We have omitted much of this singular document, including detailed accounts of supernatural occurrences, and also quotations from the works of Goerres, St. Teresa, St. John of the Cross, St. Bonaventure, Father Rigoleu, Richard of St. Victor, Scaramelli’s Directorium Mysticum, and other mystical writings.  These references he had collected to certify to the reality of his experience.

Throughout all these three years of trial he had employed what he calls his “lucid intervals” of mental power in studying in his own way, God aiding him in His own way to the destined end, as He had hindered him from choosing any other way.  These intervals seemed so slight in his memory that the reader has seen his statement that he had not studied at all.  When he had been a year at Clapham he was found, on examination, to be well enough prepared, as he had promised he would be.  Having been ordained sub-deacon and deacon at old Hall College, by Bishop Wiseman, he was ordained priest by the same prelate in his private chapel in London.  The event took place on the 23d of October, 1849, the feast of the Most Holy Redeemer.  Father Hecker said his first Mass the following day at Clapham, that being the feast of St. Raphael the Archangel:  one year from the date of his account of conscience written out and given to his superiors.

The following is from a letter to his mother announcing his ordination: 

“DEAR MOTHER:  You have been doubly blessed by Almighty God within the past few weeks.  Your youngest son has been ordained priest in God’s one, holy, Catholic Church, and prays for you daily when he offers up to God the precious body and blood of His beloved Son, our Lord; and besides you have received, by the marriage of another of your sons [George], a new daughter, who, being also a child of the Holy Church, must be kind, dutiful, pious, fearing God, and loving above all things our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.  Are not these, dear mother, blessings?  Do they not convey to your heart joy and consolation?  They ought and surely do.  Your latter days dear mother, will be your happiest.”

The remainder of the letter is filled with exhortations to enter the Church, and arguments drawn from Scripture.

We may mention a letter written to Father Hecker by Father Heilig on the eve of the former’s departure for America; a message full of affectionate good wishes and claims of friendship and union in prayer with the singular young pilgrim from the Western World.

The following extracts from the memoranda may be of interest as embodying Father Hecker’s views of how to study divinity, resulting from his own experience in preparing for the priesthood: