January 27, 2013
This is the fortieth in a series of previously un published reflections from Paulist Founder, Servant of God Father Isaac T. Hecker. On the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul the Apostle this week, we publish a reflection by Paulist founder on a passage from St. Paul to the Romans. The following text is taken from his sermon notes from 1867. Because they are notes, they are only a fragment. Hecker’s personal Bible was the Douay Rheims translation from the Vulgate printed in 1854, so we have enclosed a contemporary translation of the same text from the American bishops.
Hecker Reflection: Notes on Saint Paul to the Romans (1867)
Romans 1:20-21
For that which is known of God has been manifest in them and manifested unto them. For the invisible things from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made: his eternal power and also divinity: because they are in excusable. Because that, when they knew God, they have not glorified him as God, or given thanks.
(Douay Rheims Bible of Isaac Hecker, P. J. Kennedy: New York, 1854)
For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. Because that, when they knew God, they have not glorified him as God, or given thanks.
(New American Bible, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2011)
Hecker Reflection
God is the author of the natural order. The visible world, which we call nature, is the work of God and is filled with his wisdom, beauty and mercy. All created things are made by God and serve him. The heavens and the earth declare the glory of God. The Church incorporates nature in her worship of God.
God is no less the creator of the world. He has created man in his own image and likeness. Man therefore is God’s creature in the world, a complete visible symbol of God. Everything in man represents a divine principal. God can become man and man become God without any change or alteration. And this took place in the Incarnation. Christ was wholly God and completely man. God is the author of creation and in Him all things live and move and have their being. And the Apostle, St. Paul fully holds to this fact.
Response from Father Paul G. Robichaud, CSP
In this passage from Romans, St. Paul asks, how can people ignore God who is so powerfully present in the world? God did not create us and our world and simply walk away. From the act of creation right up to the present, says Saint Paul, we can see God in our history; for God is at work in the world. Now Saint Paul uses this section of Romans to say that the Gentiles who ignore or deny the reality of God’s presence are subject to God’s anger, because they block the truth from enlightening others and so they will be held accountable.
What gets Father Hecker’s attention in this passage from Paul is not God’s anger but two things in which Hecker passionately holds: divine providence is at work in our lives and the potential of human beings to choose for the good. Because God is at work in the world, we can totally entrust our lives into God’s hands. God created us with a purpose, God cares for us in the present and God has a plan for our future. The world is full of God’s wisdom, beauty and mercy.
Commenting on the creation of humankind, Father Hecker says, “man … is a complete visible symbol of God.” Man reflects the divine presence so completely that in the Incarnation, God was able “without alteration” to become man and because of the Incarnation, man is able to become like God. Here is Hecker, the American optimist who believes in the goodness and potential of people.
Paulist Father Paul Robichaud, CSP, is historian of the Paulist Fathers and postulator of the Cause of Father Hecker. His office is located at the Hecker Center in Washington, D.C. 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 Paul at 202-269-2519 and tell him your story.