Author Archives: Ronald Patrick Raab, C.S.C.

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About Ronald Patrick Raab, C.S.C.

Ronald Raab, C.S.C.,serves as religious superior at Holy Cross House, a medical and retirement home for the Congregation of Holy Cross, Notre Dame, Indiana

The Holy Family 2017

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The Holy Family 2017: Painting by: Ronald Raab, CSC

O God of all creation, you invite our souls into sure rest in your light, forgiveness and mercy. Our lives, just as they are, remain in your family. For we are nothing without you. Guide us toward the light we seek. Restore all fragile relationships. Show us how to give you praise and to live on earth with grateful hearts. Help us sweep up our worldly cares in our family homes to make ready for your presence and your peace. Ready our hearts for your coming. Give us courage to live here in your comfort without violence, war and infidelity, without shame and hatred, and without fear of others. Help us celebrate hope with abandon and peace with eternal vigor as we come to admit that you are the source of all we need.  Amen

The Holy Family: Cover art and column

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Dec. 31, 2017 Bulletin Cover

Dear Followers of Christ,

Today we celebrate The Holy Family. Tomorrow, January 1, 2018 we celebrate Mary, the Mother of God and the beginning of a New Year in our society. This week is about endings and beginnings.

However, the Christmas season extends far beyond December 25. For most people, we have moved beyond the silent night of Christmas gifts and family gatherings. We quickly have moved to our own corner again focusing on our cell phones, football games and return policies for sweaters that do not fit. For most people, Christmas has past us again. However, I want you to think about who we are, what we have celebrated and how we can become people of hope in our world.

Our Church struggles to maintain hope. In this Christmas season we come to the fulfillment of God’s revelation in our world not only in the past as a tiny baby, but now. Today is immersed in love. Today is the revelation of mercy and forgiveness. Today is the gift God gives us that cannot be returned for one that suits our size or perspective. Today is the Word of Love manifest in our actions, thoughts and energy.

We are the family of God because we are born again in baptism. This is the miracle of our second birth. We are the Holy Family! We belong to God when we invite people to be better by our words of encouragement and our works of justice.

Christmas is only a source of hope if we are willing to put our lives on the line for God and for others. Perhaps we can commit again to a life of prayer so to be used by God for the good. Perhaps we can commit our lives this year to be a better family, not only our blood relatives, but to work more diligently for our brothers and sisters coming into our country or people ravaged by war or our next door neighbors addicted to meth or cocaine or our neighbors who have just lost a job and are in need of food and clean clothing for their children or a neighbor who is growing more distant from dementia.

We cannot let the miracles of Christmas be found only in a TV movie or a Hallmark card. We are the family of God and we need to keep that awareness alive throughout the year. The miracle of Christmas becomes a deep promise of change, conversion and mercy for our own lives as we learn how to love other people.

As Christians, we still speak evil about other people. We still hold grudges and condemn many groups of people we do not understand. We are still divided by gender, race and denominations. We still have work to do as we let go of one calendar year and step into another. I invite you to take stock of your lives this day and let go of the bitterness that infests your hearts. I encourage you to find the solace of God and the rich life of being hope to other people.

Blessings in the New Year,

Fr. Ron

On the Margins: Luke 2: 22-40

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On the Margins from Mater Dei Radio, Portland, OR

The Holy Family, December 31, 2017

LISTEN NOW: CLICK HERE

Gospel   LK 2:22-40

When the days were completed for their purification
according to the law of Moses,
They took him up to Jerusalem
to present him to the Lord,
just as it is written in the law of the Lord,
Every male that opens the womb shall be consecrated to the Lord, 
and to offer the sacrifice of
a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons, 
in accordance with the dictate in the law of the Lord.

Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon.
This man was righteous and devout,
awaiting the consolation of Israel,
and the Holy Spirit was upon him.
It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit
that he should not see death
before he had seen the Christ of the Lord.
He came in the Spirit into the temple;
and when the parents brought in the child Jesus
to perform the custom of the law in regard to him,
He took him into his arms and blessed God, saying:
“Now, Master, you may let your servant go
in peace, according to your word,
for my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you prepared in sight of all the peoples,
a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
and glory for your people Israel.”
The child’s father and mother were amazed at what was said about him;
and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother,
“Behold, this child is destined
for the fall and rise of many in Israel,
and to be a sign that will be contradicted
—and you yourself a sword will pierce—
so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”
There was also a prophetess, Anna,
the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher.
She was advanced in years,
having lived seven years with her husband after her marriage,
and then as a widow until she was eighty-four.
She never left the temple,
but worshiped night and day with fasting and prayer.
And coming forward at that very time,
she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child
to all who were awaiting the redemption of Jerusalem.

When they had fulfilled all the prescriptions
of the law of the Lord,
they returned to Galilee,
to their own town of Nazareth.
The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom;
and the favor of God was upon him.

“On Christmas” 2017

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“On Christmas” 2017 Painting by: Rev. Ronald Patrick Raab, CSC

ON CHRISTMAS

Jesus comes to us today in warm sugar cookies and chocolate squares. Jesus is revealed today in the cracks of fear as a spouse has surgery. Jesus enters the world in the tears of a mother who loses her patience with her teenager. Jesus arrives in the bitter cold after a long drive across Interstate 80 to be at the bedside of a grandfather struggling to survive to another Christmas morning. Jesus arrives burdened today with a longhaired youth carrying a backpack full of college texts. Jesus holds up a frail grandmother carrying her oxygen on her walker. Jesus arrives today along side the cozy Teddy bear under the Christmas tree with antique ornaments shimmering in the afternoon sun. Jesus embraces an old monk as he prays by candlelight in the nighttime waiting for an eternal dawn. Jesus is manifest in an unexpected text message from a former lover. Jesus makes his home in hard-crusted bread and children’s boots lined up on the blue rubber mat near the front door. Jesus comes home disguised wearing worn-out jeans and a smelly T-shirt. Jesus crosses the street with the urchin running toward the woods trying to get away from the city glitz and glam of the holidays because he is labeled a homeless teen. Jesus shifts into high gear when a tradesman packs his tools into the rusty truck and travels across the hills for work to provide food for his young children. Jesus peers today into the eyes of a grandfather facing his delusions from the severity of Parkinson’s. Jesus makes his home in war-torn Bethlehem. Jesus comes home today and rests his head on a mother’s lap as she grieves her lost son from cancer. Jesus comes and sits at a dining room table enjoying the aroma of a warm pot of homemade soup that feeds the neighbors and some strangers across the way. Jesus finds his way today to the heart of a young girl who miscarried. Jesus is seen today even in the fear and infidelity of an alcoholic priest. Today Love is Incarnate. Today is the day we know we are loved just as we are. Today is the day we believe that God so dared to journey across the heavens to find his peace and his place within our hearts. Merry Christmas.

Fourth Sunday of Advent: “For nothing will be impossible with God”

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“For nothing will be impossible for God” Painting by: Rev. Ronald Patrick Raab, CSC

Gospel LK 1:26-38

The angel Gabriel was sent from God
to a town of Galilee called Nazareth,
to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph,
of the house of David,
and the virgin’s name was Mary.
And coming to her, he said,
“Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you.”
But she was greatly troubled at what was said
and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.
Then the angel said to her,
“Do not be afraid, Mary,
for you have found favor with God.

“Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son,
and you shall name him Jesus.
He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High,
and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father,
and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever,
and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
But Mary said to the angel,
“How can this be,
since I have no relations with a man?”
And the angel said to her in reply,
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
Therefore the child to be born
will be called holy, the Son of God.
And behold, Elizabeth, your relative,
has also conceived a son in her old age,
and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren;
for nothing will be impossible for God.”
Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.
May it be done to me according to your word.”
Then the angel departed from her.

Fourth Sunday of Advent and Christmas: Bulletin cover and column

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Dec. 24, 2017 Bulletin Cover

Dear Followers of the Messiah,

This extremely short Fourth Week of Advent is a challenge for our reflection since it falls on Christmas Eve morning. It will be overlooked by many of us. Yet, it provides for us spiritual food and hope as we are quickly led into the Christmas Season.

In Luke’s gospel we hear of the Annunciation of Mary. The message of this text is completely different from the gospels of the first three weeks of Advent. The challenges of the ancient prophets of John the Baptist and Isaiah, the finger pointing into the direction of God, the stirring up of our imaginations about what God can do for us, the waiting and watchfulness, is all being replaced with a quiet reality that God is inviting Mary to become the Mother of Jesus. Gabriel, an angel, is the messenger of such news of beauty and justice. Gabriel is also telling Mary not to be afraid! This message of fearlessness is the place in which we need to land, the message that we all need to take to heart before we celebrate Christmas.

“Do not be afraid…” is also a message for us to end the Advent season. God is at work in every heart. The Holy Spirit is shaping our families, our homelands and our workplaces. God is revealing love in ways in which we may not initially understand, just like the love that was revealed to Mary. Our first reaction to change is usually fear. Imagine how Mary’s life was changed! We fear anything that will rattle us out of our usual ways of seeing the world or that will challenge us to face issues among us that we are blind to, or that we will have to give more to God and to our neighbor than we are willing to give.

The summation of the Advent season is that God is at work among us, and that love can replace fear. Hope can satisfy even the bitterest heart. Beauty can transform our tragedies. Mercy can mend the most fragile heart. The Holy Spirit can lead the loneliest people into a new relationship that can set us all free. What we have been waiting for in these Advent days is to be released from all the fear in our lives that keep us from truly living. This is God’s action within us, exactly as it was in the life of Mary.

So we come to the conclusion of Advent and find our lives immersed in the Incarnation, the promise of Jesus born in our lives. Thank you for your lives of faith. Thank you for all the ways you support our community with love and kindness and as ministers of Eucharist to the sick, as educators of our youth, as believers that faith changes us. Merry Christmas! Thank you for your lives of prayer and service. I am so grateful for this holy place, the three churches we call home.

Peace and all good in Christ Jesus,

Fr. Ron

 

On the Margins: Luke 1:26-38

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On the Margins from Mater Dei Radio, Portland, OR

Fourth Sunday of Advent, December 24, 2017

LISTEN NOW: CLICK HERE

Gospel LK 1:26-38

The angel Gabriel was sent from God
to a town of Galilee called Nazareth,
to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph,
of the house of David,
and the virgin’s name was Mary.
And coming to her, he said,
“Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you.”
But she was greatly troubled at what was said
and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.
Then the angel said to her,
“Do not be afraid, Mary,
for you have found favor with God.

“Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son,
and you shall name him Jesus.
He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High,
and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father,
and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever,
and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
But Mary said to the angel,
“How can this be,
since I have no relations with a man?”
And the angel said to her in reply,
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
Therefore the child to be born
will be called holy, the Son of God.
And behold, Elizabeth, your relative,
has also conceived a son in her old age,
and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren;
for nothing will be impossible for God.”
Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.
May it be done to me according to your word.”
Then the angel departed from her.

Matthew 1: 18-25 Painting and prayer

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“Do not be afraid” Painting: Ronald Raab, CSC 2016

Loving Father, help us not to be afraid when your Son desires to make a home within us. Help us not to fear “God-with-us”. Open up our controlling and self-centered lives so we may all welcome to earth the love you desire for us. Your love is not to keep us safe and secure but to risk everything in order to follow you through the example of Joseph. Your love within us is to keep the immigrant safe, the hungry feed, the child housed and the abused mother safe. Your infinite love and mercy helps us protect the vulnerable and support the feeble. Your love gives us a key to open prison doors, a support to heal the sick, hope to squelch racism and insight to stop human trafficking. Your love helps us not verbally bash people behind their backs and your angel guides us to moments of reconciliation. Faithful God, open us to the surprise and message of angels and saints that your love is more than a dream. Amen

Gospel  MT 1:18-25

This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about.
When his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph,
but before they lived together,
she was found with child through the Holy Spirit.
Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man,
yet unwilling to expose her to shame,
decided to divorce her quietly.
Such was his intention when, behold,
the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said,
“Joseph, son of David,
do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home.
For it is through the Holy Spirit
that this child has been conceived in her.
She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus,
because he will save his people from their sins.”
All this took place to fulfill
what the Lord had said through the prophet:

Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel,

which means “God is with us.”
When Joseph awoke,
he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him
and took his wife into his home.
He had no relations with her until she bore a son,
and he named him Jesus.

 

 

Third Sunday of Advent 2017

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John the Baptist, Painting by: Ronald Raab, CSC 2016

God of heaven and earth, we turn toward you desiring the love you offer. We rejoice in your compassion toward us on earth even when we stumble in despair. You liberate the lonely, you inspire the destitute, you offer compassion to the broken. Allow all of us in our incompleteness to know we are already in union with your presence. In these Advent days, inspire us to give thanks for your presence even in what we ache for, to offer you praise even when our voices are locked up in doubt, to offer you glory most especially when we struggle to find our way in the darkness. Help us listen to Isaiah, John the Baptist and Paul as we journey toward our comfort of heaven right here on earth. Amen

On the Margins: John 1: 6-8, 19-28

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On the Margins from Mater Dei Radio, Portland, OR

Third Sunday of Advent, December 17, 2017

LISTEN NOW: CLICK HERE

Gospel JN 1:6-8, 19-28

A man named John was sent from God.
He came for testimony, to testify to the light,
so that all might believe through him.
He was not the light,
but came to testify to the light.And this is the testimony of John.
When the Jews from Jerusalem sent priests
and Levites to him
to ask him, “Who are you?”
He admitted and did not deny it,
but admitted, “I am not the Christ.”
So they asked him,
“What are you then? Are you Elijah?”
And he said, “I am not.”
“Are you the Prophet?”
He answered, “No.”
So they said to him,
“Who are you, so we can give an answer to those who sent us?
What do you have to say for yourself?”
He said:
“I am the voice of one crying out in the desert,
‘make straight the way of the Lord,'”
as Isaiah the prophet said.”
Some Pharisees were also sent.
They asked him,
“Why then do you baptize
if you are not the Christ or Elijah or the Prophet?”
John answered them,
“I baptize with water;
but there is one among you whom you do not recognize,
the one who is coming after me,
whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie.”
This happened in Bethany across the Jordan,
where John was baptizing.