“The Denial of Saint Peter”, ca 1610, Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi) (Italian, Milan or Caravaggio 1571-1610 Porto Ercole) (The Met)
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Never look to a man for answers.
Look to Christ who is the answer.
If you insist on looking to a man, then choose one who points to Christ.
For the best teacher is Christ Himself…and His best assistants are those who clearly say: “Don’t look at me.”
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—Howard Hain
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http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437986
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Utagawa Hiroshige, “Titmouse and Camellias (right), Sparrow and Wild Roses (center), and Black-naped Oriole and Cherry Blossoms (left)”, ca. 1833
Lord, You are good.
Truly Good.
You are a great promise.
You are as good as Your Word.
You set free and You restore.
You truly make all things new.
I have seen great deeds.
Only Your hand can accomplish.
Within spaces.
So big and so small.
I have seen you in the sky and in the bird.
I have heard You cry and felt You shake.
I feel Your smile.
This very moment.
Good morning, Father.
You are so very good.
You are God.
And You alone.
Thank You for teaching me.
For showing me how to be free.
By asking only one thing.
Each and every moment.
What is Your will?
I need know nothing more.
I need not see, nor hear, nor feel, nor sense anything else.
I need not understand, nor remember, nor plan.
I need not desire nor will more than Your will itself.
I am.
Here.
To know.
To love.
To serve.
You.
And You alone.
That is Your will.
Your will is You.
One and the same.
Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
Holy Mother Church.
Holy Angels.
Holy Saints.
Cloud of Witnesses.
Help me, Lord God.
Maker of Heaven and Earth.
To love You more and more each day.
In all Your creation.
Every bit of Your handiwork.
All for Your sake.
Simple. Clear. Honest. Pure.
A sparrow just up at dawn.
Tweet…tweet…tweet…
I hear Your will knocking at my door.
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—Howard Hain
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http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/56918
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Camille Pissarro, “Entrée du village de Voisins”, 1872
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Waiting and waiting, for exactly what I’m not sure.
The sun to rise.
The day to end.
The water to boil.
Mass to begin.
The cock to crow.
Christ to return.
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A new day is here.
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Father, thank You.
Jesus, I love You.
Holy Spirit, have Your way.
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—Howard Hain
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Martin Johnson Heade, “Hummingbird and Passionflowers”, (ca. 1875-85) (The Met)
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The delicate little bird that resides within each of us.
It hops to and fro. It stands startlingly still.
Very often we are the very ones who chase it away.
But it doesn’t fly far.
Just to the closest branch, that’s just beyond our reach.
And it looks back at us, as if to ask, “Why are you afraid?”
The tiny head of a tiny bird, slightly cocked to the side—a question mark floats from its beak.
It longs to return, to live within us, to build a nest, to raise its young.
But it doesn’t rush back.
No, it waits.
It waits for us to ask for it to return.
It’s a patient creature, that tiny bird.
One may be tempted to say it’s not very smart, but that’s not it at all.
It’s simple. It’s holy. It knows who it is. It’s not afraid of the fall.
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—Howard Hain
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http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/11052
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Paul Cezanne, “Bather With Outstretched Arms”, 1878
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“…into your hands I commend my spirit”
and when he had said this he breathed his last.
—Luke 23:46
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Years ago when I was living in San Francisco, a group of us used to go hiking out in Marin County, just across the giant red expanse of the Golden Gate Bridge. We went often. A group of both men and women, mostly single, mostly without a care in the world. I think every one of us was under thirty, or thereabouts.
My favorite part was running down. Don’t get me wrong, the hike upward was terrific too, that’s when we discussed ideas and dreams and laughed almost all the while, breaking up into smaller groups of two or three or maybe even four, and then drifting back together—like a herd of elk, for they too have not a care in the world—only to once again drift apart, this time usually paired up with a different companion or combination thereof. None of it was planned or had any real intention of course, it just happened: laughter, ideas, silence, stops, gazes outward, waiting, speeding up, sipping water, laughter, drifting apart….it was divine.
Like the elk, it all seemed to be instinct.
But something special happened when we reached the top. After we reached the top. After we caught our breath, removed our backpacks, and viewed the scape. After we had eaten a little snack or a small sandwich, something light, usually along with an apple or granola bar, maybe even a small handful of assorted nuts and a few of those purple chips that all San Franciscans seem to love. It was time to descend.
My friends used to laugh and say that it was because I’m an Indian. They would go on and on about my “Cherokee” blood, and the fact that the first three letters of my first name spelled “how” only served as additional fodder. But there was some truth in it. Not only because I actually do have some American Indian blood, but more so because at that time I was very much a native. Primitive. Raw. Free.
That’s why I would run down.
I loved it. I would run as fast as I could go. Cutting back and forth, hopping over logs, propelling myself around turns by pivoting hard on the corner tree. I loved it. I loved the way I felt. I loved that my weight added to the speed, that what normally would slow me down, would normally make me huff and puff, now drove me forward, propelled me toward from whence I came.
It was wonderful. I was free. I was free. I was free. It was the closest this man ever came to flying.
This morning, almost twenty years later, in urban New Jersey—just across the Hudson River from Manhattan—I went for a jog. They just opened a new circular path around the old reservoir resting slightly higher than its surrounding cities of Weehawken and Union City. It is very pleasant.
I wasn’t sure how far I’d be able to make it. And after a very short distance I thought to myself, “Oh boy, I’m gonna have to stop already.” But I didn’t. I thought about posture. I thought about positioning of hands. I thought about breath. I quickly realized that the Lord has taught me much.
The posture of prayer is important. How we position ourselves is powerful. And breathing is everything.
I made it around three times. I smiled almost all the way. My pace was pretty good. I did alright, not bad for a man I thought just a few minutes before was getting old. I think even the newly-minted goslings admired my gait. And even if they didn’t, it was nice to be in a place to think that maybe they did.
I walked a lap and then began to make my way back toward my home, my one bedroom apartment that I share with my most recent and till-death-do-us-part hiking companions: my beautiful, delicately strong bride of twelve years, and my precious little girl, who at six-and-a-half runs and laughs like the wind.
I was a few streets away, coming down 18th and crossing Summit, when it happened. I never really noticed it before. The next two blocks were a steady, fairly steep decline. I began to run.
I loved it. I ran as fast as I could go. Cutting back and forth, hopping over the cracks in the sidewalks, propelling myself around the turn by pivoting hard on the corner stop sign. I loved it. I loved the way I felt. I loved that my weight added to the speed, that what normally would slow me down, would normally make me huff and puff, now drove me forward, propelled me toward from whence I came.
It was wonderful. I was free. I was free. I was free. It was the closest this man ever came to flying.
For a moment I thought I was on the outskirts of San Francisco.
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And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit…”
—John 20:22
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—Howard Hain
A story’s told that St. Augustine, the great philosopher and intellectual, was walking along the seashore one day when he saw a little boy playing in the sand, taking water from the sea in a small bucket and pouring it into a hole he had dug. Back the forth the boy went.
“What are you doing?” Augustine asked, “Do you think you can put the whole sea into that little hole?”
“No,” the little boy answered, “And neither can you put God into that small mind of yours no matter how smart you think you are.”
The story reminds us that our minds are limited before the mystery of God, even the smartest, most brilliant mind. God is beyond us. The Feast of the Holy Trinity is, first of all, a reminder of our limits before the mystery of God.
And yet, this feast also says that God invites us to know him, as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. As Father, God is the creator of heaven and earth. All creation ultimately comes from God’s hand. Creation itself is God’s gift; through the created world we come to know God.
God has also invited us to known him in Jesus Christ, who was born of Mary over two thousand years ago, who walked this earth and died on a cross, who rose from the dead and remains with us. We have his words, his actions, his promises. He’s our Savior and Redeemer, a sign of God’s love; he’s promised us life eternal..
The Holy Spirit also is God with us, within us, guiding us and our world to our common destiny.
Yet, though God reveals himself, we’re still like the little boy on the seashore. We’re looking at an unmeasured sea that we approach with the little buckets of our minds. We can’t grasp it all. Even the most accessible person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, remains a mystery to us.
Remember the story of the conversion of Paul the Apostle. Saui, the unbeliever, was on his way to the City of Damascus to persecute the followers of Jesus, when suddenly a blinding light throws him from his horse. “Who are you, Lord?” Paul cries out. “I am Jesus whom you persecute, “ the voice from the blinding light says.
Jesus Christ is like the blinding light of the sun. Yes, he is human like us, but he shares in the nature of God, who is brighter than sunlight. He blinds us when we try to see him. God dwells in light inaccessible, the scriptures say, and so even though we know much about Jesus, even though the scriptures and great saints and scholars describe him, he’s still beyond anything we can know.
Like the sun, Jesus is a blinding light, and yet, paradoxically, his light shines into the darkness of creation to give life and light. St. John says: “No one has ever seen God. The only Son, God, who is at the Father’s side, has revealed him.” (John 1,18)
As people of faith we’re not like those who say you can’t know God at all or like those who say God doesn’t exist because my mind cannot grasp him. Yes, we have to admit that we are children of the Enlightenment, that movement in our western world that says there’s no need to pay much attention to God. Pay attention to the world at hand. Pay attention to yourself. That’s what’s important.
As people of faith we know God is important. God reveals himself to us little by little. God is the most important reality we can know and love.
The Feast of the Holy Trinity is a reminder of God’s invitation to know him, to serve him in this life, to pray to him and to be with him one day where we will know him much more. It’s an invitation God extends every day, all our lives. Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
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Audio homily here:
The Pew Research Center regularly reports on trends in America and in the world and recently they reported on how Americans see their place in the world. Most Americans, the report said, think that we should deal with our own problems and let other countries deal with their problems as best they can. Reports like this don’t make a judgment whether this is a good trend or a bad trend, they just tell us the facts. But the trend seems to indicate that there’s an increasing fear in us that the world in becoming unmanageable, and so we should beware of taking on too much.
Today we’re celebrating the Feast of Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit, whom Jesus promised to send not only to his disciples but to the whole world. The Holy Spirit comes not only to us as individuals, to guide us on our way, to teach us all things, to help us to pray, but the Spirit also is sent into our world. Our temptation, unfortunately, is to see faith as just a personal thing and not affecting our whole world.
As we were preparing for this feast, I have been thinking how differently we know the Holy Spirit from the way we know Jesus and, to a certain extent, God the Father. Jesus is God come to us in human flesh, and so he has our “likeness” as St. Paul says. He’s born a child, lives as a man, reacts to events and people around him, he speaks in human words, he suffers and dies and rises. However distant the time of Jesus is from ours, we see and hear him as human like ourselves.
God the Father is also described in human terms. God is “Father”, a description we know is an analogous term. Calling God “Father” doesn’t mean that God is masculine, but the term itself offers us a human reference for God, the creator and sustainer of all things.
But the description of the Holy Spirit is more difficult to grasp, I think. What does “spirit” mean? The scriptures use symbolic ways to describe the Third Person of the Trinity. Our readings for the feast speak of the Spirit as a driving wind, tongues of fire that empowers the disciples to speak with wisdom, with new words, and to act bravely instead of fearfully.
I have been thinking lately of other symbolic ways the Spirit is described. One is a familiar symbol found in the New Testament and in art. The Spirit is a dove who rests on Jesus when he’s baptized in the Jordan by John.
There’s a bird feeder outside the monastery where I live in Queens, NY, and in the early morning before Mass I usually go out with a cup of coffee to watch the birds. Mostly house sparrows, but there’s a pair of doves who are regular visitors. Every once in awhile a hawk flies over and immediately the sparrows disappear. But the doves are the last to go and first back at the feeder. You might call them simple or dumb. But you could also say they’re fearless. They’re not afraid of the hawk.
Remember the bible story about Noah in the ark. Noah wonders if the flood waters are gone, so who does he finally send out? He sends out a dove, who returns with a twig from an olive plant. There’s life there, you can get out of the ark. The dove is not afraid of dangerous places or floodwaters. The Holy Spirit is not afraid of the chaos of our world, but recreates from the chaos.
The Spirit who appears at Jesus’ baptism as a dove also leads him into the desert, the realm of Satan. The scriptures say Jesus is hungry there, but he’s not afraid. Jesus defeats Satan in his realm.
Where are the disciples of Jesus in today’s gospel? They’re locked up in a room in fear when Jesus, risen from the dead, comes into their midst. He breathed on them. “Receive the Holy Spirit,” the Spirit whom he promised to give them. And what did they do? They left that room and went out into the world they feared, a world that the Spirit promises to recreate.
Bruegel, “Children’s Games”, (1560)
…and a little child will lead them.
—Isaiah 11:6
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It’s the simple moments. It’s playing hide-and-seek. It’s pretending that what isn’t is.
Like a game made-up as we go, with only a single rule: It has to make us laugh.
But not the kind of laughter that hurts anyone or anything. No, it has to be true laughter, the kind that comes from and through kindness, through truly wanting to be with one another—so much so that we’ll make up just about any old game, just as long as we wont have to go our separate ways.
“Life” then becomes one big beautiful “excuse” to stay together, and our “actions” take on a tremendously meaningful fashion. They become like soft pieces of colorful clothing gently placed upon our joy-filled affections.
Little children know this through and through. They’re constantly changing and tailoring their “clothes”, adapting and accessorizing as they go, with only one goal in mind: for the “fun” to continue. But the fun they seek is not the kind that you and I normally desire—for little children know what few adults remember. They’re not so easily tricked. They know that fun, true fun, has very little to do with the actual game being played, in and of itself. For little children it’s all about what the game, as a mere instrument, allows them to experience—the freedom to let out love.
That’s why the type of game they play can turn on a dime. It just doesn’t matter.
Rules? Scores? Time-limits?
Who cares about stuff like that?
Are we “laughing”? Are we having “fun”? Are we still “with each other”?
Are we still in love?
These are the only questions that matter to a small child!
And with prayer it is much the same. Saints make up all kinds of “games” in order to “excuse” the time that they want so desperately to spend with God. They play all kinds of little games. They slide beads, they sing little songs, they pretend to be statues while playing hide-and-seek with the Lord, and some—the ones that the world most often calls crazy—even dream up little tales and fanciful stories, imagining along with God what could be if only everyone in the world would join in and play together.
But this is no big secret. All saints in one way or another come to say the same thing: Every technique, every approach, every means of entering into prayer…each and every one…they’re all part of one giant “excuse”, one seemingly never-ending “game”. For at the end of the day, techniques and approaches are at best a mere prelude to divine laughter—that infant-like sound composed of pure joy, that only the Love of God can bring into being.
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He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them.
—Mark 10: 14-16
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—Howard Hain
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To listen to today’s homily, select the audio file below:
Last week we concluded the Easter season with the Feast of Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit. Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity, an appropriate conclusion to the liturgical time when God reveals himself as Father who created the world, as Son born of Mary, who suffered under Pontius Pilate, died and rose again, and as Holy Spirit come to complete the work of God among us. In the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity, we recall God’s revelation of himself–who he is– a “wondrous mystery” beyond our knowledge and expectation.
Remember where belief in the Trinity comes from. It’s not made up by human being like ourselves; it’s not something arrived at by human speculation or human reason. Belief in the Trinity comes from God, who reveals himself to us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Our first reading from the Book of Deuteronomy recalls the beginning of that revelation in God’s revelation of himself to the Jews. God announces he is not only the Creator of all things, someone distant and unknowable. He draws near and wants to be known. He enters into human history to become intimately involved in the lives and destiny of his people. “I’m your provider, caregiver, father, mother, one who loves you as my own children,” God says. “I walk with you in your life and your trials, I argue with you when you question me, I forgive you when you sin, I promise you a kingdom.”
Read the psalms. You can hear the tender, intimate voice of God speaking to his people and revealing himself to them.
In the next step of revelation, God reveals himself in Jesus Christ. “This is my beloved Son,” God says at the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan. “My Father and I are one,” Jesus says in the gospels. In Jesus God takes a human face, a human mind, a human heart, a human history. He speaks to us in human words and actions, in cries and tears and sufferings and death and a profound love. In Jesus’ resurrection God shows us the path to life. We have the promise of eternal life in him.
The final revelation God makes is when he sends us the Holy Spirit. Jesus says the Spirit will teach us all truth. He will abide with us and gather all peoples from the ends of the earth to form one family of God. The Spirit will recreate the earth.
Sometimes you hear people say that belief in the Trinity is not important. The Moslem world, for instance, holds that God is One, only One. Others say that this belief is too much to understand.
Our belief in the Trinity is important. Why? Because God reveals himself to us this way. We may not understand it fully, but that’s because minds are limited and God is beyond what we can know.
This belief is not something we thought up; it’s God telling us who he is.
Yes, God is unknowable, but he calls us to know him. Yes, are words are inadequate, and yet we can put our belief in simple words and gestures. We can listen to God revealing himself in the scriptures and are blessed by God through this belief.
“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
“I Love a Mystery” was a radio program I listened to as a young boy, long ago. It started, as all mysteries do, with something concealed. Someone, something was lost, someone was killed or was being hunted down and for the next half hour you would follow the various clues until the mystery was solved.
The Mass is a mystery too. A “mystery of faith,” we say, and it hides the treasures of our faith.
One of the earliest terms describing the Mass is “the Lord’s Supper,” referring of course to the supper that Jesus shared with his disciples the night before he died. He spoke to them that night of his love and then gave himself to them under the signs of bread and wine. Then he said “Do this in memory of me.”
In every Catholic church we try to keep his command. Whether it’s St. Peter’s Basilica or a parish church or a small chapel off a busy city street, there’s an altar, a table, at the center of the place and the Lord’s Supper is celebrated here in memory of him.
Readings from the Old and New Testaments will be read here, because Jesus spoke from the scriptures to his disciples. Then the priest who represents Jesus takes bread and wine, gives thanks to God for the gifts of creation and life itself, then repeats the words of Jesus, “This is my body” “This is my Blood.” Then we all receive these gifts.
We gather around Jesus as his disciples did, not perfect disciples to be sure, but we’re among those “whom he loved till the end.” And he feeds us with his wisdom and life.
Our celebration of the Mass can be flawed by cold routine or lifeless participation. We who take part in the Mass–priest and people – may not bring the lively faith or spirit of thanksgiving that’s “right and just” for this great act of worship. But still, as a church we celebrate the Lord’s Supper. We have been celebrating it from the time of Jesus till now, and we will continue till its signs are replaced by the reality of the Kingdom they signify.
Ordinary time is when the Holy Spirit acts. It’s also the time when we know Jesus Christ through the signs he has left us, particularly through the Holy Eucharist.
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