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

First Sunday of Lent, March 6, 2022: Cover Art, Column on Luke 4:1-13

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Dear Followers of the Christ,

On this First Sunday of Lent, this passage from Luke 4:1-13 brings us into the desert, an image of these forty days of Lent. In this text, Jesus is confronted by the devil. He battles temptations for food, for power, and for safety. Jesus overrides all temptations. No evil is greater than the redemptive love of Christ Jesus. He is the reason we are entering into such a journey in the first place. 

During the Lenten season, we come closer to our identity in Christ. Jesus washes away our sins, doubts, and failures. We enter more deeply into prayer, fasting, and almsgiving to revitalize our faith and to sustain our commitments in the Church. However, these go far deeper than obligation. Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving reveal our ultimate surrender to the dying and rising of Jesus Christ. 

How do we enter more deeply into prayer this Lent? The Church invites us to renew our devotional life in Lent. We may pray the Stations of the Cross to understand the deep pattern of letting go and receiving, the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus. We may receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation with more intention or frequency. In Lent, we learn self-reflection and the consequences of our actions. We may also read the scriptures more frequently, reflect with people in a group, or attend daily Mass. We may pray with greater intention with our families at home at mealtime or at bedtime. 

However, Lent reveals the deeper reasons for prayer. We learn a profounder, more beautiful reliance on God. We learn more about our sin, our failures, and the walls that keep us from intimacy with God. Prayer gets us to the truth, both in our hearts and in our actions. Prayer also offers us the truth of God’s mercy, love, and redemption. Lent is not a time to slash our self-esteem or to think we are not worthy of God. Lent, in fact, is just the opposite. It is a time to reflect on our humility. Lent reveals the life that is really ours, to be more open to intimacy, love, and forgiveness. Lent is not a season to make us feel unworthy of God, rather it is a vehicle to deeper intimacy with the Divine. The core of our Christian lives is to discover Jesus Christ, and to commit our lives once again to the pattern of redemption with his passion, death, and resurrection. We are one in the Paschal Mystery. 

There is nothing that keeps us from God’s love, nothing at all. Prayer in Lent is meant to lead us into a deeper silence and awareness that forgiveness and mercy are real and forever gifts from God. We don’t change God’s mind in Lent. We allow God to change our hearts for the good in Lent. I invite you to spend time in silence and prayer during Lent. Be aware of God in your heart. Learn to settle into God’s love and do not be afraid. Prayer invites us into relationship with Jesus, an intimacy that is the core of life. 

Lent leads well beyond the desert. Lent leads us into the joy of belonging to Christ’s resurrection. Death gives way to life. This is our deep joy and profound place within the Church. We belong to God through baptism. Lent is a time to renew our baptismal call and commitment so that the Church may thrive. In the Lenten season we renew our lives in Christ, and we do so to serve the needs of the world. The beauty of Lent is ultimately about the wonder, joy, and salvation of the entire world. Baptism is not just about our salvation, but it is a vehicle for renewal, love, and service to all humanity. We shall rejoice at Easter within our personal and common prayer. Life in the desert gives way to forgiveness and peace in this beautiful and glorious world. 

God give you peace,

Fr. Ron Raab, CSC Pastor

Conference at the University of Notre Dame: Accountability, Healing and Trust 2022

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I am a panelist for this conference on sexual abuse. On Friday morning, I will speak with two other preachers on, “Preaching in and for a Wounded Community.” Here is more information about the conference:

Conversations in Theology, Psychology, and Law for the Life of the Church

March 3–5, 2022 

University of Notre Dame
McKenna Hall Conference Center

This conference will explore practical strategies to increase accountability, promote healing, and rebuild trust in the life of the Catholic Church in the aftermath of the clergy sexual abuse crisis. Its focus will be on the needs of local parishes, their leaders and staff, including educators in Catholic schools. The conference will also explore the intersection of parish life and the formation of ordained and lay ecclesial ministers in seminaries, dioceses, and Catholic universities. Scholars of theology, psychology and law will present recent research on these issues in conversation with those working in ministerial settings who have developed approaches and practical programs to address the needs of Catholic parishioners, students, and Church leaders during these challenging times. 

CLICK here for more information

I wrote this to prepare my own heart for my talk and presence at this conference:

Creed for Preaching Among the Traumatized                              

I believe Jesus born in a cave, cries for us

In the darkest places of human anguish

I believe the Holy Infant welcomes childhood wounds

Where truth is illumined, and cooing is soothed

I believe the Holy Family fled their land to protect

Our trafficked children who feel uncomfortable standing on earth

I believe Jesus confronted evil under the hot sun and

Still crushes evil in our deserts of being unloved

I believe Jesus drenched in the Jordan rises with hope

For us drowning in rivers of self-blame

I believe Jesus reached for the hand of Simon’s mother-in-law

To reconcile families tormented by emotional disease

I believe Jesus touches our eyes to

Wipe away generational tears of unlived lives

I believe Jesus heals the leper because

No pain in us is untouchable

I believe Jesus circled men holding accusing stones

To heal the weight of emotional and sexual abuse

I believe Mary wept at Jesus’ cross

To teach us to stand among forbidden suffering of loved ones

I believe the Disciples carried Jesus’ body

Burying our abuse in a cave of hope

I believe Mary Magdalene’s testimony finds a home

In vulnerable hearts that ache for tenderness and truth

I believe Thomas who touched Jesus’ nail marks

Gives us permission to expose our wounds to one another

Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022: Cover, Reflection on Luke 6-39-34

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Dear Followers of Jesus,

Luke 6:39-45 invites us into deep self-reflection. We are to ask ourselves about our own blindness as we try to lead others. We are to take note of the wooden beam in our eyes as we struggle with the splinter in our brother’s eye. We are to ask ourselves whether we are a good tree bearing good fruit or a rotten tree bearing rotten fruit.

Luke’s gospel reveals a path of deep conversion. We must find this grace in our hearts. The spiritual journey must include self-reflection and honest prayer. We cannot use prayer to make us look good to others. Prayer is not a vehicle to put other people down. Religion is not a club we join. Prayer calls us into love. It changes us.

We come to rely solely on the mercy of the Father when prayer becomes a way of life. The human heart is where real transformation happens. In other words, religion is a way of seeing God and humanity. We must learn to see the world with justice, love, and compassion. We must first look at how we are blind to our own actions.  

Today’s gospel challenges us to reflect on our spiritual blindness. We can easily point out the defects of other people. Jesus challenges us first to look at our own motivations, sinfulness, and insecurities. We must face our own lives with honesty. Learning to truly see ourselves is the work of a lifetime. We must be honest about how life has hurt us, our disappointments, and our failures. Jesus calls us into love so that we experience it in our own darkness. When the path of life is illumined in the light of Christ, then we can learn to see other people more clearly. The plank in our own eye must be removed before seeing others as God sees them. 

We begin the Lenten season this week. Today’s gospel is a beautiful start to this season when we take time for self-examination. We all ache to be people of integrity. We all want to cultivate goodness in our hearts so to become a tree that bears good fruit. This gospel invites us into becoming people who first know the healthy love of God within us. Then only after understanding what truly gives us life, we then can pass this love to others. 

The tree in this gospel leads us to exploring the Cross of Christ. The Tree of Life is the place where real fruit is grown. We learn to die to ourselves in the same pattern of our Savior. We die to self so to rise into full bloom in his life on earth. Each of us shall bear good fruit when we are immersed in the beauty of God’s love and mercy on this earth. 

A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good…

God give you peace,

Fr. Ron