Thankfully, we have a Savior who unwaveringly pursues us even to the furthest limits of our self-imposed exile. I first became aware of this truth many years ago when a priest, responding to my weak and vacillating faith, confidently declared, “Peter, the Lord is persistent.” I did not grasp what he meant at the time, but today his pithy wisdom is all too clear. God is always present and providentially active in our lives even when we do not believe it, seek it, or sense it. Unbeknownst to me that day, the words spoken by that priest were in truth Christ promising me that He would never abandon me, that He would in fact patiently wait out my self-imposed exile as decades of addiction had yet to run their awful course.

After all these years, as I reflect on that encounter in the clarifying hindsight of recovery, I wonder if that good priest had Francis Thompson’s magnificent poem “The Hound of Heaven” in mind when he said those simple, yet prophetic words. The poem is a lyrical masterpiece, an ode portraying Christ’s inexorable, yet tenderhearted quest to save the wayward and recalcitrant soul. Thompson, himself a Catholic and opium addict, eloquently described the tormented and addicted soul, like many of us, who had become a fugitive from Love and Mercy:

“I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears”

Thompson’s magnificent poem reveals God’s inescapable and loving presence, and His refusal to leave us hopelessly adrift in exile, culminating in the sweetest of all invitations, “Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest, I am He Whom thou seekest…Rise, clasp My Hand, and come.” In this season of Lent, and indeed in all the seasons of our lives, as long as we are blessed with this precious gift of life, let us go frequently and joyfully to the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Let us relinquish our futile and self-sabotaging flights into exile. Let us instead, in humility and trust, surrender our hearts to Love and Mercy. And let us pray daily that we may never relapse in our pride and be found guilty in the end of the unforgivable sin.

“From a sudden and unprovided death, O Lord, deliver us” (Litany of the Saints).

Reflection Questions

• How has God revealed His “persistence” in your recovery?
• In what ways have you learned to receive and embody mercy?

Daily Mass Readings

First Reading: Isaiah 65:17-21
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 30:2 and 4, 5-6, 11-12a and 13b
Gospel: John 4:43-54

Reflection by Pete S.