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Updated: May 24, 2025
Father Hecker was in Rome when, in March, 1875, his old friend and patron and first spiritual adviser, Archbishop McCloskey, was made Cardinal. He was much rejoiced, and sent the Cardinal a rich silk cassock, and gave a public banquet to Monsignor Roncetti and Doctor Ubaldi, who were to carry the insignia of the cardinalate to New York.
An author much admired by Father Hecker thus describes the effects produced in the soul by supernatural faith, and hope, and love: "These virtues are called and in reality are Divine virtues.
"The Almighty knows," he wrote to him, "how ardently I wish to see you again, for no one can feel more than I the want of your conversation, it was so greatly to my improvement." We have received from the Abbé Dufresne a memorial of Father Hecker, which is valuable as independent contemporary testimony.
"He was the dove floating in the air, not yet finding the spot on which his foot might rest," writes Mr. Curtis of Isaac Hecker at that period of his youth when his surroundings and companions were for the first time, and very possibly for the last, wholly congenial to his natural inclinations.
Ever the mystery is revealed in each new birth; so must it be to eternity. The Eternal-Absolute is ever creating new forms of expressing itself." What the new order of things was to be in the spiritual life could be learned, Father Hecker held, by observing men's strivings after natural good.
They made friends with the crew, who were nearly all Yankee sailors, and who struck them as exactly like themselves, except that they were not religious; and they sought entertainment with such of the passengers as were congenial, though in this Isaac Hecker was more ready than his companions. Father Walworth tells an incident characteristic of both himself and his transcendental companion.
Furthermore, Father Hecker believed that it would finally be discovered that the Protestant spirit is contrary to the political spirit of the American Republic. America has based her Constitution on the fact that man is born free, reasonable, and capable of self-government.
Although he was not able to commit the meeting to a definitely monarchical policy, he had influence enough to counteract the attempts of Struve and Hecker to carry a proposal for the proclamation of a republic; and his influence increased during the later phases of the movement.
Too many souls who have never sinned mortally fail to struggle for perfection, Father Hecker often said, because they never have heard any invitation but the call to repentance. The positive side of Christianity is the Incarnation, which lifts all men of good-will, repentant and innocent alike, into participation with the Deity.
When it became evident that the Holy See would decide the case so as to make it necessary for the Fathers to form a new society, Father Hecker did not accept even this as a final indication of Providence that external circumstances had made it possible for him to realize his long-cherished dreams of an American apostolate; for he was at liberty still to refuse. He redoubled his prayers.
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