n out of Mass. But I am afraid of it. Any such thing
is apt to throw me off, and I am afraid. _Question:_ But suppose it
to be God's will that you should say Mass notwithstanding this
difficulty? _Answer:_ Then let Him bring it about."

At one time several months passed, months of very low vitality in
body and awful darkness of soul, during which he neither said Mass
nor received Communion. The following memorandum describes how this
period, perhaps the most painful of his life, was ended:

"Christmas, 1885.--For the first time since early summer Father
Hecker undertook to say Mass: I assisted him, and a stormy time we
had of it. It was at five in the morning and in the oratory. He
wanted to have the door locked, but there was no key. 'Don't speak a
word to me,' he said while he was dressing in his room. Arrived in
the oratory, he sank down upon a bench as if some one had struck him;
he threw his birettum down on the floor, and began to weep and cry in
a very mournful way and aloud. But he quickly recovered, and rested
as if he were preparing to be hanged. I supported him over to the
altar, and as he began the _Judica_ he blubbered out the words like a
school-boy being whipped. Most of the Mass he said out loud, hardly
holding in his sobs anywhere except from the _hanc igitur_ till near
the _Pater Noster._ His calmest time was during that most solemn
part, and at his Communion. Three or four times he was forced to sit
down on a chair I had provided for him on the predella. At the
_Memento_ for the living he was deeply affected and patted the floor
with his foot, sobbing aloud and acting like a child with an
unendurable toothache. He was afraid of the _Pater Noster_ and asked
me to say it with him, which I did; also various words and sentences
in other parts of the Mass. I have heard him say that the _Pater
Noster_ is a prayer which breaks him down. After he was through he
insisted on trying to say the Pope's prayers. We said the Hail Marys
and the Hail, Holy Queen, together, and I recited the prayer for him.
I had to take off his vestments the best I could while he sat, and
when I got him down to his room and into bed, he was in a state of
nearly complete unconsciousness. After saying my three Masses, I saw
him again at about 8.30, found him up and dressed and very bright,
and he has been particularly so all day."

What follows is from a letter dated early in 1886, and seems to refer
to the occasion above described.