Happy birthday, Paulist Fathers!
by Father Ronald A. Franco, CSP
July 7, 2015

Exactly 157 years ago today, on July 7, 1858, Father Isaac Thomas Hecker, Father Augustine Hewitt, Father George Deshon and Father Francis A. Baker (themselves all converts to Roman Catholicism and until recently also Redemptorist priests) signed the Programme of Rule and Constitution of the Congregation of Missionary Priests of St. Paul the Apostle, thus creating the religious community commonly known ever since as the Paulist Fathers – the first men’s religious community to be founded in the United States.

In a circular letter printed in Catholic newspapers around the country, the new community announced that they “had organized themselves as a religious congregation for the vigorous prosecution of the missions and other works of apostolic ministry.”

From their founding until 1894, the Paulists Fathers staffed only their one original parish in New York City, which quickly became famous for the quality of its liturgical ceremonies and music and for its preaching. But the early Paulists hardly remained still during those years!

In addition to staffing a growing parish in a densely populated urban neighborhood and building a big and beautiful church (sometime referred to by some New Yorkers as “Hecker’s Basilica”), the Paulist Fathers fanned out from there to preach parish missions and to give popular lectures. And 150 years ago, in April 1865, they founded The Catholic World followed the next year by The Catholic Publication Society, now known as Paulist Press. Isaac Hecker himself was active on the 1860s lecture circuit and continued to write articles in The Catholic World until the year of his death in 1888.

In 1872, the Paulists established St. Mary’s on the Lake, a vacation chapel and summer residence for Paulist priests and students at Lake George, in the beautiful Adirondack region of Upstate New York. (Lake George was first discovered by French Jesuit missionary St. Isaac Jogues, who named it the Lake of the Blessed Sacrament. It was renamed after Britain’s King George II after the British victory in the French and Indian War.)

Today, many Paulist priests still like to vacation at Lake George, and all the Paulist students assemble there after their summer assignments to begin a new formation year there each August. This year, on Aug. 15, the patronal feast of St. Mary’s of the Lake, our Paulist seminarians – will renew their temporary promise to the community. Before that, Lake George will also host the annual “Paulist Plunge” (July 26-31) – a retreat for young men in the 20s and 30s who would like to learn more about Paulist life and mission and possibly explore a Paulist vocation.

In the rustic environment of Lake George, retreatants gather each day for morning and evening prayer, Mass, meals, and a vocation-related presentation. They also get to enjoy the famous 32-mile long lake and take a day-trip to the small Paulist-owned islands halfway up the lake.

Please keep the participants in the “Paulist Plunge” in your prayers this month along with all the Paulist Fathers and students and all our Paulist parishes and ministries throughout the United States.