A REDEMPTORIST MISSIONARY
"I WOULD not have become a priest had I lived in Europe, for I never
had or could have any strong attrait for sacerdotal functions. But I
felt that the Church in America was in need of all the help that
could be given by her children for the work of the priesthood."
Father Hecker said this when near his end, and a full knowledge of
his character bore him out in it. The sacerdotal, the ecclesiastical,
were qualities which he had assumed with full consciousness of their
sanctity, yet they united with his other characteristics in a way to
leave traces of the point of contact. He was certainly an edifying
priest, and to hear his Mass was to be spiritually elevated by his
joyous fervor. But you would never say of him "he is a thorough
ecclesiastic, he is a typical priest." The external aids of religion
he imparted with a reverence which displayed his faith in his
priestly character as a dispenser of the sacramental mysteries of
God. But the other mysteries of God which are hidden in his
providential guidance of men, he could expound with the instinctive
familiarity of a native gift; the voice of God in nature, in reason,
and in conscience, and its response in revelation, he could elicit
with a power and unction rarely met with. He has left the following
words on record: "After my ordination the duties of the sacred
ministry appeared to me most natural; the hearing of confessions and
the direction of souls was as if it had been a thing practised from
my childhood, and was a source of great consolation."
The year spent in England after ordination was occupied by Father
Hecker mainly in parochial duties at Clapham and some neighboring
stations attended by the Redemptorists of that house. Father Walworth
enjoyed some missionary experience with Fathers Pecherine and
Buggenoms, but Father Hecker had only been at one or two small
retreats--one at Scott-Murray's estate in company with Father Ludwig
and another at that of Weld-Blundells in Lancashire; but in neither
of these had he preached or given any instructions, serving only in
the confessional and in hunting up obstinate sinners. He certainly
did preach once before leaving England, perhaps only once, and that
was at Great Marlowe, near London, in the church built by the
Hornihold family. It was on Easter Sunday, 1850, and was well
remembered by Father Hecker and referred to in after years. He
thought the sermon a good one as a beginning, but it seems to have
given him no encouragement, and we venture to think that if it
profited his hearers somewhat it also amused them a little. He needed
a teacher, and he found one in Father Bernard, the newly appointed
provincial of the American province.
In 1850 Father Bernard Joseph Hafkenscheid* was made Provincial of
the Redemptorist houses in America. His patronymic was too formidable
for ordinary use, and he was universally known as Father Bernard. He
was in the prime of life on taking this office, and although he had
spent twenty years on the missions in Holland, his native country, in
Belgium and England, he yet showed no signs of these labors; he
continued them for fourteen years longer, for the most of the time in
the Netherlands, his death resulting from accident in 1865. By common
consent he is ranked in the highest order of popular preachers. He
had entered the community from the secular priesthood shortly after
his ordination; he had made a brilliant course of studies at Rome,
which was crowned by the doctorate of the Roman College. He was
physically a tall, powerful man, and of majestic bearing. His
features were full of intelligence, his glance penetrating, his voice
clear, sympathetic, and vibrating, his gestures expressive. If half
that is handed down of Father Bernard be true, he was a wonderful
preacher of penance and of hope, his high gifts of natural eloquence
served by a perfect education and inspired by a most enthusiastic
love of the people.
[* The reader is referred to his life by Canon Claessens (Catholic
Publication Society Co.) It is all too brief, yet is a good summary
of the career of the great Redemptorist missionary, one of St.
Alphonsus' noblest sons.]
He was a popular preacher in the best sense of the term, calm in
demeanor and simple in language as he opened, but when at the point
of fervor pouring forth his soul in a fiery torrent of oratory, whose
only restraint was the inability of the human voice to express all
that the heart contained. In style impassioned, he yet often chose
language bordering on the familiar, but was not vulgar. He is an
instance of the fallacy of the saying that the preacher must stoop to
his auditory if he would be popular. Father Bernard was ever true to
himself, never appeared less than an educated priest and grave
religious, and yet he was a most popular preacher. The great truths
of eternal life are a universal heritage, and the use of plain words
is not getting down from good style even in the literary sense, and a
familiar manner is a trait of affection. We have stopped the reader
for this moment with Father Bernard because he was Father Hecker's
teacher of mission preaching and instructing, and was ever beloved by
him as an appreciative friend and a wise and indulgent preceptor. He
had made his first visit to America with Father de Held in 1845, but
remained only a few months to acquire information and gain
impressions for a report to the Rector Major. He made a second voyage
in January, 1849, acting as superior of the American houses, as
Vice-provincial, and remained about eighteen months. The United
States now forming a separate province and Father Bernard made
Provincial, he demanded Fathers Hecker and Walworth as his subjects,
and they were given to him.
A letter from Father Hecker announces his departure for New York as
fixed for some time in October, 1890; but delays occurred, and the
following is an extract from one to his mother, dated January 17,
1851; it says that the departure is fixed for some day the same month:
"Oh! may Almighty God prosper our voyage, and may His sweet and
blessed Mother be our guide and protector on the stormy sea. And may
my arrival in America be for the good of many souls who are still
wandering out of the one flock and away from the one shepherd! I hope
that to no one will it be of more consolation and benefit than to you,
my dearest mother."
The ship was named the _Helvetia_ and sailed from Havre the 27th of
January, the captain being a genuine down-east Yankee, and the crew a
mixed assortment of English and American sailors. Father Bernard's
party consisted of Fathers Walworth, Hecker, Landtsheer, Kittell,
Dold, and Giesen, and the students Hellemans, Müller, and Wirth, the
American fathers having come to Havre from London by way of Dover,
Calais, and Paris. The weather was unfavorable during nearly the
entire voyage, the ship being driven back into the English Channel
and forced to anchor in the Downs. They were beaten about for two
weeks before they got fairly upon the Atlantic, and while crossing
the Newfoundland banks were in danger from icebergs. Nearly all the
party were more or less sea-sick, including Father Hecker. This did
not prevent his attempting the conversion of the boatswain, who
seemed the only hopeful subject in the ship's company. There were a
hundred and thirty steerage passengers, emigrants for the most part
from Protestant countries, though a party of Garibaldian refugees and
a few equally wild Frenchmen enlivened the monotony of sea-life by
some bloody fights. There were but two cabin passengers besides the
Redemptorists, and the former being confined to their staterooms by
nearly continual sea-sickness, the cabin was turned into a "floating
convent," to borrow Father Dold's expression in a long letter
descriptive of the voyage, given by Canon Claessens in his _Life of
Father Bernard._
The wintry and stormy voyage had already tested the missionaries'
patience for some weeks, when Father Bernard informed the captain
that he and his companions were going to make a novena to St. Joseph
to arrive at New York on or before his feast, March the 19th. "St.
Joseph will have to do his very prettiest to get us in," was the
answer. And when the ship was still far to the east, being off the
banks, and the weather quite unfavorable, and only three days left
before the feast, the captain called out: "St. Joseph can't do
it--give it up, Father Bernard." But the latter would still
persevere; and that night the wind changed. The Yankee ship now flew
along at the rate of fourteen miles an hour. When the eve of St.
Joseph's Day came they were wrapped in a dense fog, and the captain,
dreading the nearness of the coast, hove to. When day dawned the fog
lifted, and the ship was found to be off Long Branch, and a wrecked
ship was seen on the shore; she had been driven there during the
night. The pilot soon came aboard and they sailed through the Narrows
and into the harbor of New York, having spent fifty-two days on the
ocean. As they approached the city a little tug-boat was seen coming
to meet them. It bore George and John Hecker and Mr. McMaster, whose
cordial greetings were the first welcome the young Redemptorists
heard on their return to the New World. They were soon at their home
in the convent in Third Street, and on the sixth of April following
the first mission was opened in St. Joseph's Church, Washington
Place, New York.
Here is Dr. Brownson's greeting, from his home in Chelsea, Mass.,
received by Father Hecker soon after his arrival:
"My very dear friend, you cannot imagine what pleasure it gives me to
learn of your arrival in New York. . . . I want to see you much, very
much. You have much to tell me that it is needful that I should know,
and I beg you to come to see me. Tell your superiors from me that
your visit to me will be more than an act of charity to me
personally, and that it is highly necessary--not merely as a matter
of pleasure to us two--that we should meet; and tell them that I
earnestly beg to have you come and spend a few days with me. I am
sure that they will permit you to do so in furtherance of the work in
which I as well as you are engaged, and I have a special reason for
wishing to see you now. I would willingly visit you at New York or
anywhere in the United States, but there is no place so appropriate
as my own house. . . . I am more indebted to you for having become a
Catholic than to any other man under heaven, and while you supposed I
was leading you to the church, it was you who led me there. I owe you
a debt of gratitude I can never repay . . . Come, if possible, and as
soon as possible."
At the Third Street house the new-comers found Father Augustine F.
Hewit, a convert from the Episcopal Church, in which he had tarried
for a few years on his way from Calvinism to the true religion. He
had been a secular priest for a short time previous to entering the
order. He was directed to join the newly-formed missionary band, and
was destined to be more to Father Hecker than any other man, and to
succeed him as superior of the Paulist community.
After more than five years' absence Father Hecker thus finds himself
in America, the land of his apostolate, a member of a missionary
community whose external vocation is the preaching of penance, and
the conversion of sinful Catholics to a good life. A mission is a
season of renewal of the religious life among the people of a parish.
It is a course of spiritual exercises in which the principles of
religion are called forth and placed in more active control of men's
conduct, and by means of which their emotional nature is stimulated
to grief for sin, love of God, yearning for eternal happiness. The
sermons and instructions are given twice, and sometimes oftener, each
day, during the early mornings and in the evenings. These exercises
are conducted in the parish church, but not by the parish clergy. The
people see among them the members of a religious order, men set
apart, by the interior touch of the Holy Spirit and the public
approval of the church, for this particular work--powerful preachers,
confessors as indefatigable as they are patient, priests full of
masterful zeal, moving in disciplined accord together against vice.
The call they address to the people is the peremptory one: "Do
penance, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Their words are given
forth not from the usual pulpit, but from a platform at the communion
railing, and in the presence of a high black cross set up in the
sanctuary. They wear no surplice or stole while preaching, the only
insignia of their office being a crucifix on their breasts. The
bishop usually extends to them greater powers than are commonly given
for reconciling sinners who have incurred ecclesiastical censures.
The Holy See empowers them to extend the most abundant spiritual
favors in its gift in the form of indulgences, and the pastor informs
the congregation several Sundays beforehand that he expects the
entire Catholic population of his parish to attend the mission and
receive the sacraments.
To be absorbed in such labors as above described was not the primary
object of Father Hecker's vocation, but he accepted his place
joyfully as chosen by the evident will of God. The missionary life
was never in his eyes what the reader might surmise it to be--a mere
interlude in his career, a period of patient waiting. Such is far
from having been the case. The missions are eminent works of Catholic
zeal, and there is not any vocation known to the active ministry
which may not commute with them on equal terms. Human nature has
never felt influences more deeply religious than those set at work by
missions, recalling the effects of the preaching of the Apostles
themselves. Remorse of conscience, loathing for sin, terror at the
divine wrath, confidence in God, sympathy for our crucified Saviour,
the ecstatic joy of the new-found divine friendship, utter contempt
for the maxims of the world, iron determination to love God to the
end--these are the sentiments which, by the preaching of missions,
are made to dominate entire parishes in a degree simply marvellous.
Nor can it be said that these dispositions are fleeting. Allowing for
exceptions, especially in large cities, their permanency is often an
evidence of the solidity of the motives which inspired them, as well
as of the supernatural graces which gave them life. Every missionary
will bear witness, as Father Hecker often did, that he has never
assisted at a mission in which he was not profoundly impressed by the
tears of hardened sinners. Every parish priest, however much he may
regret the backsliding of some, will testify to the valuable results
of missions among his people: the quickening of faith and the revival
of supernatural motives, drunkards reformed, restitutions made, lust
cleansed away, families united, the church thronged with worshippers,
saloons deserted. Father Hecker never thought that all this was too
dearly bought by the dreary toil of the confessional, the discomforts
of for ever changing residences and living in strange places, nor
even by the growing nerve-troubles which the fathers are often
subject to, from brains superheated over and over again in the
burning fires of mission preaching. Father Hecker did not think the
privileges of such a life too dearly bought even by the postponement
of his proper apostolate, and was ever glad of his labors as a
missionary.
They schooled him in public speaking. In his antecedents there was
abundant reason for diffidence, and he knew full well that what was
good enough language for an harangue to the Seventh Ward Democracy
would be ridiculous in a Catholic pulpit. Nor was he deceived into
the notion of his ability to preach because he could influence men in
private. Conversation is not public speaking, and the defects of
grammar, or any other such defects, if pardoned in an earnest and
honest man in private interchange of views, if committed on the
public rostrum are unpardonable and are usually fatal. Father Hecker
found in the incessant practice of the missionary platform, and in
the assistance of his present superior, exactly what he needed by way
of preparation. Besides the mission sermon at night--the great
sermon, as it was called--there is a short doctrinal instruction at
the same service and a moral one on the sacraments or commandments in
the morning. These became his share of the mission preaching, and the
school in which he acquired that direct, convincing, and popular
manner of discourse for which he was afterwards renowned as a
lecturer.
We find the following among the memoranda:
"When I came over to America with Fathers Bernard and Walworth,
Bernard wanted to know what I could do. Well, by that time I had
given up all hopes of any public career. I couldn't preach. My memory
and intellectual faculties generally were so influenced by my
interior state that theology was out of the question. The lights that
God had given me about the future state of religion in this country
were still clear as ever, but I thought that I should have to confine
myself to imparting them to particular and individual souls whom the
providence of God should throw in my way; for I was persuaded that
the Redemptorist community was unfitted for the future work I had
caught a glimpse of and I was entirely contented to live and die a
Redemptorist, and was quite certain that I should. So, when Bernard
asked me what I could do, I told him to get me some place as chaplain
of a prison or public institution of charity, as that was about all
that I was capable of. But he thought differently.
"My first instructions on the missions were almost word for word
given me by Bernard. I didn't seem to have a single thought of my
own."
To preach, whether to Catholics or to non-Catholics, one must learn
how, and Father Hecker with all his gifts knew that this gift seldom
comes from above except by way of reward for steady labor. The
opportunity of the missions, and of Father Bernard as a guide, was
eagerly accepted in lieu of the prison chaplaincy.
The missions also enabled him to know the Catholic people. The
non-Catholics he already knew from vivid recollection of his own
former state and from that of his early surroundings; Brook Farm and
Fruitlands had completed his knowledge of the outside world; but the
Redemptorist novitiate and studentate and his sojourn in England did
not give him a similar knowledge of the Catholic people, priesthood,
and hierarchy. To the average looker-on Catholicity is what Catholics
are, and Catholics in America viewed from a standpoint of morality
were then and still are a very mixed population. Why the fruits are
worse than the tree is a sore perplexity even to expert
controversialists, and Father Hecker had need to equip himself well
for meeting that difficulty, a patent one in the rushing tide of
stricken immigrants then pouring into America. The missions are an
unequalled school for learning men. All men and women in a parish are
made known to the missionary, for they walk or stumble through his
very soul.
Nor can one fail to see the use of missions as an evidence to the
non-Catholic public itself of the supernatural power of Catholicity
over men's lives. To practical people like Americans there is no oral
or written evidence of the true religion so valid as the spectacle of
its power to change bad men into good ones. Such a people will accept
arguments from history and from Scripture, but those of a moral kind
they demand; they must see the theories at work. A mission is a
microcosm of the church as a moral force. It shows a powerful grasp
of human nature and an easy supremacy over it. It is an energetic,
calm, and clean-sweeping influence for good, bold in its choice of
the most sublime truths of supernatural religion as the sole motives
of repentance. And it uniformly achieves so complete a victory over
the best-entrenched vices that non-Catholic prejudice is invariably
shaken at the spectacle. And in America the pioneer work of the
apostolate must be to remove prejudice. The character of the men who
conduct these exercises, their courage, intelligence, devotedness,
discipline, and ready command of the people; the indiscriminate
humanity which rushes to hear them, to pray, to confess their sins,
to listen with mute attention--long before day-break and in the hours
of rest after work--all regardless of social differences or of moral
ones, soon become well known to the public and generally excite
comment in the press. All this contributes to prepare non-Catholics
to hear from the same teachers the invitation which our Lord intended
in saying: "Other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also
must I bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one
fold and one shepherd."
Furthermore, it was necessary that Father Hecker should be made
personally known to the bishops and priests of the country. The time
was coming when he would have a public cause to advance, and their
approval is a necessary sign of divine favor. Now, the missionary is
closely studied by them and soon is intimately known, for there are
too many things in common between priests but that they can readily
test each other. Before the Paulist community had been organized,
Father Hecker had been the guest of the most prominent clergymen of
the entire United States, and of many even in the British Provinces,
and was a well-known man throughout the Catholic community. Meantime
the humiliations of his study-time had been quickly recovered from,
if they had ever been a real hindrance to public effort, and we find
no sign of protest on his part or of request to be let off from
giving instructions beyond his answer to Father Bernard as above
recorded. As he loved his vows as a Redemptorist, so he loved the
work of the missions, because they were God's will for him; because
they are a work of the highest order of good for souls; because the
reputation of Catholicity is always raised in a community by a
mission, and a good name is necessary for a controversial standing;
because in them he daily learned more of men and of the means to win
them; and because the members of the divine order of the episcopate
and secular priesthood must be well known by him and he well known to
them before any extensive work could be done among non-Catholics; and
the missionary becomes a familiar friend everywhere he goes. Hence
controversial sermons were sometimes preached during the missions,
lectures of the same sort given after them, and during their
continuance many converts received into the church. Father Hecker, as
we have tried to show the reader, was a very observant nature, always
learning lessons from life, and ready to try his 'prentice hand on
what material offered in the way of converting Protestants at every
opportunity public and private.
Nevertheless, the missions could not be made the ordinary channel of
direct influences for turning sceptics and Protestants to the true
religion. The attempt to make them so, involving, as it does, a
notable interspersion of controversial sermons, has never been tried
by the Redemptorist or Paulist Fathers to our knowledge, and when
done by others has resulted in not enough of controversy for making
solid converts, and too little penitential preaching for the proper
reformation of hard sinners among Catholics. Father Hecker fully
appreciated this. He threw himself into the mission work just as it
was with the utmost ardor, and learning from Father Bernard how to
prepare the matter for the morning and evening instructions, his
natural gifts, together with hints and suggestions from his brethren,
supplied him with the best possible manner of giving them. The writer
has often served on missions in parishes where Father Bernard's
new-formed band had preached in former years, and the testimony is
universal that as a doctrinal and moral instructor Father Hecker was
unequalled among missionaries. He was so frank, so clear, so lively,
so impressible, and, in a certain way, so humorous, that he carried
the people away with him. And he carried them all, high and low,
learned and simple. With persons of education his homely words did
not break the charm, nor did his simple but extremely well chosen
illustrations do so--all taken, as they were, from common life or the
lives and writings of the saints. He never preached the great sermons
and never aspired to do it. He never sought to arouse terror or to be
pathetic. He always reasoned and instructed. In truth, he was not
competent to deal adequately with such subjects as Death, Judgment,
and Hell--that is to say, as they are preached at missions, for the
emotions have honest rights on such occasions, and Father Hecker
acknowledged his deficiency in emotional oratory. But, to tell you
the qualities of true sorrow, or to show you how to make a true
confession, to picture the manliness of virtue and the dignity of the
Christian state, he was unsurpassed. And the general effect remaining
after his instructions was always a bright understanding of just what
to do for a good life, with many happy examples to aid the memory,
together with a strong personal affection for the holy man who showed
religion to be a most happy as well as most reasonable service of
God. To his penitents in the confessional he was ever most kind and
patient. "No school of perfection," he once said, "can equal the
self-denial necessary to hear confessions well." God is now rewarding
him, we trust, for the cheerful, often even bantering, words of
encouragement he gave to the multitudes of poor sinners who knelt at
his feet during the toilsome years he spent on the missions; and for
the enlightenment and encouragement of his big-hearted influence, and
for his trumpet notes of hope in the early morning instructions.
After the hard pounding of the night sermons it is always sought to
pick the sinner up out of the dust and to hearten him by the early
instructions, as well as to guide him to the precise methods and
means of reform and of a good life for the future. As to the
sacrament of penance, the saying of St. Alphonsus is a maxim with us
all: "Be a lion in the pulpit, but a lamb in the confessional."
The reader must indulge us in thus dwelling so long on the Catholic
missions, for we are inclined to say many words of praise of so
lovely a life, in which the same men sow and reap a great harvest in
the same week, expend their vitality in preaching the word and
administering the sacraments and comforting sinners who are wholly
broken down with the truest contrition.
In 1851 the American Redemptorists had before them a missionary field
almost untouched. Public retreats had been given from time to time in
the United States by Jesuits and others, but the mission opened at
St. Joseph's Church, New York City, on Passion Sunday, 1851, was the
first mission of a regular series carried on systematically by a body
of men especially devoted to the vocation. The merit of inaugurating
them is chiefly due to Father Bernard, who had no hesitation in
getting to work with his three American fathers; though Father Joseph
Müller, rector of the Third Street convent, and Rev. Joseph McCarron,
the rector of St. Joseph's Church, had something to do in arranging
the details and in facilitating the work. Several Redemptorists from
Third Street helped in the confessionals.*
[* Observers of coincidences will be interested to notice the arrival
of the missionaries in America on St. Joseph's day, under the
Provincial Bernard Joseph Hafkenscheid, to open their first mission
at St. Joseph's Church, the pastor being Joseph McCarron, the mission
having been negotiated by Joseph Müller, the rector of the Third
Street convent. Father Hecker had a special devotion for St. Joseph.]
We have space for only the following extracts from the brief record
of the missions, preserved by the fathers. They illustrate how
earnestly Father Hecker worked. In the record of the second mission
at Loretto, Pa., we find this:
The instructions and Rosary were generally given by Father Hecker,
who received from the people the name of "Father Mary." . . . During
the first few days the people did not attend well; but after Father
Hecker had gone through the village and among a clique of young men
who were indifferent and disaffected to the clergy, and the evil
geniuses of the place, and after some fervent exhortations had been
made to the people, they flocked to the mission and crowded the
church.
At Johnstown, Pa.: After two or three days a man happened to die on
the railroad, and all the men at that station, perhaps a hundred in
number, accompanied the corpse to the church. Father Hecker seized
the opportunity to address them and to give them a mission
_ferveroso._ And the next day he went on horseback, accompanied by
the pastor, Father Mullen (since Bishop of Erie), to several stations
and addressed the men, inviting them to attend the mission. The
result was successful. Procession after procession marched in,
filling the church, and numbers of them stayed all day, lying on the
grass about the church. . . . Father Hecker called out a noted
politician, who had not been to the sacraments for many years until
the mission, to receive the scapular as an example, and the good man
did not fail to receive a plentiful supply of holy water from the
vigorous arm of the said father.
The following entry in the record under date of February, 1852, made
after a mission given in St. Peter's Church, Troy, N.Y., will be of
interest to missionaries, and to others who are observant of their
methods: "At Youngstown, Pa., (the preceding December) the experiment
of preaching from a platform had been successfully tried and was
repeated here, as at other missions since (Youngstown). On the
platform a large black cross, some ten feet or more in height, was
erected, from the arms of which a white muslin cloth was suspended.
This use of cross and platform has thus been regularly introduced
into the missions." Previously it had been the custom to erect a
large cross out of doors in front of the church as one of the closing
ceremonies of the mission.
Fathers Hecker, Hewit, and Walworth, led by Father Bernard, made a
unique band of missionaries, one, we think, hardly equalled since
they yielded their place to others. Each was a man of marked
individuality, whose distinct personality was by no means obscured by
the strict conformity to rule evident in their behavior. Fathers
Hewit and Walworth were orators, differing much from each other, both
full of power. Father Hecker was a born persuader of men, and could
teach as a gift of nature, earnest in mind and manner. His two
companions saw him learn by hard work how so to modulate his voice
and to manage it and his manner as to exactly suit himself to his
duties as the instructor of the band, while they delivered finished
discourses at the night services, many of them masterpieces of
mission oratory. Their very poise and glance on the platform stilled
the church, and their noble rhetoric clothed appeals to the
intelligence and to the heart in most attractive garb. In Father
Hecker you saw a man who wanted to persuade you because he was right
and knew it, and because he was deeply interested in your welfare. He
sought no display, and yet held you fast to him by eye and ear. He
had no tricks to catch applause, for he had no vanity. He said what
he liked, for he was totally devoid of diffidence or awkwardness, and
his best aid was his invariable equipment of an earnest purpose. "But
I don't believe," said Father Walworth to the writer, "that
Demosthenes ever worked through greater difficulties than Father
Hecker in making himself a good public speaker."
Father Bernard managed the missions for the first year, and dealt
with the pastors as superior of the band, meanwhile devouring more
than his share of the work in the confessional. The least experience
shows that there can be little of the discipline of the barracks
order on the missions, and all the fathers must of necessity consult
together, the superior leading in the observance of such community
devotional customs as are possible, and setting a good example in
stooping to the burdens which all must bear. As to Father Bernard,
the Americans could only admire and love him. In his own tongue a
renowned orator, he yet never preached in English while with these
three men unless on rare occasions, such as when one of them was
prevented by sickness. From him they received the manner of giving
missions handed down from St. Alphonsus, and they have transmitted
the tradition to their spiritual children in all its integrity.
Nearly two years passed of hard missionary campaigning under Father
Bernard, when he was recalled to Europe, and Father Alexander
Cvitcovicz took his place. His last name was seldom used, for the
same evident reason as in his predecessor's case. Father Alexander
was a Magyar, past the meridian of life, long accustomed to missions
in Europe, learned, devout, kindly, and of a zeal which seemed to
aspire at utter self-annihilation in the service of sinners. '"It was
not unusual for Father Alexander," says Father Hewit in his memoir of
Father Baker, "to sit in his confessional for ten days in succession
for fifteen or sixteen hours each day. He instructed the little
children who were preparing for the sacraments, but never preached
any of the great sermons. In his government of the fathers who were
under him he was gentleness, consideration, and indulgence itself. In
his own life and example he presented a pattern of the most perfect
religious virtue, in its most attractive form, without constraint,
austerity, or moroseness, and yet without relaxation from the most
ascetic principles. He was a most thoroughly accomplished and learned
man in many branches of secular and sacred science and in the fine
arts; and in the German language, which was as familiar to him as his
native language, he was among the best preachers of his order. . . .
We went through several long and hard missionary campaigns under his
direction, until at last we left him, in the year 1854, in the
convent at New Orleans, worn out with labor, to exchange his arduous
missionary work for the lighter duties of the parish."
Father Walworth now became superior, and the missions went on in the
same spirit and with the same success as before. In the record of the
one given at the church of Our Lady, Star of the Sea, Brooklyn, we
find the following entry: "Missionaries, Fathers Walworth, Hecker,
Hewit, and George Deshon (late lieu-tenant Ordnance, U. S. A., a
convert from the Episcopal Church. This was his first mission)."
Father Deshon had been ordained not long before, and soon began to
share the instructions with Father Hecker. This was in February,
1856, and in November of the same year, at St. Patrick's Mission,
Washington, D. C., they were joined by Father Francis A. Baker,
ordained in the preceding September, a distinguished convert from the
Episcopal ministry of the city of Baltimore. Much we would say of
him, his eloquence and his very amiable traits of character, but all
this and more is well said by Father Hewit, in his memoir of Father
Baker, published after the latter's death in 1865 (Catholic
Publication Society Co.) This increase of members allowed a division
of the band for smaller-sized missions.
In our judgment those men were a band of missionaries the like of
whom have not served the great cause among the English-speaking races
these recent generations. Fathers Walworth, Hewit, and Deshon have
survived their companions of those early days, and may they long
remain with us, calm and beautiful and devout old veterans of the
divine warfare of peace!
Father Hecker gave several retreats to religious communities of men
and of women during the six or seven years we are considering,
devoting for the purpose portions of the summer months usually
unoccupied by missions. Copies of notes of his conferences, taken
down by some of his hearers, are in our possession and may aid us
further on in giving the reader a view of his spiritual doctrine.
The following extract from the Roman statement summarizes what we
have been telling in this chapter, and introduces the reader to
Father Hecker's first missionary activity as a writer:
"My superiors sent me back to the United States, and on my return
being asked by my immediate superior in what way he could best employ
me, my reply was, in taking care of the sick, the poor, and the
prisoners. The stupidity which still reigned over my intellectual
faculties, and the helplessness of my will, and my sympathy with
those classes led me to choose such a sphere of action as most
suitable to my then condition. And although the conversion of the
non-Catholics of my fellow-countrymen was ever before my mind, yet
God left me in ignorance how this was to be accomplished. Such strong
and deep impulses, and so vast in their reach, took possession of my
soul on my return to the United States in regard to the conversion of
the American people, that on manifesting my interior to one of the
most spiritually enlightened and experienced fathers of the
congregation on the subject to obtain his direction, he bade me not
to resist these interior movements, they came from God; and that God
would yet employ me in accordance with them. Such were his words.
After a few weeks in the United States the work of the missions
began. My principal duties on these were to give public instructions
and hear confessions, and up to this time (1858) these missionary
labors have occupied me almost exclusively.
"The blessings of God upon our missions were most evident and most
abundant and my share in them most consoling, as usually the most
abandoned sinners fell to my lot. But holy and important as the
exercises of the missions among Catholics are, still this work did
not correspond to my interior attrait, and though exhausted and
frequently made ill from excessive fatigue in these duties, yet my
ardent and constant desire to do something for my non-Catholic
countrymen led me to take up my pen. That took place as follows: One
day alone in my cell the thought suddenly struck me how great were my
privileges and my joy since my becoming a Catholic, and how great
were my troubles and agony of soul before this event! Alas! how many
of my former friends and acquaintances, how many of the great body of
the American people were in the same most painful position. Cannot
something be done to lead them to the knowledge of the truth? Perhaps
if the way that divine Providence had led me to the church was shown
to them many of them might in this way be led also to see the truth.
This thought, and with it the hope of inducing young men to enter
into religious orders, produced in a few months from my pen a book
entitled _Questions of the Soul._ The main features of this book are
the proofs that the Sacraments of the Catholic Church satisfy fully
all the wants of the heart. . . .
"But the head was left to be yet converted; this thought led me to
write a second book, called _Aspirations of Nature;_ and which has
for its aim to show that the truths of the Catholic faith answer
completely to the demands of reason. My purpose in these two books
was to explain the Catholic religion in such a manner as to reach and
attract the minds of the non-Catholics of the American people. These
books were regarded in my own secret thoughts as the test whether God
had really given to me the grace and vocation to labor in a special
manner for the conversion of these people. The first book, with God's
grace, has been the means of many and signal conversions in the
United States and England, and in a short period passed through three
editions. The second has been published since my arrival in Rome. . .
"On an occasion of a public conference (discourse) given by me before
an audience, a great part of which was not Catholic, the matter and
manner of which was taken from my second book, my fellow-missionaries
were present; and they as well as myself regarded this as a test
whether my views and sentiments were adapted to reach and convince
the understanding and hearts of this class of people, or were the
mere illusions of fancy. Hitherto my fellow-missionaries had shown
but little sympathy with my thoughts on these points, but at the
close of the conference they were of one mind that my vocation was
evidently to work in the direction of the conversion of the
non-Catholics, and they spoke of such a work with conviction and
enthusiasm."
This last event occurred in St. Patrick's Church, Norfolk, Va., in
April, 1896, and is thus mentioned by Father Hewit in the record of
the mission: "Father Hecker closed with an extremely eloquent and
popular lecture on 'Popular Objections to Catholicity.'"
The _Questions of the Soul_ was well named, for it undertakes to show
how the cravings of man for divine union may be satisfied. It does
this by discussing the problem of human destiny, affirming the need
of God for the soul's light and for its virtue, proving this by
arguments drawn from the instincts, faculties, and achievements of
man. The sense of want in man is the universal argument for his need
of more than human fruition, and in the moral order is the
irrefragable proof of both his own dignity and his incapacity to make
himself worthy of it. Father Hecker urged in this book that man is
born to be more than equal to himself--an evident proof of the need
of a superhuman or supernatural religion. Eleven chapters, making
one-third of the volume, are devoted to showing this, and include the
author's own itinerarium from his first consciousness of the supreme
question of the soul until its final answer in the Catholic Church,
embracing short accounts of the Brook Farm and Fruitlands
communities, and mention of other such abortive attempts at solution.
Three chapters then affirm and briefly develop the claim of Christ to
be the entire fulfilment of the soul's need for God, with the
Catholic Church as his chosen means and instrument. These are
entitled respectively, "The Model Man," "The Model Life," and "The
Idea of the Church." Three more chapters discuss Protestantism,
stating its commonest doctrines and citing its most competent
witnesses in proof of its total and often admitted inadequacy to lead
man to his destiny. Bringing the reader back to the Church, the
fourteen last chapters fully develop her claims, dealing mostly with
known facts and public institutions, and citing largely the testimony
of non-Catholic writers.
It is something like the inductive method to infer the existence of a
God from that of an admitted appetite, as also to learn the kind of
food from the nature of the organs provided by nature for its
reception and digestion. So the longings of man's moral nature,
Father Hecker felt, when fairly understood, must lead to the
knowledge of what he wants for their satisfaction--the Infinite
Good--and that by a process of reasoning something equivalent to the
scientific. Such is the statement of his case, embracing with its
argument the introductory chapters. The inquiry then extends to the
claimants in the religious world, not simply as to which is
biblically authentic or historically so, but rather as to which
religion claims to satisfy the entire human want of God and makes the
claim good as an actual fact. It is wonderful how this line of
argument simplifies controversy, and no less wonderful to find how
easily the victory is won by the Catholic claim. The reader will also
notice how consistent all this is with Father Hecker's own experience
from the beginning.
The literary faults of the book are not a few; for if the argument is
compact, its details seem to have been hastily snatched up and put
together, or perhaps the occupations of the missions prevented
revision and consultation. There is a large surplusage of quotations
from poets, many of them obscure, and worthy of praise rather as
didactic writers than as poets; yet every word quoted bears on the
point under discussion. To one who has labored in preparing sermons,
each chapter looks like the cullings of the preacher's commonplace
book set in order for memorizing; and very many sentences are
rhetorically faulty. But, in spite of all these defects, the book is
a powerful one, and nothing is found to hurt clearness or strength of
expression. What we have criticised are only bits of bark left
clinging to the close-jointed but rough-hewn frame-work.
The _Questions of the Soul_ was got out by the Appletons, and was at
the time of its publication a great success, and still remains so.
The reason is because the author takes nothing for granted, propounds
difficulties common to all non-Catholics, sceptics as well as
professing Protestants, and offers solutions verifiable by inspection
of every-day Catholicity and by evidences right at hand. Catholicity
is the true religion, because it alone unites men to God in the
fulness of union, supernatural and integral in inner and outer
life--a union demanded by the most resistless cravings of human
nature: such is the thesis. There can be little doubt that prior to
this book there was nothing like its argument current in English
literature; a short and extremely instructive account by Frederick
Lucas of his conversion from Quakerism is the only exception known to
us, and that but partially resembles it, is quite brief, and has long
since gone out of print.
The _Aspirations of Nature_ deals with intellectual difficulties in
the same manner as the _Questions of the Soul_ does with the moral
ones. The greatest possible emphasis is laid upon the two-fold truth
that man's intellectual nature is infallible in its rightful domain,
and that that domain is too narrow for its own activity. The validity
of human reason as far as it goes, and its failure to go far enough
for man's intellectual needs, are the two theses of the book. They
are well and thoroughly proved; and no one can deny the urgent need
of discussing them: the dignity of human nature and the necessity of
revelation. Like Father Hecker's first book, the _Aspirations of
Nature_ is good for all non-Catholics, because in proving the dignity
of man's reason Protestants are brought face to face with their
fundamental error of total depravity; enough for their case surely.
If they take refuge in the mitigations of modern Protestant beliefs,
they nearly always go to the extreme of asserting the entire
sufficiency of the human intellect, and are here met by the argument
for the necessity of revelation.
An extremely valuable collection of the confessions of heathen and
infidel philosophers as to the insufficiency of reason is found in
this book, as well as a full set of quotations from Protestant
representative authorities on the subject of total depravity. Over
against these the Catholic doctrine of reason and revelation is
brought out clearly. The study of the book would be a valuable
preparation for the exposition of the claims of the Catholic Church
to be the religion of humanity, natural and regenerate--the
intellectual religion.
As might be expected from one who had such an aversion for Calvinism,
the view of human nature taken by the author is what some would call
optimistic, and the tone with regard to the religious honesty of
non-Catholic Americans extremely hopeful. Perhaps herein was Dr.
Brownson's reason for an adverse, or almost adverse, criticism on the
book in his _Review._ He had given the _Questions of the Soul_ a
thoroughly flattering reception, and now says many things in praise
of the _Aspirations of Nature,_ praising especially the chapter on
individuality. But yet he dreads that the book will be misunderstood;
he has no such lively hopes as the author; he trusts he is not
running along with the eccentricities of theologians rather than with
their common teaching; fears that he takes the possible powers of
nature and such as are rarely seen in actual life as the common rule;
dreads, again, that Transcendentalists will be encouraged by it; and
more to the same effect. But Father Hecker, before leaving for Europe
in 1857, had submitted the manuscript to Archbishop Kenrick and
received his approval; nor did Brownson's unfavorable notice ruffle
the ancient friendship between them.
The _Aspirations of Nature_ was put through the press by George
Ripley, at that time literary editor of the New York _Tribune,_
Father Hecker having gone to Rome on the mission which ended in the
establishment of his new community. Mr. McMaster had assisted him
similarly with the _Questions of the Soul._ The second book sold
well, as the first had done, and has had several editions. It is not
so hot and eager in spirit as the _Questions of the Soul,_ but it
presses its arguments earnestly enough on the reader's attention. It
is free from the literary faults named in connection with its
predecessor, reads smoothly, and has very many powerful passages and
some eloquent ones.
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