord Teignmouth, a notorious anti-Catholic bigot. Some
of the larger rooms had been thrown together into one, and this was
used temporarily as a public chapel. Just as the young Redemptorists
arrived, Father Petcherine was preaching to the congregation. He was
a Russian convert, and the new-comers were astonished at his good
English and his eloquence. He was one of the many extraordinary men
who adorned the order at that time. He was master not only of his
native tongue, but of English, German, Italian, French, and modern
Greek, and could preach well in all of these languages. Clapham was
reached on September 23, 1848, and shortly afterwards Father Walworth
was sent to do missionary as well as parish work in Worcestershire,
and remained there the greater part of the two years which were spent
by our Americans in England.
From Clapham Brother Hecker wrote, on September 27, 1848:
"I am at present, dear mother, in a newly-established house in the
city of London, having come here by order of my superiors to continue
and finish my studies. Bodily I am nearer to you than I was, and
naturally speaking I am much more at home here than I was on the
Continent. But this is of little or no moment, for a good religious
should find his home where he can best execute the will of his Divine
Master. And would you not, dear mother, rather see me in China than
in the United States if, by being there, I should be more agreeable
to our Blessed Saviour, who left the house of His Father to save us
poor abandoned sinners upon the earth? Our house here is situated
somewhat out of the dense and busy part of the city, at Clapham; a
fine garden is attached to it, and even in a worldly view I could not
desire it to be more agreeable. And did not our Lord promise to give
those who would leave all to follow Him, 'a hundred fold more in this
world and life everlasting in the world to come'? Alas! how many
profess to believe in the Bible and have no faith in the words which
our Lord spoke," etc., etc.
The difficulties of Wittem were not abated at Clapham; rather they
were aggravated by Brother Hecker having to deal with new superiors.
"I remember seeing Hecker at Clapham, looking hopelessly into his
moral theology," said Father Walworth to the writer. Father Frederick
de Held, whom we left in Baltimore, had returned to Europe, being
Provincial of the Belgian Province, which at that time included the
English as well as the American missions. It must have seemed strange
to him that Brother Hecker had been sent to England; he had no house
of studies to put him into and could give him no regular course of
instruction. We cannot even surmise what word was sent to Father de
Held about this curious young man, whom early one summer's morning
three years before he had seen flitting into Baltimore and out of it,
taking with him the Provincial's leave to enter the novitiate.
Perhaps the case had been sent to him because it was too perplexing
for any authority less than his to settle. At any rate, it placed him
in an awkward position, to decide the case of this lone applicant for
orders, who had made no studies and could make none, and yet who was
of so marked a character, so full of life, so zealous, working
willingly about the church, eagerly working in the kitchen, talking
deep philosophy and forming plans for the conversion of nations. His
case was peculiar. The difficulty was not confined to the question of
divinity studies. Brother Hecker's general education was scant, and
his English [sic] was still faulty. And yet he was silently asking
ordination in a preaching order, for which a thorough education is a
prerequisite. Father de Held, therefore, is not to be condemned for
his harshness as wanting in sympathy or in judgment of character.
Gold is tried by fire, and fire is an active agent and a painful one.
But Brother Hecker soon found both solace and assistance in a new
friend.
We quote from the memoranda:
"Father de Held was superior at Clapham and for a year he treated me
as Henry Suso says a dog treats a rag--he took me in his teeth and
shook me. At last I went to him and begged him to settle my case one
way or the other: ordain me, or make a lay brother of me, or take off
my habit and dismiss me to another order; though I told him that
would be like taking off my skin. Father de Buggenoms then went my
surety. He had been my confessor at Clapham and was then absent. But
he wrote to De Held that he would guarantee my conduct if ordained.
De Held then changed and became my fast and constant friend."
This is the first mention we find of Father de Buggenoms. Father
Hecker ever venerated him and cherished his memory as that of a
saintly friend and benefactor.
On another occasion we find a fuller account of the same events:
"Only for Father de Buggenoms I should not have been ordained at all."
"Who was De Buggenoms?"
"A Belgian, and my confessor while I was at Clapham. I was there, not
ordained, nor yet making my studies. I had been forced to give them
up; I could not go on with them. De Held did not know what to make of
me, and he treated me harshly and cruelly. Finally I went to him and
told him my thoughts; I said I was absolutely certain I had a
religious vocation; that he might compel me to take of the habit, but
it would be like taking off my skin; and so on. After that interview
De Held changed toward me and was ever after my warm friend. He was a
very prominent member of the Congregation. You know he came within a
few votes of being Rector-major. He was very warm in his sympathy
with us during our trouble in Rome. Well, Heilig, a German, was about
coming over to England as superior. He had been my director for two
years. Before he came he wrote me a letter that gave me indescribable
pain. He wrote that I must change--that I was all wrong, and so on. I
answered that it was too late to change; that he had been my director
for two years, knew me well, and had been cognizant of my state. If
he wanted me changed he must do it for me, for I did not see how to
do it for myself. When he came, De Buggenoms told him to have me
ordained, set me to work at anything, and he (De Buggenoms) would be
responsible for me in every respect. Heilig complied. I asked him
afterwards why he wrote that letter. 'Because,' said he, 'I thought
you needed to be tried some more.' 'Why,' said I, 'I have had nothing
but trial ever since I came.'"
From this it would seem that the case was finally settled by Father
Heilig after Father de Held's departure for the Continent, which took
place, as well as we can discover, some time in the summer of 1849.
Father Heilig's letter, written from Liège, is before us; it is dated
the 24th of March, 1849. It is a complete arraignment of Isaac
Hecker's spiritual condition. It is gentle, considerate, choice of
terms, but condenses all that could be said to show that his young
friend had been deluded by a visionary temperament, applying to
himself what he had read in mystical treatises and the lives of the
saints. The letter was indeed a deadly blow. Father Heilig had been
Brother Hecker's confessor for two years at Wittem, and had at least
tacitly approved his spirit; and now came his condemnation. No wonder
that Isaac was profoundly distressed by it. Yet his conviction of the
validity of his inner life was not shaken for an instant. Nor was the
trial of long duration. We have found a letter from Father Heilig
dated two months later than the one we have been considering, and it
is full of messages of reassurance and encouragement. The
intervention of De Buggenoms completed the work. It is possible that
Father Heilig had not simply a desire to test Brother Hecker's
humility, but, by studying the effect of the trial imposed, to remove
doubts still lingering in his own mind. Some words in both the
letters referred to lead us to this inference.
Father L'hoir had not forgotten his young friend, who received a
letter from him a couple of months after leaving Wittem, which
breathes in every word the tenderest utterance of friendship; and a
year after, another one similarly affectionate, congratulating him on
his ordination. This Father L'hoir must have been a noble soul to
write so lovingly; we wish that space permitted us to give his
letters to the reader.
Amongst the papers left by Father Hecker we found one carefully
preserved, bearing date at St. Mary's, Clapham, the feast of St.
Raphael (Oct. 24) 1848, a month after his arrival there. It is a
manuscript of thirty-nine closely-written pages of letter-paper. It
is an account of conscience made, no doubt, to Father de Held, though
its preparation may have occupied some of his time before leaving
Wittem. We will make some extracts. It begins thus:
"Before commencing what is to follow, I cannot resist making the
confession of my feebleness and incapacity to express even
conveniently those things which I feel it my duty to relate, that I
may walk with greater security and quicker step in the way of God. It
would not surprise me if one who has not taken the pains to
investigate this matter sufficiently should doubt indeed whether such
singular graces, seeing the faults I daily commit and my many
imperfections, had really been given to such an individual. A similar
remark to this was made by my last director. But this is a cause of
much joy and consolation to me; (that is to say) that my interior
life is hid and unknown to others except those who direct me. All
that I can adduce in behalf of its truth and credibility are these
words of sacred Scripture: Spiritus ubi vult spirat (the Spirit
breatheth where He will); and, ubi autem abundavit delictum,
superabundavit gratia (but where sin abounded there did grace more
abound.)
. . . . . . . .
"At that time (towards the end of the novitiate) I felt a special
attraction and devotion toward Our Blessed Lord in the Holy Sacrament
and an almost irresistible desire of receiving the blessed Communion
of Divine love. This desire so far from having abated has greatly
increased, so that I have a constant hunger and thirst for Our Lord
in the sacrament of His body and blood. If it were possible I would
desire to receive no other food than this, for it is the only
nourishment that I have a real appetite for. I cannot consider it
other than the source and substance of my whole spiritual and
interior life. The day on which I have been deprived of it I have
experienced a debility and want of both material and spiritual life
like one who is nearly famished. The doctrine of the real presence of
our Lord seems to be with me a matter of conviction arising more from
actual experience than from faith. At times, when I would make my
visit, I am seized with such a violent love towards the Blessed
Sacrament that I am forced to break off immediately, being unable to
support the attraction of the Spouse, the Beloved, the Only One of my
soul. For some time back, wherever I may be, or on whatever side I
turn, I seem to feel the presence of Our Lord in the Sacrament in the
tabernacle. It seems as though I were in the same sphere as our Lord
in the sacrament, where there appears no time nor space, yet both are.
. . . . . . . .
"At times, especially during the great retreat before making the
vows, I was as it were inebriated with love, so that I scarcely knew
what I said or did.
. . . . . . . .
"This was the stage of my interior life on entering the house of
studies at Wittem, October, 1846. Here the principal acts in all my
spiritual exercises were those of resignation and conformity to the
will of God, an entire fidelity to the inspirations and attractions
of the Holy Spirit, and a total abandonment of myself to the conduct
of Divine Providence. God seemed always engaged in my soul by means
of His grace in repressing my own activity. The end of my proper
activity, I said to myself, is its destruction. God commands a total
and entire abandonment of the soul to Him in order that He may with
his grace destroy and annihilate all that He finds in it against His
designs and will. God at times seemed to demand of me a frightful and
heroic abandonment of my soul to His good pleasure. God alone knows
how to exercise the soul in virtue, and the Holy Spirit is its only
true master in the spiritual life. Not only did the spirit of God
excite and elicit in me voluntary acts of self-abandonment, but often
my soul was as if stripped of all support, and placed, as it were,
over a dark and unfathomable abyss, and thus I was made to see that
my only hope was to give myself up wholly to Him. The words of Job
well express this purgation of the soul when he says: 'The arrows of
the Lord are in me, the rage whereof drinketh up my spirit, and the
terrors of the Lord war against me.' (Here follow other quotations
from the book of Job.) Sometimes these pains penetrate into the
remotest and most secret chambers of the soul. The faculties are in
such an intensive purgation that from the excessive pain which this
subtile and purifying fire causes they are suspended from their
ordinary activity, and the soul, incapable of receiving any relief or
escaping from its suffering, has nothing left but to resign itself to
the will and good pleasure of God. Though enveloped with an unseen
but no less real fire, suffering in every part, limb, and fibre from
indescribable pains, fixed like one who should be forced to look the
sun constantly in the face at midday, she is nevertheless content,
for she has a secret consciousness that God is the cause of all her
sufferings, and not only content--she would suffer still more for His
love."
[Here follows an account of the mortifications to which this interior
pressure drove him, shortening of sleep, wearing hair-shirts, severe
discipline, abstinence and fasting, and the like.]
. . . . . . . .
"There were no penances that I have read of that seemed to me
impossible. The vilest habits and other things that I was allowed to
wear and to use gave me the greatest pleasure. The thought of not
having wherewith to cover my nakedness, to be contemned, ridiculed,
and spit upon, gave me an extreme joy. My delight consisted in
wanting that which is considered necessary . . . all this I did not
only do without reluctance, difficulty, and pain, but with great
pleasure, ease, and joy. They seemed as nothing, and I was as though
I had scarcely need of a body in order to live, or, in other words,
it seemed that I lived for the most part independent of the body.
"It was about this period that God gave me the grace which I had long
desired and sighed after: to be able to act and suffer without the
idea of any recompense. I call it a gift, for although I had so long
wished and demanded of God the power to act and to love Him
disinterestedly, still I was unable to do so. I felt myself a slave
and hireling in the service of God, and this mortified me and made me
much ashamed of myself. But when this grace was given, which happened
unexpectedly, I could not forbear going immediately to my director to
express my joy of the favor I had received, and the freedom and
magnanimity of soul which it inspired me with. I do not mean to say
that the soul has no idea of any recompense, for she has it tacitly,
but this is not her formal intention in her actions; for she is to
such a degree animated to act for the good pleasure and sole glory of
God, that she quasi forgets all else. . . .
"Sometimes I have felt singularly present and in intimate communion
with certain of the saints, such as St. Francis of Assisi, St.
Bonaventure, St. Thomas, St. Peter of Alcantara, our holy father
Alphonsus, etc. During this time--and sometimes it is for many
days--the life, the virtues, the spirit with which the saint acted
occupies almost exclusively my mind. I seem to feel their presence
much more intimately and really than that of those who are around me.
I understand and comprehend them better, and experience a more
salutary influence from them than perhaps I would have done had I
lived and been with them in their time. . . . Twice I remember having
experienced in this manner the presence of Our Blessed Lord. While
this lasted I felt myself altogether another person. His heroic
virtues, His greatness, tenderness, and love seemed to inspire me
with such a desire to follow Him and imitate His example that I lost
sight of all things else. His presence excited in me a greater love
and esteem for the Christian virtues than I could have acquired
otherwise in years and years. . . .
"About the commencement of the second year of studies, during some
weeks my faculties were drawn and concentrated to such a degree
towards the centre of my soul that I was as one bereft of his
exterior senses and activity. Before the vacation I had desired to
pass that time in solitude and retreat, but it was not allowed."
We have omitted much of this singular document, including detailed
accounts of supernatural occurrences, and also quotations from the
works of Görres, St. Teresa, St. John of the Cross, St. Bonaventure,
Father Rigoleu, Richard of St. Victor, Scaramelli's _Directorium
Mysticum,_ and other mystical writings. These references he had
collected to certify to the reality of his experience.
Throughout all these three years of trial he had employed what he
calls his "lucid intervals" of mental power in studying in his own
way, God aiding him in _His_ own way to the destined end, as He had
hindered him from choosing any other way. These intervals seemed so
slight in his memory that the reader has seen his statement that he
had not studied at all. When he had been a year at Clapham he was
found, on examination, to be well enough prepared, as he had promised
he would be. Having been ordained sub-deacon and deacon at old Hall
College, by Bishop Wiseman, he was ordained priest by the same
prelate in his private chapel in London. The event took place on the
23d of October, 1849, the feast of the Most Holy Redeemer. Father
Hecker said his first Mass the following day at Clapham, that being
the feast of St. Raphael the Archangel: one year from the date of his
account of conscience written out and given to his superiors.
The following is from a letter to his mother announcing his
ordination:
"DEAR MOTHER: You have been doubly blessed by Almighty God within the
past few weeks. Your youngest son has been ordained priest in God's
one, holy, Catholic Church, and prays for you daily when he offers up
to God the precious body and blood of His beloved Son, our Lord; and
besides you have received, by the marriage of another of your sons
[George], a new daughter, who, being also a child of the Holy Church,
must be kind, dutiful, pious, fearing God, and loving above all
things our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Are not these, dear
mother, blessings? Do they not convey to your heart joy and
consolation? They ought and surely do. Your latter days dear mother,
will be your happiest."
The remainder of the letter is filled with exhortations to enter the
Church, and arguments drawn from Scripture.
We may mention a letter written to Father Hecker by Father Heilig on
the eve of the former's departure for America; a message full of
affectionate good wishes and claims of friendship and union in prayer
with the singular young pilgrim from the Western World.
The following extracts from the memoranda may be of interest as
embodying Father Hecker's views of how to study divinity, resulting
from his own experience in preparing for the priesthood:
"March, 1884.--I told Father Hecker, in course of conversation, about
my reading the life of the Curé of Ars. He said: 'A saintly man
indeed, and one gifted with a supernatural character to an
extraordinary degree. But it seems to me that his biographer
misunderstood him somewhat. He seems to admit that the Curé of Ars
had a naturally stupid mind, because he had so much difficulty in
getting through his studies for the priesthood. The truth, probably,
was that just at that time the supernatural action of the Holy Spirit
came upon him and incapacitated him for his studies. But everything
about his after life shows that, though a rustic man, he had a good
mind, a keen native wit, quick and clear perception. I had something
the same difficulty myself.
"During my novitiate and studies one of my great troubles was the
relation between infused knowledge and acquired knowledge; how much
one's education should be by prayer and how much by study; the
relation between the Holy Ghost and professors.
"In the novitiate they were all too much on the passive side--
unbroken devotional and ascetic routine. In the studentate, too much
on the active side--leaving nothing for infused science and prayer as
a part of the method of study. They soon broke me down. I told them
so. If I went on studying I would have been driven mad. Let me alone,
I said. Let me take my own way and I will warrant that I will know
enough to be ordained when the time comes. They said I was a scandal.
Then they sent me to England to De Held. I am persuaded that in the
study of divinity not enough room is given to prayer and not enough
account made of infused science."
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