“The Sacred Heart of Jesus” Sketch by: Ronald Raab, CSC

The priests of the Congregation of Holy Cross are consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. We seek the Heart of Jesus so to be converted in love, mercy and forgiveness.

Jesus addressed this parable to the Pharisees and scribes: “What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it?…

On Monday, Memorial Day, our parking lot at Sacred Heart Church was packed with people attending Territory Days in Old Colorado City. Our Knights of Columbus collected donations for parking throughout the weekend. However, on Monday they noticed a child left in a car. The little boy was crying and curled up in the back seat. The parents had left the child alone in a hot car. The police attended the situation and we do not know what happened after the father came back to the car.

I am deeply saddened by this event in our own parking lot. This is just another glimpse of how our children are abandoned. My heart goes out to this little boy because I really fear what happens to him when the police are not watching the family at home.

The strays are everywhere. We do not have to go far to witness this gospel today. People with disabilities, people with mental illness, people living with addictions, people addicted to drugs, porn or power, all need our attention and prayer. Real people are shunned, abandoned and left alone, from our elderly to our children.

Love conquers all. I must believe this. The Heart of Jesus changes us to become people who love more than we judge, who love more than we condemn, who love more than we pursue our intellect, who love more than we hate.

I invite you into the Heart of Jesus today. Rest with Jesus. Believe again that life is worth living. Believe that love overcomes all obstacles.

I am grateful today that I am the pastor of Sacred Heart Church. I pray today for our parish community. I pray for a place of compassion and mercy.

“Table Fire” Finger-painting by: Ronald Raab, CSC

I mentioned yesterday in my homily on the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ the spiritual reason why priests wear vestments. We preside at the altar in vesture so to protect us from the fire of love, the unbelievable reality that the God of Salvation breaks through heaven to become our food. The real presence of Jesus, the really real presence, is the explosion of fire and life, love and hope for us all.

This is a ten-minute finger-painting, with a little editing, that points into this direction. I painted this after Mass on Saturday night. It is meant to be raw, non-finished to express the reality of the fire I experience at the altar. I wanted this to capture the blood, depth of emotion and fire that comes from holding up peoples’ pain, suffering and anguish at the altar. Love comes to us through the gift of suffering. Love is real from dying and rising. Hold the fire.

“Eucharist Among the Fragile and Broken” Sketch by: Ronald Raab, CSC

Originally published in Ministry and Liturgy Magazine, April 2014. Published this week in our parish bulletin

Food groups

I enjoy meeting people in diners, coffee shops and hangouts. I use coffee shops as places to hear people’s complaints about their family members. I listen to a young post-grad describe falling in love during lunch at my favorite diner. These places are not just a place to sit and to eat or drink. Food is not just function. They are places of profound conversation that open people to the truth of their lives.

I have moved ten times since my ordination, living in places as varied as Southern California, Chicago, Portland, and Colorado Springs.. I can often describe my ministry by my hangouts where I meet people for conversations. Some of the eating establishments have also been on-site confessionals. I hear sins and offenses scrambled together with eggs in the early morning. Some bar stools have been places of spiritual direction for me where I have poured out my heart to other people over drinks or coffee or dinner or ice cream. No matter the city, conversation around food and drink creates a safe place where stories are told and matters of conscience are talked about freely and lovingly. In fact, as I ponder these personal conversations, I believe I have had the most intimate and profound conversations of my adult life in these local dives or hangouts or even in a few elegant dining rooms.

As we approach the celebration of the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, I am aware that we all need our daily bread. Our hunger is real for intimacy, or to be heard or to share our stories with other people. Our hunger is not static or just other worldly or confined to church pews. We are starving for God’s love. I realize with every move around the country that we all need people on earth to receive our stories of doubt, sin, insecurity, anger and sadness. We need to become food for one another; partaking of the Eucharist in our own lives in order then to receive the hunger of other people.

The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ is lived in the world when a sleepless parent feeds a screaming newborn in the darkness of night among the bonds of family love. I view the Eucharist when an elderly woman spoon-feeds her husband of nearly sixty years who is dying of a brain tumor. This intimacy is unmistakable. This is God feeding us when we are called to feed those we love no matter the circumstances.

This Solemnity also challenges us to become a real presence of love for people we do not know. We may stumble over our excuses not to offer a sandwich to someone who holds a sign for help at a local street intersection. We may cringe when a pastor suggests we take our youth group over to a soup kitchen on Friday nights. The challenge for us is to move beyond our places of feeling satisfied, of feeling full and powerful. We are all called to feed from our need for God, our powerlessness, our human emptiness, in order to really experience other people’s starvation and insecurity.

We receive the sacred presence of Christ in Bread and Wine deep within our human ache for love and intimacy. This presence is then lived in the world in places we least expect. We must realize that our hunger binds us one to another. The Eucharist feeds us no matter our hardship or suffering, no matter our blindness to our neighbor or our sinful past. Food heals when we share it in mutual respect, when we are present to another person’s brokenness and pain.

As we listen to the Sunday gospels just beyond this Solemnity, we hear Jesus’ gift to Peter. Peter recognizes Jesus’ place in the Kingdom of God. Upon this recognition, Peter is given his special place on earth. Our continued response to Jesus’ real presence here on earth opens us all up to great love and service among God’s people.

Jesus’ real presence is often hidden from the learned and the clever. These gospels continue to open us to the fact that love is given to those who are burdened and lowly. The invitation to Christ’s love comes in the Holy Eucharist. We live out this love in Christ in all we do and in all we hope to become. This invitation of rest and consolation continues from the heart of Christ to those who are starving for hope, intimacy and healing.

The Holy Eucharist is not about a convenient Mass time on a weekend or something that is external to our daily lives. This real presence of Christ Jesus is an everyday life of values, a belief system that all of life is holy and a revealed hope among all people who starve for holiness and the basics of life. The Eucharist challenges us to become a sacred and real presence in the world even among strangers we meet at a local diner or among our family over a home-cooked meal. Sharing our stories in love and faith with food here on earth opens us to the healing of Christ Jesus, our food from heaven.

On the Margins from Mater Dei Radio, Portland, OR

The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, Solemnity, Luke 9: 11b-17

LISTEN NOW: CLICK HERE

We become the Body of Christ in our world. We are called by God to live the mystery we celebrate among the people in need of healing and love. The scraps are collected, the people whom we have shunned and neglected, to become food for us all. Love must remove the walls and boundaries of despair, hunger and hopelessness.

Bartimaeus, the blind beggar. Finger painting by: Ronald Raab, CSC

Gospel Mk 10:46-52

As Jesus was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a sizable crowd,
Bartimaeus, a blind man, the son of Timaeus,
sat by the roadside begging.
On hearing that it was Jesus of Nazareth,
he began to cry out and say,
“Jesus, son of David, have pity on me.”
And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent.
But he kept calling out all the more, “Son of David, have pity on me.”
Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.”
So they called the blind man, saying to him,
“Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you.”
He threw aside his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus.
Jesus said to him in reply, “What do you want me to do for you?”
The blind man replied to him, “Master, I want to see.”
Jesus told him, “Go your way; your faith has saved you.”
Immediately he received his sight
and followed him on the way.

Jesus asks one of the most vital and lasting questions to Bartimaeus, the blind beggar, “What do you want me to do for you?”

I wonder if we have the spiritual courage to hear this question today in our own blindness, in our own poverty and in our own lack of insight and self-confidence.

Take a deep breath today, and listen to Jesus ask you this question, “What do you want me to do for you?” This is real prayer, prayer that we can all take to heart. This is the love we seek, to throw off our cloaks and come to Jesus.

On the Margins from Mater Dei Radio, Portland, OR

The Most Holy Trinity, Solemnity. Gospel: John 16:12-15

Sunday May 22, 2016

LISTEN NOW: CLICK HERE

We are baptized into God’s love, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We live out our baptism by following the message of peace, forgiveness and hope given us by the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Lisa, Annie and Sheri

“It’s not about the art…”

Easter ended yesterday. Pentecost pushes us out of the nest of Easter joy and compels us to move into the world. Pentecost red turns now into Ordinary green. Time to get busy.

Yesterday we broke down the art show after a very successful Saturday night. We said goodbye to Lisa who has taught us that drawing and painting is not about the art. The art is a way to get at the healing we need because we are always in transition. The art is self-expression. The art is a way to offer the world our fragile voices. The art is a way to be vulnerable enough to need community, to release shame, to offer our true lives and creativity in the world. Art is a way to rely on the Holy Spirit. Art is an act of faith.

This picture shows the core group of our art program after we cleaned up. We started two years ago to create art classes with Lisa because we wanted art as a way toward faith and self-expression. Lisa encouraged over 70 students this year.

Picture: Lisa (now moving on), Annie (our new teacher), and Sheri and myself are dedicated students.

I finally have the courage to paint. I have always been attracted to artists. I see a spark in them. I see the Holy Spirit create in them. However, I never saw myself as worthy of such a gift. So thanks to Lisa, I now claim my own life within the common world of people who create with paint and pencil and who don’t care about the outcome. Faith and art are really cool things. It is not about the art. Thanks Lisa.

“Red-emption” Painting by: Ronald Raab, CSC

Painting: Mixed media. The writings are copies of the parish bulletin using pictures and text of my writings and paintings. “Red” is both the blood of Christ and the coming of the Holy Spirit. We die to self in God’s forgiveness and mercy. We come humbly before God who is our salvation. We are redeemed in love.

(From today’s parish bulletin)

Pentecost Sunday

May 15, 2016

Dear Believers in the Holy Spirit,

We celebrate Pentecost this day. Today is the birthday of the Church.

In my column last week and in my preaching, I invited you to do some homework for today. I asked that you pray for what you need. I encouraged you to pray for what your family needs and for what this community needs. Then, I asked you to pray for what the world needs. Here is a litany to help you pray for the gifts of the Holy Spirit today. This litany is not complete because it needs your prayers from your heartfelt needs, from your own brokenness, from your own heart-fractures, from your own longing. Take this home and sit with the Holy Spirit and see what happens. Pray from your gut. Pray from your wounds. Pray from the isolation you experience in all areas of your life.

Litany Response: “Come Holy Spirit, set my heart ablaze with love and mercy”

Jesus, reveal to me your wounds so that I may touch your healing mercy…

Jesus, open my cramped heart and my small imagination about the potential of faith…

Jesus, send me from my fear so that I may find my true vocation…

Jesus, breathe new life into my conscience and forgive me of my sin…

Receive my loneliness and set my life ablaze with love…

Receive my lack of self-worth and help me again appreciate my talents and gifts…

Receive my ill health and help me serve from my pain…

Receive my stubborn will and help me get over myself…

Receive my hardened and negative opinions of myself…

Receive my sharp tongue about other people’s lives…

Receive my lack of imagination about my own gifts and talents to serve others…

Receive my hurtful remarks and my inconsiderate expressions toward people…

Open new doors in the Church for people who struggle in their vocations…

Open new doors for people in broken, fragile and abusive marriages…

Open new doors for priests who have given up battling the institutional Church…

Open new doors for divorced people who seek annulments within the Church…

Open new doors for our homosexual son and daughters within our families…

Open new doors for the elderly who sit alone in their homes locked in fearful pasts…

Open new doors for people who live outside beyond any physical doorways…

Open new doors for the alcoholic who drinks himself to sleep every night…

Open new doors for our children who have given up on faith and the Church…

Open new doors for our grandchildren who do not even know Jesus…

Open new doors for our exhausted parents who work meaningless jobs…

Open new doors for spouses who cannot admit their infidelities…

Console our people who live with mental illness and depression…

Console our brothers and sisters locked away in jails and prisons…

Console our family members addicted to the next needle or the next bottle of booze…

Console every heart that carries the sorrow and grief of abuse, fear and loss…

Console every person faced with unknown and undiagnosed diseases…

Console our elderly and our children in hospitals and long term care facilities…

Console the bruised and weary heart…

Console the lost, the forgotten and the neglected…

Show us how to live the peace you bestow on us…

Show us how to build bridges and not walls…

Show us how to extend our lives to others and to appreciate diversity…

Show us how to appreciate the beauty and wonder of the world…

Show us how to pray for what we need…

Show us how to concentrate on goodness, love and beauty…

Show us how to speak so to build up people and their potential…

Show us how to live daily with the changes that come into our lives and the world…

Show us how to serve people who face natural disasters and unbelievable loss…

Show us how to love beyond our negativity, our stubbornness and our lack of caring…

Show us how to serve without counting the cost…

Show us how to live and pray as the tribe of saints within our Church…

Inspire our hearts to love with profound mercy…

Inspire our hearts to imagine a more thoughtful and loving Church…

Inspire our hearts to be honest with our gifts and talents…

Inspire our hearts to be voices of prophesy, truth and challenge…

Inspire the lost, the angry and those in a cloud of grief…

Inspire the rich, the talented and the privileged to offer the gifts with love…

Inspire the poor to pray, to know mercy and hope…

Inspire us all to love with great clarity and purpose…

Inspire our faith community…

Inspire us to move into a deeper and more loving relationship with God…

Inspire us to change what needs changing and to hold fast to what is of value…

Inspire us to love…

Send us wisdom to live the mystery of faith…

Send us wisdom to serve people in need…

Send us wisdom to love beyond our expertise and experience…

Send us wisdom to discern our future…

Send us wisdom to love with full measure…

Send us wisdom to comfort people in need and to challenge to comfortable…

Send us wisdom to live with hearts broken open in faith…

Send us wisdom to change our lives and to live daily with surprise…

Come, Holy Spirit. Set us ablaze with love and purpose within your Church. Let us never forget miracles and help us to work for justice all of our days.

Blessings to all,

Fr. Ron

On the Margins

On the Margins from Mater Dei Radio, Portland, OR

Pentecost Sunday: John 20:19-23

LISTEN NOW: CLICK HERE

Ask today for what you need. Ask for what the world needs in this gift of the Holy Spirit. Come, Holy Spirit, Come!

From FaithND (University of Notre Dame), edited from the original published in Ministry and Liturgy Magazine.  CLICK HERE FOR ONLINE VERSION

Unlocking Mercy

By Father Ron Raab, CSC

Last year I was called to the hospital to anoint a woman dying of cancer. The chaplain informed me over the phone while I was still in my office that the patient was also a prisoner. He explained that an officer would be at her side and that my presence was already approved to pray with her.

When I arrived at the door of her hospital room, I knocked lightly. I entered and saw the woman in bed near the door. A heavy-set officer sat on the other side of her bed, just a couple of feet away. I bent down at her bedside and she immediately began speaking about her faith. She told me how much she believed in God, and she prayed for her many children and grandchildren. Her eyes sparkled; her skin seemed thin, her arms and hands revealing her many tattoos. She had a profound faith that embraced her experience with cancer.

As I bent down and slowly opened the container of oil, my eyes caught the handcuffs dangling from the officer’s belt. The more I tried to focus on the intimacy of the moment and the profound encounter with her ailing body, I could not help but have one eye on the handcuffs that were reminding her of the earthly ties that still bound her. The more I spoke with her and prayed with her, the more I felt that she was one of the most spiritually free people I had met in a long while.

This image of the handcuffs and the anointing remains with me. We all seek the freedom of God’s love for us, and yet we are all bound by past decisions and lives that have not turned out as we had planned.

I recognize this bedside as the place of God’s mercy. These are the people whom Jesus longs to hold, to heal, and to forgive. This is the bedside of liberation and love. As my years of experience creep up on me, I surrender to such mercy because I do not have any other answers that will set people free.

Through many years of listening to people on the margins of society, I know that I have no power over God’s love when I open the container of sacred oil, or sit in the quiet, sacred room where we offer Confessions. I simply gaze on the fact of the human handcuffs of sin and the divine liberation of love for all people, in all times and seasons.

God’s mercy reveals itself from people who are marginalized, broken, lonely, addicted, and in pain. These are the people who will define for us what freedom is and how we are to find the Shepherd who runs after the lost and holds tightly the lives of the sinful.

I believe in the freedom that our ancestors found in faith. This is the freedom that I take from the altar to the bedsides of people who wait for miraculous healings and for God to unlock the cuffs of their sin and past mistakes.

Father Ron Raab is a Holy Cross priest and pastor of Sacred Heart Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado. This essay first appeared on his blog, Broken But Not Divided, which is worth further exploration.