Homily: 5th Sunday of Lent 2016 - The Hound of Heaven & the Adulterous woman

"I fled Him down the nights and down the days 

I fled Him down the arches of the years
I fled Him down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind, and in the midst of tears
I hid from him…."

So begins the poet Francis Thompson's famous poem entitled "The Hound of Heaven."  One scholar wrote, “’The Hound of Heaven’ is the sweetest, deepest, strongest poem ever written in the English tongue.”  And in this magnificent ode, we hear the story of a soul’s flight from God.

For centuries before, English poets had written of man’s search for God—the soul’s eager quest for the kingdom of heaven.  But drawing upon his own spiritual experience, Francis Thompson presents something very relatable for us sinners—the soul running away from God. 

We flee from God in so many ways don’t we—distractions, addictions, seeking happiness in the admiration of others. “We flee Him down the nights and down the days, we flee him down the arches of the years.”

I think of the woman caught in adultery in today’s Gospel.  She turned to sin for the same reason any of us turn to sin.  We think it will make us happy.  The adulterous woman sought happiness in an adulterous relationship—the carnal pleasures of illicit companionship.

Francis Thompson was a Roman Catholic who led a tortured life.  After abandoning studies to become a priest and later a physician, he drifted and fell into financial hard times.  His troubles worsened when he developed a painful neurological condition and began using opium to relieve his pain.  Though he fought off his drug habit, he eventually succumbed to tuberculosis, dying a month short of his 48^th birthday.  He knew from experience what it meant to flee from God down the “labyrinthine ways Of my own mind, and in the midst of tears.” We may have members of our own families who struggle with such addictions, who appear to be fleeing from God with all their might.

Yet, the point of the poem, isn’t simply that we flee from God, that part is obvious.  Francis Thompson called God the “hound from heaven”, who pursues us even as we flee Him.  God relentlessly pursues us sinners so he can save us. God pursues us because he desires us to be whole and happy, but we flee from him, the poem states, because we worry that we will have to sacrifice our earthly delights if we accept God. How often has God urged us to pray, but we resist because we worried we’d miss a favorite television show? How foolish of us. God calls out to us, offering us refreshment, peace, strength, and we choose paltry entertainment.  How foolish.  But God is unrelenting. And thanks be to God that he is—that he does not give up on us.

In the Gospel, the adulterous woman is brought before Jesus—the hound of heaven had caught up with her.

The Pharisees who had no mercy in their hearts wished Jesus to condemn her to death. But Mercy himself spoke,  “Let him who is without sin among you, be the first to throw a stone at her.”  And what a beautiful intimate moment, after the Scribes and the Pharisees and the crowds walked away in shame, and only two remained, the adulterous woman and the incarnation of mercy.

“Has no one condemned you?”  “No one, Lord” “Neither do I condemn you; go, and sin no more.” Here, she encounters mercy, she surrenders to it, and is enabled to make a new beginning of her life.  God always offers us a new beginning—a life free from sin devoted to doing the will of God.

The poem, “The Hound of Heaven” reaches its climax when the exhausted soul finally surrenders to the Love of God.  It finally gives up all of its carnal desires and instead of fleeing, it allows itself to be led by God. The souls recognizes that only God can provide true and lasting happiness; the pleasures and comforts of this world—which are temporary and incomplete—cannot satisfy our deep longing for God.

St. Paul is another example of one who finally surrendered to the love and mercy of Christ. Remember, Paul had been the most zealous persecutor of Christians in that first generation of the Church.  He was a high born, purebred Israelite, a Pharisee, well educated, zealous for his faith, a scrupulous follower of the law.

But because of his encounter with Mercy, he is able to say in the second reading today “But whatever gains I had, these I have come to consider a loss because of Christ.  More than that, I even consider EVERYTHING as loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my lord.”  What happened?  What happened to this man who had it all?  He had everything you would want as a Jew of his time—he came from the best neighborhood, the best family, went to the best school, had the leading job, was admired by everybody.  And he says, “All this is rubbish—compared to being taken possession of by Christ Jesus.”

Friends, God loves us; he pursues us, calls out to us to accept His mercy and turn away from sin, and experience the new life he has in store for us. God is constantly at work in all of our lives, here, now, chasing after us, pleading with us to put away our sins, our distractions, and our addictions, and learn to let him lead us in a life of ever greater submission to the Divine Will of God.

Thursday night, here at St. Clare we have a Lenten Penance service.  Between now and then, I encourage each of you to make a good examination of conscience—consider all the ways that you may be fleeing from God, and then come and encounter his mercy in the sacrament of confession.  Allow him to catch up to you, surrender to Him, and receive his mercy.

And if you aren’t in need of the Sacrament, in these final two weeks of Lent, let us all redouble our efforts to strip away all those things which lead us to sin, all those things that get in the way of surrendering to God, all those things we ought to count as rubbish.  May we, in the words of St. Paul “continue our pursuit” and “strain forward” not away from God, but towards Him.  To race into his arms as he races towards us, to surrender to that deeper intimacy with God that we all yearn for, to put an end to sin and make a new beginning of goodness, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.