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ISAAC HECKER: A SERMON ON CHRISTMAS

12/14/2014

A Sermon on Christmas
Servant of God, Isaac Thomas Hecker
Church of Saint Paul the Apostle, New York, Christmas Day 1870

The following is an edited version of a sermon delivered by Father Hecker on Christmas Day 1870. It is the only surviving sermon of Hecker on the subject of Christmas. It is provided here as a single sermon in three sections. This will allow you to copy or quote from it in its entirety in whatever form you may choose during the Christmas season.

Christmas

I

God became man to facilitate man’s love for God. For had God become an angel and made himself visible to us, we would have been bound to love Him just as much as we are bound to love Him as a man. However this would have been more difficult for resemblance begets love. Thus when we seek to attract the attention of another or win their love, we seek to resemble them in our dress, our conduct, our speech and in all things. Just as a mother prattles with her child to gain attention and awaken its affection, so Christ takes the form of a servant being made in the likeness of men to captivate our hearts.

Christ was really truly man and being man bound us to love him not only by the law of resemblance, but by the strongest of ties. For it is the law of nature that “like loves like.” Birds love birds. Beasts love beasts, man loves man. God as man can bind us to Himself with cords of common sympathy, calls forth a spontaneous devotion and awakes the deepest and warmest affections of our hearts.

God is shrouded in our common humanity. Christ is our brother who we can approach with feelings of confidence and affection. When the Indians go out to hunt the buffalo, they cover themselves with buffalo skin. By this device they lose their fear of the animal and are allowed to approach near enough to shoot them. So Our Blessed Lord approaches us without awaking our fears, covers Himself with our humanity and captivates our hearts with the fire of His divine love. O blessed hunter of the hearts of man! O goodness and kindness of our God and Saviour.

II

The invisible became visible, God became man. Can the treasure of God’s infinite love be exhausted? Can God do more than this to win back His creatures? Yes! For God’s love acknowledges no limit and nothing is impossible with God. God can become a babe! For love not only surrenders itself to the object loved but surrenders itself in the form most attractive to the object loved. For in an infant we see all that is good, lovely and sweet in human nature without all that is repulsive.

Where is there a human heart that can resist this strategy of Divine love? The Almighty God as a helpless infant! Truly God has made himself of no account for our sakes. Look at the infant laying in the cold straw, in the poor crib, in the inclement stable! Who is so poor as to not learn a lesson in poverty? Who is so timid that fears to approach this helpless babe as he stretches out his little hands to show us love?

Do you not see O sinner that God has chosen a cave to come to us because it is open, so that we might have access to Him and request His pardon for our sins and be restored to His love? “Don’t fear me for I am helpless,” he cries. “Can you doubt that I entrust myself to you?”

Is this the same God who cried out to Adam after his fall and made the earth tremble? It is ! But not as Judge and Punisher but as Saviour, the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world. The Divine Lover of souls!

III

“Peace on earth to men of good will.” Peace. This is what all seek and not find. For God alone is its giver. For peace springs alone from the reconciliation with man and only God can produce this. O blessed peace, peace with God, a foretaste of Paradise! O blessed peace, peace among men, a heaven upon the earth! “Peace on earth.” The earth had no peace without God

Before the birth of the Saviour the state of the earth was war, and today the state of nations which have abandoned the Saviour since his birth, is war. Might made right not truth and justice. So it is today. For Christ is the peace of the world. His kingdom is peace on earth.

“To men of good will.” Good will to all who earnestly and sincerely seek God. To all, whether Jew or Gentile, Christian or non-Christian for God is the Father of all and no respecter of persons.

O sweet infant Saviour, give to us that peace which you came to bring on the earth. Peace to the young and the old, to the poor and the sick, to the sorrowful and to all of good will. Peace on earth to all nations, especially to Your Holy Church (Papal States) and to Your Vicar the Pope who like You suffers from the hands of others.[1] Peace to the world at war that your kingdom may begin!

HECKER REFLECTION: GOD'S CREATION

12/9/2014

Servant of God Isaac Hecker Wrote:

“God does not despise what He created”

Our Lord does not tell us to close our eyes to the beauty of the world rather he invites us to the contrary. “Behold the lilies of the field.” God does not despise what He created. True devotion does not despise the beauties of nature. The object of asceticism is not the destruction of our nature but the restitution of its relationship to all things.

There are persons who imagine that you cannot have holiness without destroying something, whether it is the impulses, instincts or the propensities of our nature. Someone cannot be a saint unless they neither eat or drink or sleep or shut their eyes to the beauty and the glories of God’s creation.

It is true that these practices may be found among the lives of the saints, but these are exceptions. Sanctity by no means requires these extraordinary things and many of the saints who did these were the most natural people in the world. You will not find a soul more alive to the beauties of nature than Saint Francis of Assisi who like the psalmist, composed a song calling on all nature to praise and bless its maker; who called on the elements of nature in affectionate terms such as brother and sister, and when near death sent to a message to a lady in Rome to make him some cakes as she had when he visited her home.

Response by Rev. Paul Robichaud CSP

Servant of God Isaac Hecker challenged the influence of Calvinism in American thought; for it was a dominant element in the Protestant Christianity of his time. For Hecker human rights derived from the idea that people were basically good and would grow to be even better through the exercise of freedom. Yet John Calvin held that humankind was depraved and sinful. Father Hecker taught that in Catholic thought people were considered good; for they had been born again in baptism and made new. Salvaion was open to all in Catholic thought and therefore made Catholicism a better choice to be the principal religion of the American people. People were free because they were basically good and their goodness grew in the exercise of their freedom. This was both American and Catholic.
During this Advent and Christmas season we celebrate the good news that God had become human in Jesus Christ so that humankind could be like God. This message of Christmas is at the heart of the Catholic faith and at the heart of Catholic spirituality. Father Hecker reminds us in today’s reflection that holiness is found all around us; for grace is present in the things that God has made. God has made us and we can find in ourselves that same grace present in creation. God does not seek to destroy our nature but to restore it. Let us take this message of Christmas into the new year.

Paulist Father Paul Robichaud CSP is Historian of the Paulist Fathers and Postulator of the Cause of Father Hecker. His office is located at the Hecker Center in Washington D.C.

HECKER REFLECTION: THE DEVIL IS LIKE A DOG

12/1/2014

Servant of God Isaac Hecker Wrote:

The devil is like a dog, he only barks at strangers and he only bites those who don’t belong to his house.

Why does God allow us to be tempted?
First, to establish in us a deep foundation of humility. Even Saint Peter having promised Jesus that he would never deny him, fell when tempted by the servant girl.
Second, to increase our sense of detachment, for our detachment from sin is not perfect until we have forgotten ourselves in God.
Third, to increase our merit, as we find in the letter of James (1:12), “Blessed is the one who endures temptation, for having been tested, he shall receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.”

Origen says: “If I were strong enough to overcome Lucifer I would gain his seat in heaven. For as one overcomes a powerful devil, so the higher will be your seat in heaven among the angels.”
Saint Anselm says, “Not to experience temptation is to be an angel, To experience temptations and to overcome them is to be a Christian. To experience temptations and to consent to them is to act like a devil.”

A Response from Paul Robichaud CSP:

Servant of God Father Isaac Hecker uses a string of sayings to talk about temptation to sin. He starts with a folksy reference to barking dogs. People who own dogs know that as a part of the family and can be very protective. A reflection in the window or a strange noise at the door can cause them to bark and growl. Hecker uses this as an example of how we experience temptation. “The devil only barks at strangers” Is a wonderful phrase, meaning the more you are a part of God’s family the more you will experience temptation.

Hecker makes three points. We are tempted by evil to remind us not to be too proud. Temptations come at all ages and at all points in life and they remind us that we still have a lot of growing to do. Secondly, we are tempted by evil to remind us to not be too comfortable with our lives. A point similar to the first. Part of our Christian discipleship is a call to live for and in God. When God comes first in our lives, sin cannot influence us. But when God comes first in our lives, evil will work its hardest to get us to sin. It is a struggle that takes a lifetime of faith, hope and love. Hecker writes, that lastly we are tempted by evil as a way of growing in holiness. For the more we resist sin and live in grace the closer we grow to God. There is an irony here. The more we live for God, the more we will be tempted, yet the more we are tempted and resist, the more we live for God

Paulist Father Paul Robichaud CSP is Historian of the Paulist Fathers and Postulator of the Cause of Father Hecker. His office is located at the Hecker Center in Washington D.C.