Servant of God Father Isaac Thomas Hecker, C.S.P.
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THE FOURTH OF JULY

7/4/2014

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Isaac Hecker and the Fourth of July
 
Here are some short pieces from Hecker’s last book, The Church and the Age (1887).  I think they speak for themselves as Hecker the citizen talks about the founding principles of the nation.
 
Father Paul Robichaud CSP
 
“That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among them are life liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,”
 
That some of these {declarations} are divine and fundamental truths and all are practical verities having a ground in both reason and revelation.  They are divine inasmuch as they declare the rights of the Creator in His creature; they are fundamental, for without the enjoyment of the natural rights which they proclaim, man is not a man but a slave or a chattel; they are practical for man is, or ought to be, under his Creator, the master of his own destiny and free from any dominion not founded in divine right. The Creator invested man with these rights in order that he might fulfill the duties inseparably attached to them.  For these rights put man in the possession of himself and leave him free to reach the end for which his Creator called him into existence.  He therefore who denies or violates these rights offends God, acts the tyrant and is an enemy of mankind.   And if there is any superior merit in the republican policy of the United States, it consists chiefly in this: that while it adds nothing and can add nothing to man’s natural rights; it expresses them more clearly, guards them more securely, and protects them more effectually; so that man under its popular institutions, enjoys greater liberty in working out his true destiny.
 
Universal suffrage is the most efficient school to awaken general intelligence, to teach a people their rights and to arouse in their bosoms a sense of their human dignity.  For what is a vote? It is the recognition of our intelligence and liberty and responsibility; the qualities that constitute our human dignity.  What is a vote?  It is the admission that our human rights are a factor in political society, and that we have the right to shape and the bounden duty to shape so far as our ability extends, the course of the destiny of our country.  A vote is a practical means by which every voter can exercise their rights and fulfill their duty by making their voice heard in the councils of the nation, it is the practical application of the truth, “that all men” have an equal right “to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” and armed with a ballot we have the power of maintaining and protecting these rights.
 
Servant of God Isaac Thomas Hecker
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ALMANAC

3/30/2014

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The following sentences by Servant of God, Isaac Hecker form in a sense, an almanac of independent thoughts that Hecker wrote in one of his notebooks.  While they weave very nicely into his spiritual teaching, they stand alone in his writings and we share a few of these today with commentary by Father Paul Robichaud CSP.
 

HECKER: A man who prays only while in Church or while on his knees, prays but little and not well.
 

Let pilgrims go to Assisi, let pilgrims go to the tombs of the Apostles, let pilgrims go to the Holy Sepulchre of Our Saviour, provided that is, that it leads them to a greater faithfulness to the invitations of divine grace by the Holy Spirit.  If outward penitential practices and spiritual exercises do not have this for their aim then they are useless, dangerous and likely to be hurtful.
 
COMMENTARY: 
The Episcopalian theologian and Scripture scholar Albert T. Mollegen, who I had the privilege of studying with as a seminarian, used to say, “Just pray, start anywhere, God is delighted to hear from you.”  Mollegen taught that once you began a dialogue with God, God would invite you to come deeper and your prayer would develop as your relationship with God developed.

Isaac Hecker would agree with Mollegen.  Hecker’s caveat deals with the question of God’s invitation to come deeper.   His concern is that you discover this invitation from the Holy Spirit.  If you do not then you get stuck in stage one.  The spiritual practices you use to get started in prayer - if they do not lead you to the discovery that God the Holy Spirit is within and inviting you to come deeper – then it is Hecker’s judgment that these practices are useless.
 
HECKER: The two greatest hindrances to perfection is to put off acting on a resolution until tomorrow and waiting for more favorable opportunities.  Our motto should be, “Now or Never! Here or Nowhere!”
 
COMMENTARY: Hecker biographer, the historian David O’Brien noted that Hecker was highly organized, a man of detail, He ordinarily thought through his options and planned out his responses. Yet in the most important moments of his life Hecker acted spontaneously and with an immediacy that surprised many people. The decision to seek Catholic baptism, to join the Redemptorists, to go to Rome to see Father Mauron that led to his dismissal are examples of this. Here in his writing we find an explanation.  It is “now or never, here or nowhere.” Don’t put off acting on a resolution when informed by the Holy Spirit, you know you what to do.


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