Here is some basic guidance from Father Hecker on developing a spiritual life. This material is primarily drawn from “Father Hecker’s Spiritual Doctrine” as found in Walter Elliott’s “The Life of Father Hecker” (1891). Walter Elliott was Father Hecker’s secretary and companion during Hecker’s last years of life.

Go to God

Go to God, go entirely to God, go integrally to God; behold that is sincerity, complete perfect sincerity. Do that, and make it a complete continuous act, and you will need no help from me or any creature. I want to provoke you to do it. That is my whole aim and desire. Just in proportion as we harbor pride, vanity, self love – in a word, self-centeredness – just in proportion we fail to resign ourselves to God. Were we completely resigned to God, God would change all that is in us that is in conflict with Him and prepare our souls for union with Him, making us one with Him.

God longs for our souls more than our souls can long for Him. Such is God’s thirst for our love that he made all creatures to love Him and to have no rest until they love Him above all things. If my words do not speak to your soul as God’s words and voice, then pay no heed to them. But if they are, then do not hesitate for a moment to obey. If they humble you, what a blessing! For he that is humbled will be exalted.

May you see God in all, through all and above all. May God’s transcendence and God’s immanence be the two poles of your life.

A Response by Father Paul Robichaud, CSP

Father Isaac Hecker believed that spiritual direction was the process of pointing someone towards God – getting them oriented to the presence of the Holy Spirit within their souls and then getting out of the way. Like a driver with a map to point out the route and a full tank of gas, in this case the Holy Spirit, they were on their way to greater union with God. In this passage where Elliott quotes Hecker, the Servant of God is cheering us on to join the race. “Go,” says Hecker, “go entirely to God in perfect sincerity … do that and you need no help from me.”

Father Hecker tells us that God thirsts for our love. Our love of God is a response to our creator. God has made us to love him and we remain unsatisfied and unfulfilled until we do. How do we learn to love God? We do so by first experiencing God’s love; by becoming aware of God’s guiding presence in our lives, by His sheltering care for us, by His healing and His forgiveness. God has created us with the capacity to love Him and God begins the relationship by loving us, so that we can love Him in return. For Father Hecker the spiritual life begins with this realization that God yearns for us to love Him. We come to understand that our lives will not find completion until our hearts rest in God. Coming to know this truth and deepening our awareness of the Holy Spirit within our souls, we are ready to go, to go to God.

About this series

Father Paul Robichaud, CSP, is historian of the Paulist Fathers and postulator of the Cause of Father Hecker. Publishing and disseminating the writing of Servant of God Isaac Hecker is the work of the Office for Hecker’s Cause. If you have asked Father Hecker to pray for you or another person who is ill, and you believe something miraculous has happened, please phone Father Robichaud at 202-269-2538.

If you would like to contribute to Father Hecker’s cause for canonization, please click here.