Isaac T. Hecker (1819–1888) is an American original, a homegrown religious genius. For a brief period in the early 1840s, he served as the baker at Brook Farm. His colleagues there called him “Ernest the Seeker,” a character in a William Ellery Channing short story. He was indeed a seeker, whose own spiritual journey led him to the Catholic Church, where, during much of the 1850s, he was a Redemptorist mission preacher. In 1858, he founded the Paulists with the goal of evangelizing what he would have called “America.”
As a Paulist, Hecker founded and edited The Catholic World, which he modeled on The Atlantic Monthly, and the Catholic Publication Society, progenitor of Paulist Press. He hoped the Catholic Publication Society could make available to American seekers the writings of the mystical tradition, such writers as Julian of Norwich and Catherine of Genoa, both of whom he published and introduced.
Writing was central to Hecker's own prayer and interior life. The selections in this slim volume come from an unpublished manuscript, or collection of manuscripts, in the Paulist Archives called “Notes on the Spiritual Life.” This manuscript was a working document to which Hecker continued to add throughout his life. The present selections, to which the editor hopes to add, come from the years 1849–1856, during Hecker's Redemptorist years. As the editor points out, Hecker most likely used these notes for mission preaching, retreats, and spiritual direction. They are topical in alphabetical order so Hecker could easily add to them.
Hecker wrote three books. His articles appeared frequently in The Catholic World. His writing is at home in the New England literary tradition. He wanted to reach the seekers of his own day, people with sensibilities like those of Ralph Waldo Emerson, his former friend and colleague, with the spiritual riches of the Catholic tradition. He has, for example, a section on “Self-Reliance” (56). Hecker wrote to modern religious subjects in a voluntary religious culture. This is what “American” meant to him. Among the many medieval and modern mystical writers he cites, one of his favorites was Julian of Norwich. Some of his more attractive turns of phrase in these selections come from his engagement with her: “The universe is a wonderful net extended by God's love to catch man and render him familiar” (42). “Some pray best,” Hecker writes under the heading “Prayer is Subtle,” “when one does not know that he prays” (52). In a section on “Self-Love,” he writes, “When God purifies the soul, it cries out like a small child that is having his face washed” (55).
Isaac Hecker is now a Servant of God. Paul Robichaud, who edited and introduced these selections, is not only a historian, but also the postulator for Hecker's cause for canonization. As the title Nineteenth-Century Spirituality for Our Time indicates, Robichaud correctly senses that, in a time of Nones and “spiritual but not religious” people, Hecker's spiritual writing will resonate and, in the process, make Hecker better known. He has produced a small book that is of historical interest, a book that one might pray with, and a book that would work well with undergraduates in courses on prayer or spirituality. In the spirit of Hecker, the selections are also highly accessible for lay discussions in home or parish. Highly recommended.
