"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…."
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 48th
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.
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