The following are snippets from our Paulist Associates providing insights on Fr. Isaac Hecker.
Father Isaac Hecker was a Servant of God. The spirit of St. Paul led him to proclaim the word of God in North America where he called for missionaries to give the gospel a voice, and to follow the Lord Jesus with the zeal of St. Paul. Father Hecker began the mission of the Paulist community.
By Betty Kenny
Isaac Hecker was born in 1819 in the US to immigrant German parents. Raised in the Methodist tradition he took his time to even become Catholic. But he was a seeker and spent his early years looking for a purpose in his life, reconciling his understanding of a deep faith instilled by his mother. After trying out two communes, he became curious about the church as a channel for God’s grace. He was able to spend time in study and prayer. In that time, he discerned that as a minister he could harmonize his need to serve God and his need to serve his fellow man. But he didn’t know which church! By the grace of the Holy Spirit, he met other converts to Catholicism and that is what led to his ordination as a Redemptorist priest in 1849.
By Janet Starr
Isaac Thomas Hecker was a man thoroughly American and profoundly spiritual. In its most basic sense, spirituality refers to the personal relation of an individual with God. His spirituality became rooted in the conviction that God offers himself to each of us, and the Holy Spirit is the ultimate and best spiritual director. He believed human nature is basically good and free, the community has something to add to the individual search, and that the Holy Spirit will lead those who patiently take time to really listen. If one is in the right place at the right time, the Holy Spirit is responsible.
By Maryann Cushing
This is one of my favorite quotes from Father Isaac Hecker, C.S.P.
“Our faith must take root in our national characteristics, and we find ourselves entirely at home in it. My wish is to help my fellow countrymen and women in this work. I believe our civilization presents to Christianity a broader basis to rear a spiritual life upon, than any other form of civilization. I wish to see advantage taken of this and prevent a narrow and repugnant form of spirituality from taking its place. It Is my conviction that if there were everywhere souls presenting a type of Christian perfection consistent with our Faith, and its doctrines and teachings, and in harmony with our American character, this would be a great way in reconciling our religion to our people. I have the conviction that I can be all the better Catholic because I am an American and all the better American because I am a Catholic.”
Excerpt from the Paulist Vocation
By Dorothy O’Malley
Isaac Hecker suffered from smallpox as a child and his mother feared for his life. It is said that he reassured her by saying, “No, mother I shall not die now. God has work for me to do in the world and I shall live to do it.”
God certainly did have work for him to do! Hecker went on to establish the Paulist Fathers in 1858 on 59th Street in New York City where the Mother Church resides today. From there he traveled extensively over the next years preaching missions as far west as Chicago.
Always looking for the most effective approach for reaching his fellow Americans, Isaac turned to publishing his ideas. In 1866 he established what is now the Paulist Press.
Isaac Hecker had 30 more very productive years after he had established the Paulist order. He passed away at the Paulists’ Mother house in Manhattan in 1888. Perhaps what he said to his mother as a young child was a blessed premonition.
By Margie Halliwell