FATHER HECKER'S SPIRITUAL DOCTRINE
HAVING given in the preceding chapter Father Hecker's principles of
the religious life in community, a more general view of his spiritual
doctrine, as well as of his method of the direction of souls,
naturally follows. And here we are embarrassed by the amount of
matter to choose from; for as he was always talking about spiritual
doctrine to whomsoever he could get to listen, so in his published
writings, in his letters to intimate friends, and in his notes and
memoranda, we have found enough falling under the heading of this
CHAPTER to fill a volume. Let us hope for its publication some day.
It need hardly be said that Father Hecker did not claim to have any
new doctrine; there can be none, and he knew it well. Every
generation since Christ has had His entire revelation. Development is
the word which touches the outer margin of all possible adaptation of
Christian principles to the changing conditions of humanity. But in
the transmission of these principles from master to disciple, in
practically assisting in their use by public instruction, or by
private advice, or by choice of devotional and ascetical exercises,
there is as great a variety of method as of temperament among races,
and even among individuals; and there are broadly marked differences
which are conterminous with providential eras of history. This was a
truth which Father Hecker, in common with all discerning minds, took
carefully into account.
His fundamental principle of Christian perfection may be termed a
view of the Catholic doctrine of divine grace suited to the
aspirations of our times. By divine grace the love of God is diffused
in our hearts; the Holy Spirit takes up his abode there and makes us
children of the Heavenly Father, and brethren of Jesus Christ the
Divine Son. The state of grace is thus an immediate union of the soul
with the Holy Trinity, its Creator, Mediator, and Sanctifier. To
secure this union and render it more and more conscious was Father
Hecker's ceaseless endeavor through life, both for himself and for
those who fell under his influence, whether in cleansing the soul of
all hindrances of sin and imperfection, or advancing it deeper and
deeper into the divine life by prayer and the sacraments.
His doctrine of Christian perfection might be formulated as a
profession of faith: I believe in God the _Father_ Almighty; I
believe in Jesus Christ the Only Begotten _Son_ of the Father; I
believe in the Holy Ghost the _Life Giver,_ the spirit of adoption by
whom I am enabled to say to the Father, _My Father,_ and to the Son,
_My Brother._
He wished that men generally should be made aware of the immediate
nature of this union of the soul with God, and that they should
become more and more personally conscious of it. He would bring this
about without the intervention of other persons or other methods than
the divinely constituted ones accessible to all in the priesthood and
sacraments. It was the development of the supernatural, heavenly,
divine life of the regenerate man, born again of the Holy Ghost, that
Father Hecker made the end of all he said and all he did in leading
souls; and he maintained that to partake of this life which is "the
light of men," many souls needed little interference on the part of
others, and that in every case the utmost care should be taken lest
the soul should mingle human influences, even the holiest, in undue
proportion with those which were strictly divine.
"Go to God," he wrote to one asking advice, "go entirely to God, go
integrally to God; behold, that is sincerity, complete, perfect
sincerity. Do that, and make it a complete, continuous act, and you
need no help from me or any creature. I wish to provoke you to do it.
That is my whole aim and desire. Just in proportion as we harbor
pride, vanity, self-love--in a word, self-hood--just so far we fail
in integrally resigning ourselves to God. Were we wholly resigned to
God He would change all in us that is in discord with Him, and
prepare our souls for union with Him, making us one with Himself. God
longs for our souls greatly more than our souls can long for Him.
Such is God's thirst for love that He made all creatures to love Him,
and to have no rest until they love Him supremely. If my words are
not to your soul God's words and voice, pay no heed to them. If they
are, hesitate not a moment to obey. If they humble you to the dust,
what a blessing! He that is humbled shall be exalted."
"Peace is gained by a wise inaction, and strength by integral
resignation to God, who will do all, and more than we, with the
boldest imagination, can fancy or desire."
"May you see God in all, through all, and above all. May the Divine
transcendence and the Divine immanence be the two poles of your life."
The natural faculties of the understanding and will, whose integrity
Father Hecker so much valued, were to be established in a new life
infinitely above their native reach, glorified with divine life,
their activity directed to the knowledge of things not even dreamed
of before, and endowed with a divine gift of loving. In this state
the Holy Spirit communicates to the human faculties force to
accomplish intellectual and moral feats which naturally can be
accomplished by God alone. This is called by theologians supernatural
infused virtue, and is rooted in Faith, Hope, and Love, is made
efficacious by spiritual gifts of wisdom and understanding, and
knowledge and counsel, and other gifts and forces, the conscious and
daily possession of which the Christian is entitled to hope for and
strive after, and finally to obtain and enjoy in this life.
That this union is a personal relation, and that it should be a
distinctly conscious one on the soul's part, all will admit who think
but a moment of the infinite, loving activity of the Spirit of God,
and the natural and supernatural receptivity of the spirit of man.
Although not even the smallest germ of the supernatural life is found
in nature, yet the soul of man ceaselessly, if blindly, yearns after
its possession. Once possessed, the life of God blends into our own,
mingles with it and is one with it, impregnating it as magnetism does
the iron of the lodestone, till the divine qualities, without
suppressing nature, entirely possess it, and assert for it and over
it the Divine individuality. "Now I live, yet not I, but Christ
liveth in me." An author much admired by Father Hecker thus describes
the effects produced in the soul by supernatural faith, and hope, and
love:
"These virtues are called and in reality are _Divine_ virtues. They
are called thus not because they are related to God in general, but
because _they unite us in a divine manner with God,_ have Him for
their immediate motive, and can be produced in us only by a
communication of the Divine nature. . . . For the life that the
children of God lead here upon earth must be of the same kind as the
life that awaits them in heaven." (Scheeben's _Glories of Divine
Grace,_ p. 222; Benziger Bros.)
To partake thus of the inner life of God was Father Hecker's one
spiritual ambition, and to help others to it his one motive for
dealing with men. He was ever insisting upon the closeness of the
divine union, and that it is our life brought into actual touch with
God, whose supreme and essential activity must, by a law of its own
existence, make itself felt, dominate as far as permitted the entire
activity of the soul, and win more and more upon its life till all is
won. Then are fulfilled the Apostle's words: "But we all beholding
the glory of the Lord _with open face_ are transformed into the same
image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord" (2 Cor.
3:18).
Here are some of Father Hecker's words, printed but a year or two
before his death, which treat not only of the interior life in
general, but in particular of its relation to the outer action of God
on the soul through the divine organism of the Church:
"St. Thomas Aquinas attributes the absence of spiritual joy mainly to
neglect of consciousness of the inner life. 'During this life,' he
says (_Opuscula de Beatitudine,_ cap. iii.), 'we should continually
rejoice in God, as something perfectly fitting, in all our actions
and for all our actions, in all our gifts and for all our gifts. It
is, as Isaias declares, that we may particularly enjoy him that the
Son of God has been given to us. What blindness and what gross
stupidity for many who are always seeking God, always sighing for
Him, frequently desiring Him, daily knocking and clamoring at the
door for God by prayer, while they themselves are all the time, as
the apostle says, temples of the living God, and God truly dwelling
within them; while all the time their souls are the abiding-place of
God, wherein He continually reposes! Who but a fool would look for
something out of doors which he knows he has within? What is the good
of anything which is always to be sought and never found, and who can
be strengthened with food ever craved but never tasted? Thus passes
away the life of many a good man, always searching and never finding
God, and it is for this reason that his actions are imperfect.'
"A man with such a doctrine must cultivate mainly the interior life.
His answer to the question, What is the relation between the inner
and the outer action of God upon my soul? is that God uses the outer
for the sake of the inner life.
"There seems to be little danger nowadays of our losing sight of the
Divine authority and the Divine action in the government of the
Church, and in the aids of religion conveyed through the external
order of the sacraments. Yet it is only after fully appreciating the
life of God within us that we learn to prize fittingly the action of
God in His external Providence. Such is the plain teaching of St.
Thomas in the extract above given.
"By fully assimilating this doctrine one comes to aim steadily at
securing a more and more direct communion with God. Thus he does not
seek merely for an external life in an external society, or become
totally absorbed in external observances; but he seeks the invisible
God through the visible Church, for she is the body of Christ the Son
of God.
"Once a man's hand is safe on the altar his eye and voice are lifted
to God.
"It is not to keep up a strained outlook for times and moments of the
interior visitations, but to wait calmly for the actual movements of
the Divine Spirit; to rely mainly upon it and not solely upon what
leads to it, or communicates it, or guarantees its genuine presence
by necessary external tests and symbols.
"Not an anxious search, least of all a craving for extraordinary
lights; but a constant readiness to perceive the Divine guidance in
the secret ways of the soul, and then to act with decision and a
noble and generous courage--this is true wisdom.
"The Holy Spirit is thus the inspiration of the inner life of the
regenerate man, and in that life is his Superior and Director. That
His guidance may become more and more immediate in an interior life,
and the soul's obedience more and more instinctive, is the object of
the whole external order of the Church, including the sacramental
system.
"Says Father Lallemant (_Spiritual Doctrine,_ 3d principle, chap. i.
art. 1): 'All creatures that are in the world, the whole order of
nature as well as that of grace, and all the leadings of Providence,
have been so disposed as to remove from our souls whatever is
contrary to God.'"
What follows has been culled from notes and memoranda:
"When authority and liberty are intelligently understood, when both
aim at the same end, then the universal reign of God's authority in
the Church will be near and the kingdom of God be established
universally."
"The whole future of the human race depends on bringing the
individual soul more completely and perfectly under the sway of the
Holy Spirit."
"What society most needs to-day is the baptism of the Holy Spirit."
"That soul is perfect which is guided habitually by the instinct of
the Holy Spirit."
"The aim of Christian perfection is the guidance of the soul by the
indwelling Holy Spirit. This is attained, ordinarily, first by
bringing whatever is inordinate in our animal propensities under the
control of the dictates of reason by the practice of mortification
and self-denial; for it is a self-evident principle that a rational
being ought to be master of his animal appetites. And second, by
bringing the dictates of reason under the control and inspiration of
the Holy Spirit by recollection, and by fidelity and docility to its
movements."
"To attain to the spiritual estate of the conscious guidance of the
indwelling Holy Spirit, the practice of asceticism and of the natural
and Christian moral virtues are the preparatory means.
"To rise before the light appears, is vain; to hinder the soul from
rising when it does appear, is oppression. In the first place, the
soul is exposed to delusions; in the second, it is subjected to
arbitrary human authority. The former opens the door to all sorts of
extravagances and heresies; the latter breeds a spirit of servility
and bondage."
"To reach that stage of the spiritual life which is the consciousness
of the indwelling and guidance of the Holy Spirit some souls need the
practice of asceticism more than others, these latter being more
advanced by the practice of the Christian virtues. Others, again,
need the strenuous practice of both of these means of advancement
until the close of their lives. And there is another class which
reaches this degree of spiritual growth sooner and with less
difficulty than the generality of souls."
"Whenever the guidance of the Holy Spirit is sufficiently recognized,
then the practice of the virtues immediately related to this action
and proper to increase it in the soul are to be recommended, such as
recollection, purity of heart, docility and fidelity to the inner
voice, and the like."
"It should ever be kept in view that the practice of the virtues is
not only for their own sake and to obtain merit, but mainly in order
to remove all obstacles in the way of the guidance of the Holy
Spirit, and to assist the soul in following His operations with
docility."
"Obedience in its spiritual aspect divests one of self-will and makes
him prompt to submit to the will of God alone. Viewed as an act of
justice, obedience is the payment of due service to one's superior,
who holds his office by appointment of God."
"The essential mistake of the transcendentalists is the taking for
their guide the instincts of the soul instead of the inspirations of
the Holy Spirit. They are moved by the natural instincts of human
beings instead of the instinct of the Holy Ghost. But true spiritual
direction consists in discovering the obstacles in the way of the
Divine guidance, in aiding and encouraging the penitent to remove
them, and in teaching how the interior movements of the Holy Spirit
may be recognized, as well as in stimulating the soul to fidelity and
docility to His movements."
"The director is not to take the place of the Holy Ghost in the soul,
but to assist His growth in the soul as its primary and supreme
guide."
"The primary worker of the soul's sanctification is the Holy Spirit
acting interiorly; the work of the director is secondary and
subordinate. To overlook this fundamental truth in the spiritual life
is a great mistake, whether it be on the part of the director or the
one under direction."
The great obstacle to the prevalent use of this privilege of divine
interior direction is lack of practical realization of its existence
by good Christians. And this want of faith is met with almost as much
among teachers as among learners, resulting in too great a mingling
of the human element in the guidance of souls. What is known as
over-direction is to be attributed, as Father Hecker was persuaded,
to confessors leading souls by self-chosen ways, or laboriously
working them along the road to perfection by artificial processes,
souls whom the Holy Spirit has not made ready for more than the
beginning of the spiritual life. This is like pressing wine out of
unripe grapes. Another practice which Father Hecker often deprecated
was the binding of free and generous souls with all sorts of
obligations in the way of devotional exercises. This is forcing
athletes to go on crutches. The excuse for it all is that it really
does stagger human belief to accept as a literal matter of fact that
God the Holy Ghost personally comes to us with divine grace and gives
Himself to us; that He actually and essentially dwells in our souls
by grace, and in an unspeakably intimate manner takes charge of our
entire being, soul and body, and all our faculties and senses.
"By sanctifying grace," says St. Thomas (p. I, q. 33, art. 2), "the
rational creature is thus perfected, that it may not only use with
liberty the created good, but that it may also enjoy the uncreated
good; and therefore the invisible sending of the Holy Ghost takes
place in the gift of sanctifying grace and the Divine Person Himself
is given to us."
It is the soul's higher self, thus in entire union with the Spirit of
God, that Father Hecker spent his life in cultivating, both in his
own interior and in that of others. He insisted that in the normal
condition of things the mainspring of virtue, both natural and
supernatural, should be for the regenerate man the instinctive
obedience of the individual soul to the voice of the indwelling Holy
Spirit.
To what an extent this inner divine guidance has been obscured by
more external methods is witnessed by Monsignor Gaume, who places
upon the title-page of his learned work on the Holy Spirit the motto
"Ignoto Deo"--to the Unknown God!
Objections to this doctrine are made from the point of view of
caution. There is danger of exaggeration, it is said; for if in its
terms it is plainly Catholic, it may sound Protestant to some ears.
And in fact to those whose glances have been ever turned outward for
guidance it seems like the delusions of certain classes of
Protestants about "change of heart" and "inner light."
"But," says Lallemant (and the reader will thank us for a detailed
reply to this difficulty from so venerable an authority), "it is of
faith that without the grace of an interior inspiration, in which the
guidance of the Holy Spirit consists, we cannot do any good work. The
Calvinists would determine everything by their inward spirit,
subjecting thereto the Church herself and her decisions. . . . But
the guidance which we receive from the Holy Ghost by means of His
gifts presupposes the faith and authority of the Church, acknowledges
them as its rule, admits nothing which is contrary to them, and aims
only at perfecting the exercise of faith and the other virtues. The
second objection is, that it seems as if this interior guidance of
the Holy Spirit were destructive of the obedience due to superiors.
We reply: 1. That as the interior inspiration of grace does not set
aside the assent which we give to the articles of faith as they are
externally proposed to us, but on the contrary gently disposes the
mind to believe; in like manner the guidance which we receive from
the gifts of the Holy Spirit, far from interfering with obedience,
aids and facilitates the practice of it. 2. That all this interior
guidance, and even [private] divine revelations, must always be
subordinate to obedience; and in speaking of them this tacit
condition is ever implied, that obedience enjoins nothing contrary
thereto. . . .
"The third objection is that this interior direction of the Holy
Spirit seems to render all deliberation and all counsel useless. For
why ask advice of men when the Holy Spirit is Himself our director?
We reply that the Holy Spirit teaches us to consult enlightened
persons and to follow the advice of others, as He referred St. Paul
to Ananias. The fourth objection is made by some who complain that
they are not themselves thus led by the Holy Spirit, and that they
know nothing of it. To them we reply: 1. That the lights and
inspirations of the Holy Spirit, which are necessary in order to do
good and avoid evil, are never wanting to them, particularly if they
are in a state of grace. 2. That being altogether exterior as they
are, and scarcely ever entering into themselves, examining their
consciences only very superficially, and looking only to the outward
man and the faults which are manifest in the eyes of the world, . . .
it is no wonder that they have nothing of the guidance of the Holy
Spirit, which is wholly interior. But, first, let them be faithful in
following the light which is given them; it will go on always
increasing. Secondly, let them clear away the sins and imperfections
which, like so many clouds, hide the light from their eyes: they will
see more distinctly every day. Thirdly, let them not suffer their
exterior senses to rove at will, and be soiled by indulgence; God
will then open to them their interior senses. Fourthly, let them
never quit their own interior, if it be possible, or let them return
as soon as may be; let them give attention to what passes therein,
and they will observe the workings of the different spirits by which
we are actuated. Fifthly, let them lay bare the whole ground of their
heart to their superior or to their spiritual father. A soul which
acts with this openness and simplicity can hardly fail of being
favored with the direction of the Holy Spirit" (_Spiritual Doctrine,_
4th principle, ch. i. art. 3).
Father Hecker had himself suffered, and that in the earliest days of
his religious life, from want of explicit instruction about this
doctrine. Father Othmann, whom our readers remember as the
novice-master at St. Trond, was too spiritual a man to have been
ignorant of its principles. Yet he seemed to think that either no one
would choose it in preference to the method in more common use, or
that he would not find his novices ready for it. But to Father Hecker
it was all-essential. "When I was not far from being through with my
noviceship," he was heard to say, "I was one day looking over the
books in the library and I came across Lallemant's _Spiritual
Doctrine._ Getting leave to read it, I was overjoyed to find it a
full statement of the principles by which I had been interiorly
guided. I said to Père Othmann: 'Why did you not give me this book
when I first came? It settles all my difficulties.' But he answered
that it had never once occurred to his mind to do so." Besides the
Scriptures, Lallemant, Surin, Scaramelli's _Directorium Mysticum,_
the ascetical and mystical writings of the contemplatives, such as
Rusbruck, Henry Suso (whose life he carried for years in his pocket,
reading it daily), Tauler, Father Augustine Baker's _Holy Wisdom_
(Sancta Sophia), Blosius, the works of St. Teresa, and those of St.
John of the Cross--these and other such works formed the literature
which aided Father Hecker in the understanding and enjoyment of the
guidance of the Holy Spirit. Lallemant he returned to ever and again,
and St. John of the Cross he never let go at all. It was always with
him, always read with renewed joy, and its wonderful lessons of
divine wisdom, expressed as they are with the scientific accuracy of
a trained theologian and the unction of a saint, were to Father
Hecker a pledge of security for his own state of soul and a source of
inspiration in dealing with others.
To the ordinary observer a knowledge of the men and women of to-day
does not give rise to much hope of the widespread use of this
spirituality. But Father Hecker thought otherwise. He ever insisted
that it must come into general preference among the leading minds of
Christendom; for independence of character calls for such a
spirituality, and that independence is by God's providence the
characteristic trait of the best men and women of our times. God must
mean to sanctify us in the way He has placed us in the natural order.
He believed that the Holy Spirit would soon be poured out in an
abundant dispensation of His heavenly gifts, and that such a renewal
of men's souls was the only salvation of society. Some may think that
he was over-sanguine; many will not interest themselves in such
"high" matters at all. But some of the wisest men in the Church are
of his mind, notably Cardinal Manning. And the signs of the times, if
interrogated with regard to the problem of man's eternal destiny,
give no other answer than the promise of a new era in which the Holy
Ghost shall reign in men's souls and in their lives with a supremacy
peculiar to this age.
The following extract from _The Church and the Age,_ a compilation of
Father Hecker's later essays, shows his estimate of the form of
spirituality we have been discussing, as bearing upon the
regeneration of society in general:
"The whole aim of the science of Christian perfection is to instruct
men how to remove the hindrances in the way of the action of the Holy
Spirit, and how to cultivate those virtues which are most favorable
to His solicitations and inspirations. Thus the sum of spiritual life
consists in observing and yielding to the movements of the Spirit of
God in our soul, employing for this purpose all the exercises of
prayer, spiritual reading, the practice of virtues, and good works.
"That divine action which is the immediate and principal cause of the
salvation and perfection of the soul, claims by right the soul's
direct and main attention. From this source within the soul there
will gradually come to birth the consciousness of the indwelling
presence of the Holy Spirit, out of which will spring a force
surpassing all human strength, a courage higher than all human
heroism, a sense of dignity excelling all human greatness. The light
the age requires for its renewal can come only from the same source.
The renewal of the age depends on the renewal of religion. The
renewal of religion depends on a greater effusion of the creative and
renewing power of the Holy Spirit. The greater effusion of the Holy
Spirit depends on the giving of increased attention to His movements
and inspirations in the soul. The radical and adequate remedy for all
the evils of our age, and the source of all true progress, consist in
increased attention and fidelity to the action of the Holy Spirit in
the soul. 'Thou shalt send forth Thy spirit and they shall be
created: and Thou shalt renew the face of the earth.'"
Lallemant's answer to the difficulty of excess of personal liberty in
this method has been already given. Father Hecker's own is as follows:
"The enlargement of the [interior] field of action for the soul,
without a true knowledge of the end and scope of the external
authority of the Church, would only open the door to delusions,
errors, and heresies of every description, and would be in effect
only another form of Protestantism. But, on the other hand, the
exclusive view of the external authority of the Church, without a
proper understanding of the nature and work of the Holy Spirit in the
soul, would render the practice of religion formal, obedience
servile, and the Church sterile.
"The solution of the difficulty is as follows: The action of the Holy
Spirit embodied visibly in the authority of the Church, and the
action of the Holy Spirit dwelling invisibly in the soul form one
inseparable synthesis; and he who has not a clear conception of this
two-fold action of the Holy Spirit is in danger of running into one
or the other, and sometimes into both, of these extremes, either of
which is destructive of the end of the Church. The Holy Spirit, in
the external authority of the Church, acts as the infallible
interpreter and criterion of divine revelation. The Holy Spirit in
the soul acts as the divine Life-giver and Sanctifier. It is of the
highest importance that these two distinct offices of the Holy Spirit
should not be confounded.
"The increased action of the Holy Spirit, with a more vigorous
co-operation on the part of the faithful, which is in process of
realization, will elevate the human personality to an intensity of
force and grandeur productive of a new era to the Church and to
society--an era difficult for the imagination to grasp, and still
more difficult to describe in words, unless we have recourse to the
prophetic language of the inspired Scriptures."
"The way out of our present difficulties," said Father Hecker,
speaking of the conflicts of religion in Europe, "is to revert to a
spirituality which is freer than that which Providence assigned as
the counteraction of Protestantism in the sixteenth century--to a
spirituality which is, and ever has been, the normal one of the
Christian inner life. That era accentuated obedience, this
accentuates no particular moral virtue, but rather presses the soul
back upon Faith and Hope and Love as the springs of life, and makes
the distinctive virtue fidelity to the guidance of the Holy Spirit,
impelling the Christian to that one of the moral virtues which is
most suitable to his nature and to the requirements of his state of
life, and other environments."
But from what has been said it must not be inferred that Father
Hecker thought it safe to be without spiritual counsel, above all
when the soul seemed led in extraordinary ways. He firmly believed in
the necessity of direction, and that in the sense intended by
spiritual writers generally. In practice he himself always consulted
men of experience and piety. We have seen how he sought advice, and
was aided by it at every crisis of his life. But he did not accept
all that is said by some writers about the surrender of the soul to
one's father confessor. He thought that confession was often too
closely allied with direction, and he was convinced that many souls
could profit by less introspection in search of sin, and more in
search of natural and supernatural movements to virtue. He condemned
over-direction, and thought that there was a good deal of it. He
thought that there were cases in which spontaneity of effort was too
high a price to pay for even the merit of obedience. His sentiment is
well expressed by St. John of the Cross in the ninth chapter of _The
Ascent of Mount Carmel:_
"Spiritual directors are not the chief workers, but rather the Holy
Ghost; they are mere instruments, only to guide souls by the rule of
faith and the law of God according to the spirit which God gives to
each. Their object, therefore, should be not to guide souls by a way
of their own, suitable to themselves; but to ascertain, if they can,
the way which God Himself is guiding them."
Leave much to God's secret ways, was one of Father Hecker's
principles. "When hearing some confessions on the missions," he once
said, "and when about to give absolution, I used to say, in my heart,
to the penitent, Well, no doubt God means to save you, you poor
fellow, or He wouldn't give you the grace to make this mission. But
just how He will do it, considering your bad habits, I can't see; but
that's none of my business."
Leave much to natural or acquired inclinations, was one of his
maxims. He was not deeply interested in souls who by temperament or
training needed very minute guidance in the spiritual life; to him
they seemed so overloaded with harness as to have no great strength
left for pulling the chariot. But he would not interfere with them;
he knew that it was of little avail to try to change such methods
once they had become habitual; and he recognized that there were many
who could never get along without them. At any rate he was tolerant
by nature, and slow to condemn in general or particular anything
useful to well-meaning souls.
"It is vain to rise before the light," was another motto. "Make no
haste in the time of clouds." These two texts of Scripture he was
fond of repeating. "When God shows the way," he once said, "you will
see; no amount of peering in the dark will bring the sun over the
hills. Pray for light, but don't move an inch before you get it. When
it comes, go ahead with all your might." Self-imposed penances,
self-assumed devotional practices he mistrusted. He was convinced
that the only way sure to succeed, and to succeed perfectly, was
either that shown by an interior attraction too powerful and too
peaceful to be other than divine, or one pointed out by the lawful
external authority in the Church.
When asked for advice on matters of conscience his decisions were
generally quick and always simple. Yet he often refused to decide
without time for prayer and thought, saying, "I have no lights on
this matter; you must give me time." And not seldom he refused to
decide altogether for the same reason. One thing annoyed him much,
and that was the blank silence and stupid wonder with which some
instructed Catholics listened to him as he spoke of the guidance of
the Holy Spirit as the way of Christian perfection, treating it as
beyond the reach of ordinary mortals, intricate in its rules,
"mystical," and visionary; whereas Father Hecker knew it to be the
one only simple method, with a minimum of rules, useful for all,
readily understood. What follows is a brief outline of the entire
doctrine in it practical use in the progress or the soul from a
sinful life onwards; we have found it among his memoranda:
"What must one do in order to favor the reception of the Holy Spirit,
and secure fidelity to His guidance when received? First receive the
Sacraments, the divinely instituted channels of grace: one will
scarcely persevere in living in the state of grace, to say nothing of
securing a close union with God, who receives Holy Communion only
once or twice a year. Second, practise prayer, above all that highest
form of prayer, assisting at Holy Mass; then mental and vocal prayer,
the public offices of the Church, and particular devotions according
to one's attrait. Third, read spiritual books daily--the Bible, Lives
of the Saints, _Following of Christ, Spiritual Combat,_ etc. But in
all this bear ever in mind, that the steady impelling force by which
one does each of these outward things is _the inner and secret
prompting of the Holy Ghost, and that perseverance in them is secured
by no other aid except the same hidden inspiration._ Cherish that
above all, therefore, and in every stage of the spiritual life; be
most obedient to it, seeking meantime for good counsel wherever it is
likely to be had."
Father Hecker was of opinion that a larger number of persons can be
led to perfection than is generally supposed, and he would sound the
call in the ears of Christians generally far more than is commonly
done. He was also persuaded that there are many souls whose whole
lives have been entirely, or almost entirely, free from the taint of
mortal sin, and these he considered should be the most active spirits
among Christians. He thought that more room should be made for them
in our discourses, and that everybody should not be lumped together
in one mass as hardened sinners or as penitents.
To these innocent men and women the mediatorship of Christ should be
made as distinct as possible, the elevation of the soul to divine
union through the Incarnation brought out fully, and the redemption
of man from sin and hell be included in it, and be absorbed by it.
Too many souls who have never sinned mortally fail to struggle for
perfection, Father Hecker often said, because they never have heard
any invitation but the call to repentance. The positive side of
Christianity is the Incarnation, which lifts all men of good-will,
repentant and innocent alike, into participation with the Deity.
Father Hecker would talk by the hour of the need of bringing that
view of our Lord's mission most prominently forward, the idea of
redemption applying to innocent souls only on account of original
sin, and by sympathy with their brethren infected by actual sin.
And he would show that even hard sinners could often be brought to a
good life more surely, and be enabled more certainly to persevere, by
forcibly emphasizing the Incarnation and its benefits than by any
other method. Their blindness and selfishness hinder hard sinners
from easily appreciating our Lord's sufferings as borne on their
account. Father Hecker regretted that the idea of redemption was so
often presented in a way to give the impression that atonement was
the whole office of Christ. There are many souls for whom access to
Christ as Mediator was more in consonance with the truth than access
to Him as Redeemer, Mediator in that case including Redeemer, rather
than the Redeemer absorbing the idea of Mediator. Redemption from
original sin is, of course, necessary to the mediatorship of a fallen
race. But our Lord became Redeemer that he might be Mediator; he
cleansed us from sin that he might lift us up to the Godhead; and in
many souls Father Hecker knew that the process of cleansing began and
ended with original sin and venial sins. Such souls often go their
lives long with no compelling stimulus to perfection, because they
cannot apply to themselves the accusations of sin commonly put into
the directions for beginners.
Much has been already said of the aids to perfection which Father
Hecker perceived in a right use of the liberty and intelligence of
our times. He also insisted that the commercial and industrial
features of our civilization were no obstacles to a high state of
Christian perfection.
In a remarkable sermon, entitled "The Saint of Our Day," published in
the third volume of the Paulist series, Father Hecker, after making a
powerful exposition of the advantages of liberty and intelligence as
helps to the interior life, insists that the opportunities and
responsibilities peculiar to our civilization are capable of being
sanctified to the highest degree. The model he proposes in this
sermon is St. Joseph. He was no martyr, yet showed a martyr's
fidelity by his trust in God.
"Called by the voice of God to leave his friends, home, and country,
he obeys instantly and without a murmur. To find God and to be one
with God, a solitary life in the desert was not necessary to St.
Joseph. He was in the world and found God where he was. He sanctified
his work by carrying God with him into the workshop. St. Joseph was
no flower of the desert or plant of the cloister; he found the means
of perfection in the world, and consecrated it to God by making its
cares and duties subservient to divine purposes.
"The house of St. Joseph was his cloister, and in the bosom of his
family he practised the sublimest virtues. While occupied with the
common daily duties of life his mind was fixed on the contemplation
of divine truths, thus breathing into all his actions a heavenly
influence. He attained in society and in human relationships a degree
of perfection not surpassed, if equalled, by the martyr's death, the
contemplative of the solitude, the cloistered monk, or the missionary
hero.
"Our age is not an age of martyrdom, nor an age of hermits, nor a
monastic age. Although it has its martyrs, its recluses, and its
monastic communities, these are not, and are not likely to be, its
prevailing types of Christian perfection. Our age lives in its busy
marts, in counting-rooms, in workshops, in homes, and in the varied
relations that form human society, and it is into these that sanctity
is to be introduced. St. Joseph stands forth as an excellent and
unsurpassed model of this type of perfection. These duties and these
opportunities must be made instrumental in sanctifying the soul. For
it is the difficulties and the hindrances that men find in their age
which give the form to their character and habits, and when mastered
become the means of divine grace and their titles to glory. Indicate
these, and you portray that type of sanctity in which the life of the
Church will find its actual and living expression.
"This, then, is the field of conquest for the heroic Christian of our
day. Out of the cares, toils, duties, afflictions, and responsibilities
of daily life are to be built the pillars of sanctity of the Stylites
of our age. This is the coming form of the triumph of Christian
virtue."
With all, moreover, Father Hecker insisted on the practice of the
natural virtues, honesty, temperance, truthfulness, kindliness.
courage, and manliness generally, as preceding any practical move
towards the higher life. He first explored the character and life of
his penitent in search of what natural power he had, and then
demanded its full exertion. He began with the natural man, and made
every supernatural force in the sacraments and prayer aid in
establishing and increasing natural virtue as a necessary preliminary
and ever-present accompaniment of supernatural progress. Perhaps
Father Hecker's antipathy to Calvinism sharpened his zeal for the
natural virtues, and strengthened his advocacy of human innocence.
The craving for the supernatural, he was convinced, would be strong
in proportion to the enlightenment of the natural reason; the need of
the grace of God is, of course, most urgent in a sinful state, but it
would be more quickly perceived in proportion to the possession of
natural virtue. As the exercise of reason is necessary to faith and
precedes its acts, so the integrity of natural virtue is the best
preparation for the grace of God. Many pages of _The Aspirations of
Nature,_ from which the following brief quotations are made, are
devoted to the dignity of humanity and the need of placing the
excellence of human nature in the foreground when considering how man
may attain to a high supernatural state:
"Every faculty of the soul, rightly exercised, leads to truth; every
instinct of our nature has an eternal destiny attached to it.
Catholicity finds its support in these and employs them in all her
developments."
"The Catholic religion is wonderfully calculated and adapted to call
forth, sustain, and perfect the tastes, propensities, and
peculiarities of human nature. And let no one venture to say that
these characteristics which are everywhere found among men are to be
repressed rather than encouraged. This is to despise human nature,
this is to mar the work of God. For are not these peculiarities
inborn? Are they not implanted in us by the hand of our Creator? Are
they not what go to constitute our very individuality?"
Humanity is a word of vague meaning to most ears, but to Father
Hecker its meaning was a living thing of value second only to
Christianity. Here is his summary of the relation of Catholicity to
human nature, taken from the same source as the foregoing:
"Catholicity is that religion which links itself to all the faculties
of the mind, appropriates all the instincts of human nature, and by
thus concurring with the work of the Creator affirms its own Divine
origin."
We give the following extracts from letters of spiritual advice, to
show Father Hecker's views of mortification:
"Exterior mortifications are aids to interior life. What we take from
the body we give to the spirit. If we will look at it closely,
two-thirds of our time is taken up with what we shall eat, and how we
shall sleep, and wherewithal we shall be clothed. Two-thirds of our
life and more is animal--including sleep. I do not despise the animal
in man, but I go in for fair play for the soul. The better part
should have the greater share. The right order of things has been
reversed: _con_-version is necessary. Read the lives of the old
Fathers of the Desert. They determined on leading a rational and
divine life. How little are they known or appreciated in our day!
Their lives are more interesting than a novel and stranger than a
romance."
"Self-love, self-activity, self-hood, is something not easily
destroyed. It is like a cancer which has its roots extending to the
most delicate fibres of our mental and moral nature. Divine grace can
draw them all out. But how slowly! And how exquisitely painful is the
process--the more subtle the self-love the more painful the cure."
"Never practise any mortification of a considerable character without
counsel. The devil, when he can no longer keep us back, aims at
driving us too far and too fast."
"How can the intellect be brought under direction of divine grace
except by reducing it to its nothingness?--and how can this be done
except by placing it in utter darkness? How can the heart be filled
with the spirit of divine love while it contains any other? How can
it be purified of all other inordinate love except by dryness and
bitterness? God wishes to fill our intelligence and our hearts with
divine light and love, and thus to deify our whole nature--to make us
one with what we represent--God. And how can He do this otherwise
than by removing from our soul and its faculties all that is contrary
to the divine order?"
"All your difficulties are favors from God; you see them on the wrong
side, and speak as the block of marble would while being chiselled by
the sculptor. When God purifies the soul, it cries out just like
little children do when their faces are washed. The soul's attention
must be withdrawn from external, created things and turned inward
towards God exclusively before its union with Him; and this
transformation is a great, painful, and wonderful work, and so much
the more difficult and painful as the soul's attention has been
attracted and attached to transitory things--to creatures."
He was often heard repeating the following verse from _The Imitation_
(book iii. chap. xxxi.), as summarizing the necessary conditions of
the active life: "Unless a man be elevated in spirit, and set at
liberty from all creatures, and wholly united to God, whatever he
knows and whatever he has is of no great weight." He wrote to a
friend that he had studied that verse for thirty years and still
found that he did not know all it meant.
We give what follows as characteristic of Father Hecker's manner as a
director:
"At first, in all your deliberate actions, calm your mind, place
yourself in the attitude of a receiver or listener, and then decide.
Imperceptibly and insensibly grace will guide you."
"Don't care what people say; keep your own counsel. Use your own
sense and abound in it; as the apostle says: 'Let every one abound in
his own sense.' Don't try to get anybody to agree with you. No two
noses are alike, much less souls. God never repeats."
"Nobody nowadays wants God. Every one has the whole world on his
shoulders, and unless his own petty ideas and schemes are adopted and
succeed, he prophesies the end of the world. You are on the right
road--push on! Our maxim is: Be sure you are right and then go ahead!"
"How much that is good and noble in the soul is smothered by unwise
restraint! The whole object of restraint is to reject that which is
false and to correct the preference given to a lower good instead of
to a higher one. As for the rest--_freedom!_
"I know a man who thinks he don't know anything--who every day knows
that he knows less; and who hopes to know nothing before he dies. O
blessed emptiness which fills us with all! O happy poverty which
possesses all! O beatified nothingness which can exclaim, _Deus meus
et omnia!"_
It will have been seen by this time that Father Hecker's first and
fundamental rule of direction was to have as little of it as
possible. His method started out with the purpose to do away with
method at the earliest moment it could safely be done. To be Father
Hecker's penitent meant the privilege of sooner or later being
nobody's penitent but the Holy Ghost's. The following rules of
direction he printed in 1887:
"The work of the priesthood is to help to guide the Christian people,
understanding that God is always guiding them interiorly.
"An innocent soul we must guide, fully understanding that God is
dwelling within him; not as a substitute for God.
"A repentant sinner we must guide, understanding that we are but
restoring him to God's guidance.
"The best that we can do for any Christian is to quicken his sense of
fidelity to God speaking to him in an enlightened conscience.
"Now, God's guidance is of two kinds: one is that of His external
providence in the circumstances of life; the other is interior, and
is the direct action of the Holy Spirit on the human soul. There is
great danger in separating these two.
"The key to many spiritual problems is found in this truth: The
direct action of God upon the soul, which is interior, is in harmony
with his external providence. Sanctity consists in making them
identical as motives for every thought, word, and deed of our lives.
The external and the internal (and the same must be said of the
natural and supernatural) are one in God, and the consciousness of
them both is to be made one divine whole in man. To do this requires
an heroic life-sanctity.
"All the sacraments of the Church, her authority, prayer both mental
and vocal, spiritual reading, exercises of mortification and of
devotion, have for their end and purpose to lead the soul to the
guidance of the Holy Spirit. St. Alphonsus says in his letters that
the first director of the soul is the Holy Ghost Himself.
"It is never to be forgotten that one man can never be a guide to
another except as leading him to his only Divine Guide.
"The guide of the soul is the Holy Spirit Himself, and the criterion
or test of possessing that guide is the Divine authority of the
Church."
What follows was published by Father Hecker in _The Catholic World_
in 1887. It throws new light on the questions we have been
considering, abounding in practical rules of direction, and
therefore, though somewhat long, we venture to close the chapter with
it:
"'If any one shall say that without the previous inspiration of the
Holy Spirit and His aid, a man can believe, hope, love, or repent as
he should, so that the grace of justification may be conferred upon
him, let him be anathema.'
"These are the words of the holy Council of Trent, in which the
Catholic Church infallibly teaches that without an interior movement
of the indwelling Holy Spirit no act of the soul can be meritorious
of heaven. This doctrine, embodying the plain sense of Holy Scripture
and the unbroken teaching of the Church in all ages, bases human
justification on an interior impulse of the Third Person of the
Divine Trinity. This impulse precedes the soul's acts of faith, hope,
and love, and of sorrow for sin: the first stage in the supernatural
career, then, is the entering of the Holy Spirit into the inner life
of the soul. The process of justification begins by the divine life
of the indwelling Spirit taking up into itself the human life of the
soul.
"Nor is this to the detriment of man's liberty, but rather to its
increase. The infinite independence of God and his divine liberty are
shared by man exactly in proportion as he partakes of God's life in
the communication of the Holy Spirit.
"If it be asked how the Holy Spirit is received, the answer is,
Sacramentally. 'Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy
Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.' As man by nature is
a being of both outer and inner life, so, when made a new man by the
Spirit of God and elevated into a supernatural state, God deals with
him by both outer and inner methods. The Holy Spirit is received by
the sacramental grace of baptism and renewed by the other sacraments;
also in prayer, vocal or mental, hearing sermons, reading the
Scriptures or devout books, and on occasions, extraordinary or
ordinary, in the course of daily life; and when once received every
act of the soul that merits heaven is done by the inspiration of that
Divine Guide dwelling within us. Even though unperceived, though
indistinguishable from impulses of natural virtue, though
imperceptibly multiplied as often as the instants are, yet each
movement of heaven-winning virtue, and especially love, hope, faith,
and repentance, is made because the Holy Spirit has acted upon the
soul in an efficacious manner.
"It is not to induce a strained outlook for the particular cases of
the action of the Spirit of God on us, or the signs of it, that these
words are written. The sacraments, prayer and holy reading, and
hearing sermons and instructions, are the plain, external instruments
and accompaniments of the visitations of God, and are sufficient
landmarks for the journey of the soul, unless it be led in a way
altogether extraordinary. And apart from these external marks, no
matter how you watch for God, his visitations are best known by their
effects; it is after the cause has been placed, perhaps some
considerable time after, that the faith, hope, love, or sorrow
becomes perceptibly increased--always excepting extraordinary cases.
Not to 'resist the Spirit' is the first duty. Fidelity to the divine
guidance, yielding one's self up lovingly to the impulses of virtue
as they gently claim control of our thoughts--this is the simple duty.
"Having laid down in broad terms the fundamental doctrine of the
supernatural life, it is proper to say a word of the natural virtues
and of their relation to the supernatural. It has been already
intimated that the goodness of nature is often indistinguishable from
the holiness of the supernatural life; and, indeed, as a rule,
impulses of the Holy Spirit first pour their floods into the channels
of natural virtue, thus rendering them supernatural. These are mainly
the cardinal virtues: Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance.
Practised in a state of nature, these place us in our true relations
with our nature and with God's providence in all created nature
around us; these are the virtues which choice souls among the heathen
practised. They are not enough. When they have done their utmost they
leave a void in the heart that still yearns for more. It is the
purpose of the Spirit of God to raise our virtue to a grade far above
nature. The practice of the virtues of faith hope, and love, which
bring the soul into direct communication with God, and which, when
practised under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, are supernatural,
following upon the practice of the cardinal virtues under the same
guidance, place the soul in its true and perfect relation with God--a
state which is more than natural.
"Let us, if we would see things clearly, keep in sight the difference
between the natural and supernatural. In the natural order a certain
union with God was possessed by man in all ages in common with every
creature. The union of the creature with the divine creative power is
something which man can neither escape from nor be robbed of. But in
the case of rational creatures this union is, even in a state of
nature, made far closer and its enjoyment increased by a virtuous
life--one in which reason is superior to appetite; a life only to be
led by one assisted, if not by the indwelling Holy Spirit peculiar to
the grace of Christ, yet by the helps necessary to natural virtue and
called medicinal graces. The practice of the four cardinal
virtues--Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance--in the
ordinary natural state gave to guileless men and women in every age a
natural union with their Creator. Although we maintain that such
natural union with God is not enough for man, yet we insist that the
part the natural virtues play in man's sanctification be recognized.
In considering a holy life natural virtues are too often passed over,
either because the men who practised them in heathen times were
perhaps few in number, or because of the Calvinistic error that
nature and man are totally corrupt.
"And we further insist on the natural virtues because they tend to
place man in true relations with himself and with nature, thus
bringing him into more perfect relation or union with God than he was
by means of the creative act--a proper preliminary to his
supernatural relation. Who will deny that there were men not a few
among the heathen in whom Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and
Temperance were highly exemplified? They knew well enough what right
reason demanded. Such men as Socrates, Plato, Epictetus, and Marcus
Aurelius had by the natural light of reason a knowledge of what their
nature required of them. They had faults, great ones if you please;
at the same time they knew them to be faults, and they had the
natural virtues in greater or less degrees. Thus the union between
God and the soul, due to the creative act, though not sufficient,
never was interrupted. The Creator and the Mediator are one."
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