August 12, 2024 – Fr. Harry Cain, SJ, was born September 8, 1929, in Waltham, Mass., the third child of Henry “Harry” and Florence (Aucoin) Cain. Harry’s father, of Irish descent, was a butcher who operated several small-scale stores before making the decision to work in a larger store. His mother, born in Cape Breton Island, was an Acadian, learning English only as a young girl. Harry had an older brother John and an older sister Eleanor “Ellie” (McNamara) Cain. Ellie worked for more than 20 years as a volunteer and then an employee at Campion Renewal Center. Both brother and sister preceded him in death.
For his first five grades, Acadian, attended school in St. Mary’s Parish (Sisters of Notre Dame) and, when the family moved, sixth grade through high school at St. Charles Parish (Sisters of St. Joseph). Fr. Cain enrolled at Boston College where, in his own words, “I met Jesuits, and I liked them. I was in the choir, the glee club, and I knew Fr. Henry Callahan. And then Fr. Dick Shea used to teach me Latin.” Fr. Cain studied Latin and Greek in the novitiate and at BC under the direction of Fr. Alphonse “Algie” Yumont in the novitiate, and Fr. Carl Thayer at BC. In 1959-60, he earned an M.A. in Classics at Johns Hopkins, during which, he recorded, he was the only student in the class who, because of his novitiate Latin conversations, understood the five-minute Latin soliloquy with which the Latin professor began every class.
A hint of Jesuit Fr. Harry Cain’s light-hearted take on life was the name Harry that everyone called him instead of the more formal Henry. An even stronger indication was an occasion in 1967 when he taught Latin at Xavier High School in Concord, Mass. Speaking at a basketball rally before a big game, he thundered, “Non venimus ad loquendum, venimus ad victoriam!” (“We didn’t come here to talk, we came here for victory!”). Fr. Cain later reported that the students “really went nuts,” chanting “ad victoriam” over and over as Xavier High crushed its opponent.
Only a few years after Fr. Cain’s ordination to the priesthood in 1963, his main ministry became directing retreats, that is, helping individuals pray guided by the Spiritual Exercises, a handbook of Christ-centered prayer developed by the sixteenth-century founder of the Jesuits, St. Ignatius of Loyola. During the “Exercises,” usually of three to eight days, the retreatant discusses his or her prayer experience with a director. Fr. Cain took up this ministry in the wake of the Second Vatican Council’s call to holiness; the ministry employed an approach pioneered by an Italian Jesuit Ricardo Lombardi’s Movement for a Better World. Fr. Cain worked for the Movement for four years, two years as National Director, which involved travel around the world. Returning to New England in 1974, he became minister at Bishop Connolly High School in Fall River, Mass., reflecting characteristically, “I loved being the minister. We used to put out some great meals, and I bought some nice wines.” But eventually this work was too confining for him and he resumed his retreat work.
In 1985, Fr. Ray Bertrand, SJ, asked him to join the renewal team at Campion Center in Weston, Mass., the former Philosophate and Theologate for the New England Province, which had relocated to Cambridge. Fr. Cain eagerly joined and took up residence at Campion Center, where he remained until his death. Campion became his residence for other work, though retreats and spiritual direction was his major work. He did a year’s sabbatical at Weston Jesuit School of Theology and served two years as minister in the novitiate in Jamaica Plain. Over those years he worked closely in spiritual ministry with his colleague and friend Virginia Blass, D.Min.; their partnership in the gospel was a model of cooperative ministry.
Even when his health began to decline at Campion in recent years, Fr. Cain never lost his good humor or his ability to entertain others and communicate his joy and happy outlook. His end came much more swiftly than his friends expected, partly because he had become so expert in transcending the infirmities and limits of old age. Fr. Cain was called to eternal life on Saturday, August 3, 2024.
