The paper is yellow. The article’s date in The Superior Catholic Herald explains why: July 23, 1987. It was scarcely worth my time to read it over, so indelibly had the words been etched into my brain and onto my heart before being sent to the publisher. If it hadn’t been for the absolute necessity to clear out ancient files for the sake of keeping less ancient ones, I would have gone through the rest of my life remembering bits and pieces, but would never have seen the article whole.

And, somehow, these many years later, I needed to see it whole, needed to see me whole, needed to see Christianity whole, able to stand proud amidst the rubble of our world, and declare by our presence that we are not making a Lenten pilgrimage after a mirage. Christ is real. We are real. And Alan Jones declared that it was so through these words quoted in that long-ago time:

I cannot survive on a secondhand faith in a secondhand God.
There has to be a personal word, a unique confrontation, if I am
to come alive. ----Alan Jones

Excerpt from Journey into Christ

The words written in that article went fairly well like this:

In this age of technological power, when a flick of a key can make us masters of information on anyone and everyone, we need to remind ourselves that people are more than a groove on a floppy disk; they are our brothers and sisters, brothers and sisters of the Christ, Whom they seek, every bit as much as we.

Alan Jones speaks of seeking a relationship with Christ based on something deeper, more imaginative than dogma found in theological tomes lining seminary book shelves. He is seeking the- flesh- and- blood- Lord of Bethlehem, Nazareth, the Sea of Galilee, fishing nets and late suppers on mountain sides, the Garden with its crimson ground and unspeakable fear and loneliness, whipped back and thorn-crowned head, spikes driven into flesh and wood, fever and thirst, a Mother’s grief beyond grief, a borrowed tomb, and victory on that first Easter morn.

In another century, in another country, an anonymous prostitute rescued Francis Thompson, whom she had found lying in the gutter in the slums of London, and nursed him back to health.

Poor Francis – a romantic, a mystic, a poet – was born into the age of Bismarck, Charles Darwin, John Dewey and Karl Marx.

His father, a doctor, was determined that his son would follow in his profession, and Francis dutifully attempted to pass the medical exams three times, but failed.

In despair, he dropped out of society and became addicted to wine and laudanum. After his unknown friend got him back on his feet, he wrote a poem on the wrapping paper of a bag of sugar and sent it to Wilfred Meynell, publisher of the London newspaper, Merry England.

Although the father sent an allowance to the London Library, Francis eventually became so unkempt he was not allowed inside the building to collect it.

Since Thompson had no address, Meynell sent word to him on the street that his work was being published, and he could pick up his check at the editorial office.

There, the poet arrived in broken shoes, with no shirt under his ragged jacket. Beneath the tatters, Meynell saw a mystical genius and persuaded Thompson to spend two years at the Stonington Priory, where he wrote the powerful poem below:

The Hound of Heaven – by Francis Thompson (1859 – 1907)

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, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbed pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat – and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet –
“All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.”

I pleaded, outlaw-wise,
By many a hearted casement, curtained red,
Trellised with intertwining charities;
(For, though I knew His love Who followed,
Yet I was sore adread
Lest, having Him, I must have naught beside.)
But if one little casement parted wide,
The gust of His approach would clash it to.
Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue.
Across the margent of the world I fled,
And troubled the gold gateways of the stars,
Smiting for shelter on their clanged bars;
Fretted to dulcet jars
And silvern chatter the pale ports o’ the moon,
I said to Dawn: Be sudden – to Eve: Be soon;
With thy young skiey blossoms heap me over
From this tremendous Lover –
Float thy vague veil about me, lest He see!

I tempted all His servitors, but to find
My own betrayal in their constancy,
In faith to Him their fickleness to me,
Their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit.
To all swift things for swiftness did I sue;
Clung to the whistling mane of every wind.
But whether they swept, smoothly fleet,
The long savannahs of the blue;
Or whether, Thunder-driven,
They clanged His chariot ‘thwart a heaven,
Flashy with flying lightnings round the spurn o’their feet. -
Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue.
Still with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbed pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
Came on the following Feet,
And a Voice above their beat –
“Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me.”

Now of that long pursuit
Comes on at had the bruit;
That Voice is round me like a bursting sea:
“And is thy earth so marred,
Shattered in shard on shard?
Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me!
Strange, piteous, futile thing!
Wherefore should any set thee love apart?
Seeing none but I make much of naught.” (He said).
”And human love needs human meriting:
How hast thou merited
Of all man’s clotted clay, the dingiest clot?

Alack, thou knowest not
How little worthy of any love thou art!
Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee,
Save Me, save only Me?
All which I took from thee I did but take,
Not for thy harms,
But just that thou might’st seek it in My arms.
All which thy child’s mistake
Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home:
Rise, clasp My hand, and come.

Halts by me that footfall:
Is my gloom, after all,
Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?
“Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,
I am He Whom thou seekest!
Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me.”

When Jacques and Raissa Maritain were about to graduate with highest honors from the Sorbonne University in Paris, they made a mutual suicide pact, convinced there was nothing for which to live.

Then, they came across Thompson’s poem, were touched by it, and contacted the poet. From there, they went on to take instructions in the Catholic faith, and spent their lives writing and speaking, passing on a message of hope to
others.

A prostitute, a poet, a publisher, two scientists – all joined together through Christ. Sisters and brothers, we are also one in Him and in one another, bound together by the same Hound of Heaven. Amen.

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