22 September 1983
Costa Rica

My dear Confreres,

At the beginning of this century there was a Catholic poet, Francis Thompson, who lived in London. He was a very poor man and had once been a candidate for the priesthood. He wrote a celebrated poem called The Hound of Heaven. The poet envisages a hunt in which God is the hound in pursuit of the poet himself. The poem begins like this:

I fled Him down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him down the arches of the years.

At the end the poet is overtaken by the hound and surrenders himself into the loving arms of God, realizing at last that everything in life betrayed him except God Who pursued him with such love.

All things betrayest thee who betrayest Me.

I thought of this poem when I reflected upon the first reading of today's Mass. One could say that the history of the Old Testament is a history of the Hound of Heaven pursuing lovingly His chosen people. The history is an account of how the Israelite people tried to escape from that pursuing love.

It was during the period of the exile that the Israelites realized in a new way the love which God had for them. They experienced His love in a new way also when they were brought back to Jerusalem again and began to rebuild the temple. It was not long seemingly before they began to escape from God's love. They became absorbed in their own personal interests and left aside the task of rebuilding the temple. In today's reading Haggai gently reminds them: "Is it a time for yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins?" (Hg 1:4). The prophet Haggai reminds them that the interests of the Lord must be placed before their own personal comfort: "Go up into the hills and bring wood, and build the house that I may take pleasure in it and that I may appear in my glory, says the Lord." (Ibid., v. 8). Equivalently, Haggai was reminding the people that their peace and their freedom could only be guaranteed if they surrendered themselves to the hound of heaven.

What the Israelite people were probably facing then was a problem that arose from their new-found affluence. Haggai speaks of paneled houses, something that the Israelites had not known when they were in exile in Babylon. I hardly think that affluence is as great a threat to the Church in Central America as it may be in other parts of the Western world. In my own country there is an old phrase which goes: "Wooden chalice, golden priest; golden chalice, wooden priest." The meaning is clear. When the Church falls upon hard times and is poor, the great qualities of the priesthood shine out more clearly than when the Church is comfortable and well-off. In times of prosperity the priest, as Haggai expresses it, can settle into paneled houses and forget about the building of the temple which is the Church of God. I suppose you could say that St. Vincent was on his way to settling into a paneled house when he went out to seek what he called an honorable retirement.

Happily for us and for us and for millions of others, he heard the call of God to "go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house" (Ibid.) of the Lord. I cannot speak for others, but I can speak for myself and say that I can feel the bias towards affluence in my own life. I can testify to a desire to escape from the Hound of Heaven. I can testify to a desire to settle in a paneled house, rather than to go up in the hills and bring wood and build the house of the Lord. I am aware of a desire to escape from the Hound of Heaven Who is pursuing me with His love.

Towards the end of his life, St. Vincent was concerned that the Congregation's failure to live the ideal of evangelical poverty would be the cause of its ruin. There is much food for thought in this observation which St. Vincent made earlier in his life to Father Codoing: "In the name of God, Monsieur, let us abandon ourselves to the direction of God's loving Providence, and we shall be safe from all sorts of inconveniences that our haste may draw down on us. We are not sufficiently virtuous to be able to carry the burden of abundance and that of apostolic virtue and I fear we may never be, and that the former may ruin the latter." (Coste II, Eng. ed., ltr. 718, p. 517-518).

More than three centuries have passed since St. Vincent penned those words. His psychological insight remains valid today. Affluence and apostolic virtue, or zeal, do not make good traveling companions. May God give us the grace to keep our hearts detached from all that could weigh heavily upon us and prevent us from going up to the hills to bring wood to build the house of the Lord.

Although the writings of the Old Testament prophets are at times obscure and at other times are what St. John the Evangelist would describe as "hard sayings," still the prophets were essentially men of hope. It could not be otherwise, because if they were, as we believe, inspired by God in their writings, then their writings must breathe hope. Our God is a God of hope. How often do we read in the psalms: "In you, Lord, do I place my hope....You are my rock and my salvation." If the prophets could be men of hope, how much more must we be men of hope, we who believe that God took a body like ours and Who died, but is now risen and is "always living to make intercession" (Heb 7:25) for us in heaven.