“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

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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.

Please join us for our second, “Sacred Arts Showcase” this Saturday, May 14 from 4pm until 9pm. in our parish center at Sacred Heart Church. Bring some canned goods as a donation. Our art will be on sale, $10-$50. The proceeds go back to our art program.

Lisa, our art teacher will be moving back to Washington, DC in June to take care of family. I am so grateful for her presence in our parish community these past years. We had over 70 students this past year. Lisa has worked with our Holy Cross novices for over a dozen years. I will miss her as my art teacher and friend.

Hope you can join us on Saturday. The art will also be showcased after Masses at Sacred Heart Church on Sunday morning.

“The Ascension” Painting: Ronald Raab, CSC

Column from this weekend’s parish bulletin

The Ascension of the Lord

May 8, 2016

Dear Believers in the Christ,

We celebrate today to The Ascension of the Lord. This feast is inseparable from Pentecost that we will celebrate next weekend. Both of these feasts conclude the mighty fifty days of Easter.

In Luke’s gospel today, we hear Jesus say, “You are witnesses of these things.” “These things are the events of Jesus’ life on earth. These are the keys to our faith that Jesus receives our suffering and redeems us in his death and resurrection. As Jesus once left the earth to ascend to the Father, we know we must keep alive his mission on earth. His mission is to love. His mission is to walk with people on the earth and to bring them to the fullest possible life, the life of compassion, peace, and mercy and moments of deep joy.

We know that the Ascension makes ready for the coming of the Holy Spirit next week. Jesus does not abandon us on earth, but gives us the Holy Spirit in the gift of our baptism and confirmation. The Ascension is the feast where we reflect on the mission of Jesus who once walked the face of the earth and try to but into practice what he wanted for people.

We are witnesses to his life and we need to get off the couch and live the mystery we celebrate. There is much to do in the mission of the Church. We are to live the compassion toward our enemies that Jesus has for each of us. We are to reach beyond our selfishness and extend a hand to people in need because Jesus taught us to wash one another’s feet. We are to reflect the love that we receive from him in our prayer toward a world that feels abandoned, afraid and disenfranchised. We not only witness the passion, death and resurrection but we live it with our fragile hearts every day.

We cannot be witnesses to something we never experience. So we need to pray. We need time to sit in the mystery of life, to ponder it’s meaning, to read the scriptures and to offer to God the deep hurts and wounds of daily living. We need to come to the sacraments especially the Mass and confession. We need help discovering the love God has for us.

There are so few people in the Catholic Church who have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. The Church is not about the externals. The Church only means something if we have the foundation of knowing and witnessing whom Jesus really is. I invite you into prayer. I invite you to sort through the chaos of your life. I invite you to ponder how you need to change. I want in the worst way a parish filled with people who are witnesses of Jesus’ love because every person knows Jesus.

“You are witnesses of these things.” Yes, we are! We know that faith is transformative, that prayer changes our hearts, that hope overrides despair, and that loneliness can be made into true communion with God, that peace can prevail if we take seriously the life and words of Jesus.

Last Sunday in my homily at Sacred Heart, I gave people homework for next week on Pentecost. Here is your assignment for the parish as we prepare for Pentecost!

On Pentecost we celebrate the Holy Spirit. We know the gift of love, mercy, compassion and the guidance we need to live a full, beautiful life. So here is what we all need from each other:

• Pray for everything you need in your life this week as we prepare for Pentecost. Do not leave anything out. Ask for everything! Be bold in your prayer. Be solid in your asking for what you truly desire in life.
• Then, pray for the needs of our parish community. Ask for everything! If you do not know how people are suffering, then ask them! Invite the Holy Spirit into our parish to love us, to challenge us, to console us, to heal us and to give us a true desire to love God and serve people.
• Then, pray for the needs of the world. Ask for everything that will give us hope! Ask for all the big things like peace, clean water and food for people. Ask the big things because we know the Holy Spirit is not dead.

I believe in Jesus and we are all witnesses to his love for us. Pray this week for the renewal of all life and the coming again of the Holy Spirit. We are not orphans in our world after Jesus’ departure. We are God’s plan for a new world.

Blessings,

Fr. Ron

On the Margins: From Mater Dei Radio, Portland, OR

The Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord: Luke 24: 46-53

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Jesus leaves the earth but does not abandon us. We are people of hope because of his passion, death and resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit. Jesus’ ascension teaches us to act upon our faith.

On the Margins: From Mater Dei Radio, Portland, OR

Sixth Sunday of Easter: John 14:23-29

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Let us not be afraid and rely on the Holy Spirit that gives us hope and satisfaction.

The blog post that I published after the movie “Spotlight” received Best Picture from the Academy Awards was reprinted in the Catholic Herald from the Diocese of Colorado Springs.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE

“The Emergence of Love” Painting: Ronald Raab, CSC

The Emergence of Love

Today’s gospel (John 13: 31- 33a, 34-35) gives us another chance to reflect on God’s love for us. We grow in love when God’s love is shared with other people. We change from darkness to light, from hatred to love.

We remember the Last Supper today when Jesus invites us to wash feet and remember him with bread and wine.

We remember from the Lenten season the Pharisees standing around the adulterous woman and we know that we remain a church and a society of stone throwers.

We remember the Prodigal Son coming home and his father running to great him on the path. We remain a people who only stubbornly forgive.

The Book of Revelation reminds us that the old order will pass and something new will happen.

Our lives emerge in love in the Easter Season. Jesus’ resurrection invites us into something new where love is real. Forgiveness takes time. Washing the feet of people is ongoing. Sharing love never ends.

We emerge from bigotry, hatred, violence, despair, from stone throwing and a lack of forgiveness, and loneliness only in the love of Christ Jesus.