This class exercise began when several group members spoke about being a middle child. I used this notion to create the relationships between three male children. 

Voice Male

My middle-child voice

A nuisance like thick dust on the piano

Brushed aside, past over, colored invisible

Unattached, severed from my talents or dreams

Even I disassociate from its meekness

My older brother’s voice

Imbedded in gym-toned biceps

Boldly in tune with disciplined beauty

My younger brother’s vocal magic

Streams across the family table with delight

Nuanced from academics and travel abroad

Perfect males according to our dad

Caught in birth order as a fledgling in tar

Words of blame and shame ground me

Glued to my soul, thick and bulky

Since my father caught me in the garage

Playing with the boy next door

Found, exposed

In the muck of my deepest questions

Now I stand on the earth, my voice rising

From healed roots, cleansed and taking flight

Imagining my head on my father’s lap

His voice shrouded in cigar smoke and rum

The day he will hold my cheek in his palm

And ask me, “ How are you, my son?”

“Woman at the Well” Charcoal: Ronald Raab, CSC 2017

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Dear Followers of Jesus,

Today’s gospel (John 4:5-42) begins with a woman coming to a well at high noon. She is there in broad daylight because she does not want to be seen. This irony is because the other women would come to the well early in the morning and she did not want to be part of that community because of her sexual history. She comes to Jacob’s well hoping to retrieve her water and then be on with her day. Instead, something amazing happens.

Jesus waits at the well for her. His interaction with her is one of the most beautiful encounters we have in the gospels. He straightforwardly tells her all that she has done in her life. He becomes the water that she seeks. He becomes the refuge, the place of hope, the encounter of deep and living water. Jesus tells her that he is the living water that she seeks, the source of forgiveness and salvation.

Jesus reminds her that she has had five husbands. She seeks the intimacy that is far from those bonds. She seeks the loving and saving relationship with the Messiah. The sun is high in the sky, yet she was in darkness. She seeks water, yet she is thirsting for so much more, for salvation itself. She is an outsider, a Samaritan, yet she seeks a new heart in the wellspring of Jesus’ love.

The woman then goes to the village and tells everyone what she has experienced. Imagine people believing this outsider, this woman, and this person with an untrusting reputation. Imagine what people would have first thought hearing what she had to say. Yet this powerless woman, shunned in the community, tells people that she encountered the person of Jesus. And they believed her!

This gospel has been proclaimed in the Church as part of the preparation for people desiring the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist at Easter. Since the early Church, this story is our story. We all wait to encounter the person of Jesus with such intimacy and love. We all wait within our hearts to hear from his voice everything that we have ever done. We wait for his tenderness and mercy, his desire to be among his people and share the depths of his love for all people.

Here are a few things to pray about this week:

The woman at the well encountered Jesus. Our lives of prayer offer us this same encounter. Pray for such a healing encounter. Pray that your life may change from inviting Jesus into your life. Pray that you may have the courage to remain with him.

The woman at the well testified to the people of the village about Jesus. Pray that you may remain in his love. How can you share with people your experience of Jesus Christ? We cannot move forward in the Church today unless we know Jesus and have the courage to offer his love to others. Pray for those who will be receiving the Easter sacraments.

Blessings in your encounter with Jesus,

Fr. Ron

On the Margins from Mater Dei Radio, Portland, OR

Third Sunday of Lent: Cycle A: March 19, 2017

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The woman at the well encounters the love and compassion of Jesus. She desires to be known even though she comes to the well at noon when she knows others will not see her.  Our encounter is based on water, our own baptism connecting Jesus’ passion, death and resurrection to our own eternal life.

This poem was another class exercise based on worry and how it becomes a source of connection to other people, a best friend really. 

Worry Some

An inherited sleeping partner hogs the night calm

From Grandfather’s ulcer or Aunt Hilda’s Dust Bowl ranch

A wide-eyed visitor resurrected from glaring city lights

Bus fumes, cops on night crawl and live jazz from the corner bar

No place to call my own between the sweaty sheets

My invisible ancestor teems up with

The sleepless girl a few apartments down because her body is maturing

Or the diapered guy chained to his bed in his delirious night in 3B

Or the homeless widow thrown out of government housing perched near the streetlight

Rolling over again my mind clamps down

On the new mother in the apartment below

Washing an irritated bottom as she watches the new moon from the dirty window

On the jobless father pacing in the smoke filled studio kitchenette

Not to disturb his sleeping teenagers and struggling to inhale peace

On the recluse next door where the nighttime

Holds his numerous addictions secret

The light of dawn sides with our common curse

Poking and prodding and pushing me to

Grasp the side of the mattress for one more second

Before I swallow another pill

Before the alarm crows

Before the coffeepot clicks to “Brew”

Before the food truck backs up blaring obnoxious beeps in the alley below

Before I turn over and smell the ugly breath of morning

I give in to the one who loves me the most

“Blue-Suited Prayer on Burgundy” Painting: Ronald Raab, CSC

Today’s image of Jesus in a blue suit and the poem of the paradox of prayer is based on today’s gospel from Matthew 23: “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself with exalted.”

Blue-Suited Prayer on Burgundy

The oak rocker with Nineteenth Century curves

Invites me to rest on the burgundy upholstery faded

Only on the left

From years of rocking near the window in morning

Empty today

Holding only a body of dust on its rockers

Because today I am repulsed by the chair beside my bed

That calls me to pray in silence and trust

If I give in to my morning rituals

I will have to let go and change

Silently

Sipping black coffee

Cuddled in darkness

Allowing the seductive morning breath of silence

To strip me bare

From my thoughts

Like claw marks on the arms of the antique

My negative stories in my brain that create my false life

If I give in

To the silence that beckons me

I will have to let go of my blue-suited ego

That I wear like metal armor to defend

And to protect myself from real power

That my heart seeks

Even if I sit wearing my pinstriped bathrobe

My ego longs for the blue suit of power

With the red tie so everyone will know

That I remain self-sufficient

And that I live self-possessed

So if I give in and turn off the morning news

Click off the lights and rouse my desire

For what really matters

My prayer will welcome me

Deeply into the chair that was handed down

To me from a friend who died of AIDS

In the years where the burgundy faded

My ancestors rocked their morning fears

On some days

Repulsed by inner questions and outward realities

Until finally naked, fully exposed

So I sit down and my quivering soul gives in

Today into the depths of prayer

Waiting for the genuine power of love

With humility and gratitude

Resting on the partially faded seat

Waiting for my heart’s desire near the window

Give Us This Day Magazine published this article for today’s reflection on the gospel, Luke 6:36-38.

See the Mercy

I sit among the shamefaced, especially during the Lenten season. A wrinkled-faced man admits to me in our softly lit confessional that he regrets so many decisions of his past. He never offered his apologies to his wife before her death. A woman with jittery lips and red eyes cannot fully admit to God that her drinking drains her life of meaning. Some sit in my office with teary eyes and broken lives. Others wait on their deathbeds for me to stretch out my thumb covered in oil and anoint the shame away.

This is the season to restore every relationship. We long to be free from the weight of the judgments we cast on one another. We come to God in Lent with our eyes cast down and our brows furrowed, longing to discover God’s measure of mercy. God wipes shame away from our faces and offers love within our hearts.

Every Lenten season, through the mercy of God, I see full measures of love fall into the laps of those willing to come clean about their lives. When we speak the truth about our lives and our relationships in prayer and in our sacraments, gifts are given to us—“a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing.” I listen carefully to people in Lent and watch the joy of Jesus’ forgiveness emerge on the faces of strangers. I sit among the redeemed with a smile on my own face that is soul deep.

Fr. Ronald Patrick Raab

Ronald Patrick Raab, CSC, is pastor of the Tri-Community Catholic Parish in Colorado Springs. He formerly served as associate pastor at Saint Andre Bessette Church in Old Town, Portland, Oregon. Learn more at http://www.ronaldraab.com.

The Transfiguration: Painting: Ronald Raab, CSC

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Dear Followers of the Light of Christ,

The gospel this weekend (Matthew 17:1-9), takes us all to a new perspective on a mountaintop. Last week we journeyed into the desert with Jesus to be confronted again with his temptation. This week we follow him up a mountain where he is transfigured before his disciples. Mountaintops always offer us an open and long-range perspective.

The Transfiguration is a foreshadowing of the resurrection. During this Lenten season the scriptures point us into the direction of what will happen— that all things will be redeemed in the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Jesus’ clothing becomes white as light. This is another image that we, too, will wear new clothing at Easter. This clothing is the garment from our baptisms. We share our life, our conversion, our hope in the Lord’s name and presence.

Jesus also is shrouded with the prophets from the past. This gospel shows us that Jesus has the authority to become a new prophet, a prophet unlike any other. The gospel also reveals the voice of God, the Father. We hear God’s voice to know that Jesus is the one to follow. Jesus also speaks to us, “Rise and do not be afraid.” This phrase echoes through this birth, death and resurrection. This also points us to the fact that we will rise with him on the last day. We shall follow him fearlessly into unknown ways where we have to let go of things that keep us from forgiveness, renewal and hope.

On this Second Sunday of Lent, the gospel is preparing us for the rest of the journey toward Easter. However, there is much in our lives that makes us fearful. Some people do not feel worthy of such a journey with Jesus. We must consider the climb of the disciples up the mountain to be in his presence, where all things will be transfigured and all sin and division will be wiped away.

The Transfiguration reveals to us not only that Jesus changes, but that our lives change as well. Keep going through the desert this Lent. Keep believing that all hardship and broken relationships will turn into real beauty and love for you. Keep moving beyond fear and pray for all people who desperately long for this transfiguration. Pray for forgiveness in your own life and pray for those who cannot forgive others that have hurt them severely.

Here are some questions to consider this week:

Place yourself in this scene with Jesus and the disciples. What amazes you and what fears arise within you? What in your life needs to be transfigured or changed in the Light of Christ? What in our world or society needs to be transfigured in the hope that Jesus redeems and loves all people?

Blessings to you as you pray with The Transfiguration,

Fr. Ron

On the Margins from Mater Dei Radio, Portland, OR

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Second Sunday of Lent: Matthew 17:1-9

The gospel takes us to a mountain top, to a new perspective. We are given the light of the Transfiguration of Jesus so that we may believe that all things will be transfigured in the Resurrection. The Lenten journey continues down the mountain so that we may be converted.

I wrote this poem in September, 2016 as a class exercise. The poem does not expose real confessional content but is based on genuine experience.

Confession

Grief boxes my ears like a schoolyard bully

Sorrows prance and punch like a prizefighter

Ducking and weaving to save himself

Anguish picks on me and teases my soul

These stories shoot toward me with flash and fury

My unprotected heart eavesdrops in the drab confessional

That a heroin addict

Just had sex in the church dumpster

With a man

In exchange for a six-pack

To manage his not-so-secret life for this morning

Until the next hit of dope

The next sucker punch

The narrow, dark spaces and random encounters open truth

My ears turn toward an elderly woman that dares to speak

About the many blows from her seven personalities

Because her mother beat her

Smeared her with feces

Left her silent in a closet

Stuffing her into an early tomb

Cramped spaces stifle life and hush voices

Yet repentant rage explodes from the faithful

I want to fight back

From the complex container of who I am

And the boxed-in notions of what we must become

A story-fire ignites in private spaces

My ears open the confines of my conscience

I enter the dumpster, the closet and the confessional box

Where secret voices of survival confess life at last