Life of Father Hecker Part 28

The following extracts from notes, letters, and diaries more fully develop this idea:

"A new religious order is an evidence and expression of an uncommon or special grace given to a certain number of souls, so that they may be sanctified by the practice of particular virtues to meet the special needs of their epoch, and in this way to renew the spiritual life of the members of the Church and to extend her fold. A new community is this, or it has no reason for its existence. The means to accomplish its special work are both new and old. It should lay stress on the new, and not despise but also make use of the old. 'The wise householder bringeth forth from his treasury new things and old.'"

"The true Paulist is a religious man entirely dependent on G.o.d for his spiritual life; he lives in community for the greater security of his own salvation and perfection, and to meet more efficiently the pressing needs of the Church and of humanity in his day."

"The Church always finds in her wonderful fecundity wherewith to supply the new wants which arise in every distinct epoch of society."

"A new religious community, unless its activity is directed chiefly to supplying the special needs of its time, wears itself out at the expense of its true mission and will decline and fail."

"We must realize the necessity of more explicitly bringing out our ideal if we would give a sufficient motive for our students and members, keep them in the community, bring about unity of action, and accomplish the good which the Holy Spirit demands at our hands. A Paulist, as a distinct species of a religious man, is one who is alive to the pressing needs of the Church at the present time, and feels called to labor specially with the means fitted to supply them.

And what a member of another religious community might do from that divine guidance which is external, the Paulist does from the promptings of the indwelling Holy Spirit."

"A Paulist is a Christian man who aims at a Christian perfection consistent with his natural characteristics and the type of civilization of his country."

"So far as it is compatible with faith and piety, I am for accepting the American civilization with its usages and customs; leaving aside other reasons, it is the only way by which Catholicity can become the religion of our people. The character and spirit of our people, and their inst.i.tutions, must find themselves at home in our Church in the way those of other nations have done; and it is on this basis alone that the Catholic religion can make progress in our country."

"What we need to-day is men whose spirit is that of the early martyrs. We shall get them in proportion as Catholics cultivate a spirit of independence and personal conviction. The highest development of religion in the soul is when it is a.s.sisted by free contemplation of the ultimate causes of things. Intelligence and liberty are the human environments most favorable to the deepening of personal conviction of religious truth, and obedience to the interior movements of an enlightened conscience. To a well-ordered mind the question of the hour is how the soul which aspires to the supernatural life shall utilize the advantages of liberty and intelligence."

"The form of government of the United States is preferable to Catholics above other forms. It is more favorable than others to the practice of those virtues which are the necessary conditions of the development of the religious life of man. This government leaves men a larger margin for liberty of action, and hence for co-operation with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, than any other government under the sun. With these popular inst.i.tutions men enjoy greater liberty in working out their true destiny. The Catholic Church will, therefore, flourish all the more in this republican country in proportion as her representatives keep, in their civil life, to the lines of their republicanism."

"The two poles of the Paulist character are: first, personal perfection. He must respond to the principles of perfection as laid down by spiritual writers. The backbone of a religious community is the desire for personal perfection actuating its members. The desire for personal perfection is the foundation stone of a religious community; when this fails, it crumbles to pieces; when this ceases to be the dominant desire, the community is tottering. Missionary works, parochial work, etc., are and must be made subordinate to personal perfection. These works must be done in view of personal perfection. The main purpose of each Paulist must be the attainment of personal perfection by the practice of those virtues without which it cannot be secured--mortification, self-denial, detachment, and the like. By the use of these means the grace of G.o.d makes the soul perfect. The perfect soul is one which is guided instinctively by the indwelling Holy Spirit. To attain to this is the end always to be aimed at in the practice of the virtues just named. Second, zeal for souls; to labor for the conversion of the country to the Catholic faith by apostolic work. Parish work is a part, an integral part, of Paulist work, but not its princ.i.p.al or chief work--and parish work should be done so as to form a part of the main aim, the conversion of the non-Catholic people of the country. In this manner we can labor to raise the standard of Catholic life here and throughout the world as a means of the general triumph of the Catholic faith."

"I do not think that the princ.i.p.al characteristic of our Fathers and of our life should be poverty or obedience or any other special and secondary virtue, or even a cardinal virtue, but zeal for apostolic works. Our vocation is apostolic--conversion of souls to the faith, of sinners to repentance, giving missions, defence of the Christian religion by conferences, lectures, sermons, the pen, the press, and the like works; and in the interior, to propagate among men a higher and more spiritual life. To supply the special element the age and each country demands, this is the peculiar work of religious communities: this their field. It is a fatal mistake when religious attempt to do the ordinary work of the Church. Let religious practise prayer and study; there will always be enough of the work to which they are called."

"Are the Paulists Religious? Yes, and no. Yes, of their age. No, of the past; the words in neither case being taken in an exclusive meaning."

"As regards the growth of the Paulist, he must develop in an apostolic vocation--that is, in apostolic works, Catholic, universal; not in works which confine his life's energies to a locality. He must do the work of the Church. The work of the Church, as Church, is to render her note of universality more and more conspicuous to render it sensible, palpable. This is the spirit of the Church in our country."

The following refers to the second trait of the character above given: "A Paulist is to emphasize individuality; that is, to make individual liberty an essential element in every judgment that touches the life and welfare of the community and that of its members. Those who emphasize the community element are inclined to look upon this as a dangerous and impracticable experiment."

"_Individuality is an integral and conspicuous element in the life of the Paulist._ This must be felt. One of the natural signs of the true Paulist is that he would prefer to suffer from the excesses of liberty rather than from the arbitrary actions of tyranny."

"The individuality of a man cannot be too strong or his liberty too great when he is guided by the Spirit of G.o.d. But when one is easily influenced from below rather than from above, it is an evidence of the spirit of pride and that of the flesh, and not 'the liberty of the glory of the children of G.o.d.'"

What follows touches the relation between the personal and common life:

"Many other communities lay the main stress on community life as the chief element, giving it control as far as is consistent with fundamental individual right; the Paulists, on the contrary, give the element of individuality the first place and put it in control as far as is consistent with the common life."

"The spirit of the age has a tendency to run into extreme individuality, into eccentricity, license, revolution. But the typical life shows how individuality is consistent with community life. This is the aim of the United States in the political order, an aim and tendency which we have to guide, and not to check or sacrifice."

"The element of individuality is taken into account in the Paulist _essentially,_ integrally, practically. But when it comes into conflict with the common right, the individual must yield to the community: the common life outranks the individual life in case of conflict. But the individual life should be regarded as sacred and never be effaced. How this is to operate in particular cases belongs, where it is not a matter of rule, to the virtue of prudence to decide."

"When the personality of the individual comes into conflict with the life of the community, the personal side must not be sacrificed, but made to yield to the common. In case of conflict, as before said, common life and interests outrank personal life and interests. It may be asked how, in the ordinary regulation and government of a community of this kind, the individual and common elements are to be made to harmonize? The answer is, that the one at the head of affairs must be a true Paulist that is to say, keenly sensitive of personal rights as well as appreciative of such as are common: where the question is not a point of rule, its decision is dependent on the practical sagacity and prudence of the superior more than on any minute regulations which can be given. He who interprets the acts of legitimate authority as an attack on his personal liberty, is as far out of the way as he who looks upon the exercise of reason as an attack on authority."

"How about persons of dull minds or of little spiritual ambition coming into the use of this freedom? First, no such person should be allowed to enter into the community: such persons should be excluded.

Second, a full-fledged Paulist should have pa.s.sed a long enough novitiate to have acquired the special virtues which are necessary for his vocation. Absence of supernatural light is the cause why a man is not fit to be a Paulist, for he cannot understand rightly or appreciate the value of the liberties he enjoys. He either is or he becomes a turbulent element in the community."

"A Paulist, seeing that he has so much individuality, should have a strong, nay, a very strong attrait for community life; he should be fond of the Fathers' company, prefer them and their society when seeking proper recreation, feel the house to be his home and the community and its surroundings very dear to him; in the routine of the day all the community exercises and labors are, in his judgment, of paramount obligation and importance.

"The civil and political state of things of our age, particularly in the United States, fosters the individual life. But it should do so without weakening the community life: this is true individualism. The problem is to make the synthesis. The joint product is the Paulist."

"A Paulist should cultivate personal freedom without detriment to the community spirit; and, vice versa, the community spirit should not be allowed to be detrimental to personal freedom. But when the individual life runs into eccentricity, license, and revolution, that is a violation and sacrifice of the community life."

"The duty of the Paulist Superior is to elicit the spontaneous zeal of the Fathers and to further it with his authority. For lack of one's own initiative that of another may be used, and herein the Superior offers a constant help. But the centre of action is individual, is in the soul moved by the Holy Ghost; not in the Superior of the community or in the authorities of the Church. And if he be moved by the Holy Spirit, he will be most obedient to his superior; and he will not only be submissive to the authority of the Church, but careful to follow out her spirit."

In explaining the routine of daily life Father Hecker said: "The member of a community who does not make the common exercises [of religion] his first care is derelict of his duty. A common exercise should be preferred to all other devotional practices or occupations whatever; as far as possible all other exercises ought to be made subordinate to common ones, which should never be omitted without permission of the superior."

Father Hecker was once asked: "Which would you prefer: to have a rule and manner of life adapted to a large number of men, embracing many of a uniform type, men good enough for average work, intended to include and seeking to retain persons of mediocre spirit, and having a dim understanding of our peculiar inst.i.tute? or would you prefer the rule to be made only for a select body, composed of such men as ----and ----, and the like?'" [Answer:] "I should prefer the rule to be made for the smaller and more select body of men. Religious vocations are not common, but special. It is a fatal mistake for religious to take the place of secular priests."

No one can be misled by what he has read in the foregoing pages into the notion that Father Hecker had any other aim than the entire consecration of liberty and intelligence to the influence of the Holy Spirit. To know Father Hecker well was to be more deeply impressed with his longing for the reign of the Spirit of G.o.d in men's souls than even with his love of human liberty. In his esteem the worth of the latter was altogether in proportion to its apt.i.tude for the former. His love of liberty was that of a means to an end--the perfect oblation of the inner man to G.o.d. He aimed at individuality because of his belief in the action of the Holy Ghost in the individual soul. Such action, he was quick to maintain, is given to every Christian, but it is to be looked for in a high degree in those who are called by a special vocation to a.s.sist independent characters to find the spirit of G.o.d within them; or, if already known, to obey His direction implicitly. Paulists after Father Hecker's heart would be men whom experience and study had rendered fit instruments for disseminating the knowledge of the ways of G.o.d the Holy Ghost in men's hearts; for instructing the faithful how to distinguish the voice of G.o.d in the soul from the vagaries of the imagination or the emotions of pa.s.sion, and able to stimulate a ready and generous response to every call of G.o.d from within.

It is because of this indwelling of the Holy Spirit in every regenerate soul that Father Hecker so vigorously maintained that the freedom of the individual is a golden opportunity for the Catbolic apostolate, according to the text "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." Freedom, he affirmed, was in absolute consonance with Catholic doctrine. But he furthermore insisted that it has become the world-wide aspiration of men by interposition of Divine Providence and with a view to their higher sanctification; and however grossly abused, it is yet a direct suggestion to an apostolate whose prospects are in the highest degree promising. And this is the answer to the question which reasonable persons may well ask, namely: Why should the new inst.i.tution differ so radically from the old ones, which were certainly works of G.o.d? Because the change of men's lives in the entire secular and natural order is in the direction of personal liberty and independence, and this change is a radical one. "The Eternal-Absolute is ever creating new forms of expressing itself." If, indeed, men's aspirations for liberty and intelligence be all from the powers of darkness, then let every longing for freedom be repressed and condemned, crushed by authority in the state, anathematized by the Church. But if men are yearning to be free, however blindly, because G.o.d by their freedom would make them holier, then let us hail the new order as a blessing; and let those who love freedom and are worthy of it use its privileges to advance themselves and their brethren nearer to immediate union with the Holy Spirit.

It has been seen that the important question whether the end of the new community would be better attained with the usual religious vows or without them was decided in the negative. They were not definitely rejected in the beginning; but starting without them, the Fathers were willing to allow experience to show whether or not they should be resumed. The lapse of time but confirmed the view that the voluntary agreement and the bond of fraternal charity were, under the circ.u.mstances, preferable as securities for stability and incentives to holiness.

There can be little doubt that Father Hecker's ideas on this feature of the religious state had been greatly modified between the writing of the _Questions of the Soul_ and the end of the struggle in Rome.

Much is said in that book of community life in the Catholic Church, and generally as rendered stable and its spirit of sacrifice made complete by the vows; and in the statement given in Rome to his five chosen advisers, he says that one reason for writing the volume named was to induce young men to enter the religious orders as the only means of perfection--meaning orders under vows. But when he was released from his own obligations and was confronted with the choice of means for following his vocation, the horizon broadened away until he could see beyond the inst.i.tutions and traditions in which he had lived since entering the novitiate at St. Trond. His ideas of perfection in its relation to states of life underwent a change.

Therefore he said, Let us wait for the unmistakable will of G.o.d before we bind ourselves with vows amidst a free people. He never depreciated the evident value of these obligations; indeed, he seldom was heard to speak of them. But he knew from close observation the truth of the words of the Jesuit Avancinus:

"The net (St. Matthew 13:44) is the Catholic Church, or, to take a narrower view, it means the station in which you are placed. As in a net all kinds of fish are to be found, so in our position, as in all others, there are good and bad Christians. . . . Should yours be a sacred calling, you are not, on that account, either the better or the more secure; your sanct.i.ty and your salvation depend on yourself, not on your calling." (_Meditations,_ Fourteenth Friday after Pentecost)

It never entered into the minds of the Fathers to question the doctrine and practice of the Church concerning vows. But personal experience proves the lesson of history, that what religion needs is not so much holy states of life as holy men and Women.

Looking back into the past, Father Hecker saw St. Philip Neri, to whom he had a great devotion and for whose spiritual doctrine he had a high admiration. The following is from an exponent of that doctrine, and is much in point:

"Although our Fathers and lay brothers [Oratorians] make no vow of obedience, as do religious, they are, nevertheless, no way inferior in the perfection of this virtue to those who profess it in the cloister with solemn vows. They supply the want of vows with love, with voluntary prompt.i.tude, and perfection in obeying every wish of the superior. And it is a thing for which we must indeed thank G.o.d, that without the obligation of obeying under pain of sin, without fear of restraint or other punishment (except that of expulsion in case of contumacy), all the subjects are prompt in this obedience, even in things most humiliating and severe, according to the terms of the rule. All take pleasure in meeting the wishes of the superior, etc." (_The Excellences of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri,_ p. 136.

London: Burns & Oates.)

Father Hecker did not dream that by relinquishing the vows he and his companions in the Paulist community had cast away a single incentive to virtue capable of moving such men as they, or had even failed to secure any of the insignia adorning the great host of men and women in the Catholic Church whose entire being has been given up to the divine service. "The true Paulist," said he once, "should be fit and ready to take the solemn vows at any moment." He felt strongly the truth of the following words of the Jesuit Lallemant:

"A desire and hunger after our perfection, a determined will to be constantly tending towards it with all our strength--let this be always our chief object and our greatest care. Let us bear in mind that this care is more of the essence of religion [i.e., of a religious order] than vows themselves; for it is on this that our whole spiritual progress depends. Herein consists the difference between true religious and those who are so only in appearance and in the sight of men. Without this care to advance in perfection the religious state does not secure our salvation; but nothing is more common than to deceive ourselves on this point." (_The Spiritual Doctrine of Father Louis Lallemant, S.J,_ p. 111. New York: Sadlier & Co.)

With regard to stability, men of stable character need no vow to guarantee adherence to a divine vocation, and men of feeble character may indeed vow themselves into an outward stability, but it is of little fruit to themselves personally, and their irremovability is often of infinite distress to their superiors and brethren. The episcopate is the one religious order founded by Our Lord, and its members are in the highest state of evangelical perfection; yet they are neither required nor advised to take the oaths or vows of religious orders.

Neither Father Hecker nor any of his a.s.sociates had the least aversion to the vows. On the contrary, they had lived contentedly under them for many of their most active years, and it will be remembered of Father Hecker that he never found them irksome, had never known a temptation against them.

The question which arose was a choice between two kinds of community, the one fast-bound by external obligations to the Church in the form of vows, placing the members in a relation of peculiar strictness to the Canon Law; or another kind, in which the members trusted wholly to the strength of Divine grace, and their own conscious purpose never to give up the fight for perfection; which of these states would better facilitate the action of the Holy Spirit in the present Providence of G.o.d; and which of them would tend to produce a type of character fitted to evangelize a nation of independent and self-reliant men and women? The free community was chosen.

No doubt this involved some risk of criticism, particularly in the beginning, for it was a wonder to many that men should organize for a life-long endeavor after perfection and not swear to it, especially as none of the free communities existing in Europe had houses in America, for the Sulpicians belong to the secular clergy. And there was also danger of unworthy subjects creeping in under favor of a freedom they were unfit to enjoy. For it may be reproached against us that we are apt to be victimized by men ruled by caprice, indulging in extravagant schemes or deluded by wandering fancies; and also by superiors who would let everybody do as he pleased. No doubt such dangers are to be guarded against. But vowed communities do not claim to be free from difficulties. No state of life and no organization claims to be so perfect as totally to prevent abuse of power on the part of superiors or caprice and sloth on the part of members.

Both kinds of organized religious life have their difficulties: the one, the martinet superior and the routine subject; the other, the capricious subject and the lax superior. In one kind the bond of union as well as the stimulus of endeavor is mainly obedience, fraternal charity a.s.sisting; in the other it is mainly fraternal charity, obedience a.s.sisting; each has to overcome obstacles peculiar to itself.

What has been said in this chapter, besides serving to exhibit Father Hecker's principles as a founder, will be, we trust, a sufficient answer to the silly delusion which the Paulists have encountered in some quarters, that their society tolerates a soft life and supposes in its members no high vocation to perfection; or that the voluntary principle allows them a personal choice in regard to the devotional exercises, permitting them to attend or not attend this or that meditation or devotion laid down in the rule, as "the spirit moves them." This is as plain an error as another one which had much currency for years and which is not yet everywhere corrected: that the Paulist community was open to converts alone and received none others.

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