I just finished my workshop. I told more stories and used other examples than this text. Here is the structure of what I said. 

Fr. Ron Raab, CSC: “Bending Toward the Light: Our Posture of Solidarity through Preaching” This workshop will explore our radical change of perspective, insight, faith and posture when we preach among marginalized people. When we listen to and accompany people living in poverty or suffering from mental illness or addiction or abuse, we bend toward the Light of Christ together. We imitate Jesus who bent down to heal Simon’s mother-in-law. We kneel in the sand with Jesus as he doodles, listening to a woman caught in adultery. Jesus uses spittle and clay to open our eyes and to release our tongues. These experiences of living among our desperate poor reveal our deepest humanity and our need for God. This spirituality connects prayer and service and invites liberation and hope for all people.

Notre Dame Preaching Conference 2019

On Good Friday this year I stood by our large mission crucifix in our church while parishioners slowly moved forward in prayer for veneration. For nearly an hour, families, widows and visitors bent their knees or bowed toward the wood of the cross. Each person brought their own need to Jesus with a kiss or touch, each soul longing to make sense out of their lives, the suffering of their families, and of the world.

As each person in our assembly venerated the cross, I prayed on our sanctuary step with my arm and hand up over the crowd and blessed them silently. I wept for them because I know much of their pain and the reasons they came to the cross in the first place. Their questions and prayers seemed to run through my soul. I felt their lives cling to the mercy of God. I sobbed because I caught a glimpse of their depression and addictions, their fear in relationships and their guilt over their wrong decisions. I cried because I could feel on Good Friday much of their despair and the hope they carry with them well beyond the Triduum.

My posture at that moment of the Triduum has become a vital image of preaching and ministry for me. Standing at the Cross praying for my parishioners seems to be the least thing I could do as a pastor on that day, since my role is to connect the saving Word of God to human suffering and turmoil. My role as a preacher is also to understand the depths of human anguish so to reveal where the messages of Jesus’ liberation, mercy and love make a home within them. This moment on Good Friday forms our posture of solidarity among God’s poor within our preaching. On Good Friday, I realized with profound tenderness, that my connection to people’s need for God and the reality of Jesus’ Paschal Mystery helped me surrender to love and the beauty of God’s redemption within us all. Continue reading →

July 23, 2019

The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

Let us seek to satisfy the hunger of the Church by working for spiritual renewal and integrity of mission for the benefit of all believers.

We pray to the Lord.

Let us seek to satisfy the hunger of people who are physically starving in every land and nation, especially for refugees and migrants, those who face draughts and floods, and those who cannot afford healthy food.

We pray to the Lord.

Let us seek to satisfy the hunger of all Christians as we seek unity amid division. May we seek communion and love of the Eucharist for all people.

We pray to the Lord.

Let us seek to satisfy the hunger of loved ones in prison, our loved ones who bear the pain of their past actions. May we together feast on justice and mercy.

We pray to the Lord.

Let us seek to satisfy the hunger of people in depression and loneliness. May the Eucharist keep us in communion with God’s fidelity and goodness. May hope satisfy all people.

We pray to the Lord.

Let us seek to satisfy the spiritual hunger of those who grieve our dead. May the Holy Spirit lift the burdens of loss and regrets of the past. In this Mass…

We pray to the Lord.

Dear Believers in the Christ,

We celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. This feast focuses on what we do every day; celebrate the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. We may take this for granted, so at the end of the Easter season, we reflect on the Most Holy Trinity and the Eucharist.

Luke 9:11B-17 offers us a story of Jesus that reveals his abundance. There is a large crowd of people who are hungry. They have been satisfied by hearing Jesus’ teaching and being in his presence. So they shared five loaves of bread and two fish. Even though there were five thousand people, they had fish and bread left over. This miracle comes to us in order to reflect on the message of what the Mass is for us and what Eucharist can be for us who consume the Real Presence of Jesus nearly every day.

We are all hungry for God. God alone initiates this reality. God creates us in order for us to long for love, integrity and justice. We are given a taste of God’s real presence every time we receive the Eucharist. However, there is more for us to see, to realize and to become when we taste the Real Presence of Christ Jesus. The Eucharist is not just a liturgical action. Receiving communion is not just a rule of the Church or a rote gesture.

The Eucharist offered to every human heart is a deep gift from God. This gift is shrouded in love, love for each and every person. This gift of bread and wine is meant to heal our hearts with such abundance of hope, with everlasting integrity and joy. For most people, Mass remains simply something we just do, not something we all become. There is something far deeper in the external white host and a sip of cheap wine. In every morsel and in every sip, there is the miracle and profound love of Christ Jesus, uniting us in the Trinity, giving us a glimpse of heaven itself.

In the gospel, Jesus tells the disciples to give the people some food themselves. Jesus is asking for their initiative to feed and to comfort. I believe this is an important part of the gospel passage today. We are to become what we eat. In other words, God feeds us in so many ways we cannot even imagine. If we take this food seriously, we can find his real presence in our hatred, in our violence and in our apathy. We can find healing in our regrets and in the tragic moments that separate us from family members. We can heal our politics and become people of wisdom in the center of the Eucharist. If all of that is true, then we must learn to live in our world the love we receive.

We become the Eucharist in the world; this is the mission of the Church. We are to feed the hungry, shepherd the lost and quell those who crave hatred. We are to heal the toxic divisions of violence and corruption. We are to feed people ourselves as the gospel suggests. We are to become the Real Presence of Christ in our fragile world. We break open our lives, just as the bread is broken. We pour out our lives, just as the wine is poured out. We are the Body of Christ who feeds others and offers hope for every person in our world.

Blessings,

Fr. Ron

June 16, 2019: The Most Holy Trinity

Let us seek God who pours into our hearts love and integrity for our Church and for all people on earth. May we live as messengers of such gifts.

We pray to the Lord.

Let us seek God who pours into our hearts the ability to aid people living with injustice and fatigue. May we work from the heart of the Trinity for right relationships on earth.

We pray to the Lord.

Let us seek God who pours into our hearts the knowledge and fidelity of the Gospel so to lift up the suffering, to welcome the migrant, and to visit the prisoner.

We pray to the Lord.

Let us seek God who pours into our hearts love for our fathers, our grandfathers, stepfathers, foster fathers and single fathers. May we remain grateful for our dads both living and deceased.

We pray to the Lord.

Let us seek God who pours into our hearts a love for a healthy community within the Church, a source of peace for all disturbed by war, hatred and violence.

We pray to the Lord.

Let us seek God who pours into our hearts the healing we need in our grief and loss. We pray for our beloved dead and in this Mass…

We pray to the Lord.

Dear Believers in the Christ,

We have celebrated the Lenten season, renewing our own baptisms at Easter. Pentecost is a gift in which we know peace, forgiveness and the mission of the Church. Today, we celebrate the Trinity, a summary of what we have celebrated in the past couple of months.

The Trinity is a reminder that God thrives in community. For us to follow God means that we also must thrive in community. When we arrive at our church door on Sunday, the first thing we do is to put our fingers into water and mark our bodies with the sign of salvation, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

This marking is not a throwaway gesture. This gesture symbolizes that we belong to God first of all. We carry within our lives the beauty and the hopefulness of our loving God who created us, redeemed us, and promises to be with us for all eternity. We belong to God in all of our humanness, our frailty and our incredible love and integrity.

We also mark our bodies with the Sign of Cross because we belong to one another. This image of God, our community, is incredibly beautiful. In other words, we live as God lives. We live on the earth being united to one another as the three persons of God— Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is the gift of our baptism. This is our renewed life of baptism fully alive. This is the reason we have celebrated once again the glory of the Easter season and Pentecost.

This is also why we believe in the beauty of all life. We respect the integrity of human life because we all hold within us the dignity of God. We belong to one another through the miracle of God’s life within us. This is rich and whole; this belonging motivates us to become people who imitate God in the world. We learn to put into practice who God is, so we heal relationships, we lift up the poor, we forgive our family members and the stranger and we stoop low to be humbled by our mistakes.

The gospel tells us that the truth God gives us is revealed to us in moments at a time. We cannot bear it all at once. We live and grow as all creation. We have seasons of good and letting go; we bear fruit and know times of darkness. God reveals such love and goodness as we mature. Our task as Christians is to learn and to become wise in all we do. Sometimes we grow weary and lose sight of such a mystery. This is where violence and hatred overtakes our concerns, anger and rage at not getting our own way becomes real. If we can live and pray daily in our life of God, we grow in hope. Where there is love there is hope. We must overcome our human instincts to be violent and revengeful and instead learn to be people who reflect the community, the love and the hope of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Blessings,

Fr. Ron

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June 9, 2019

Pentecost

Let us be guided by the strong wind of the Holy Spirit within our Church. May we seek a new integrity among the clergy, a new openness to the dignity of life, and to seek out the lost among us.

We pray to the Lord.

Let us be guided by the strong wind of the Holy Spirit this Pentecost to lift up the leadership of the baptized, and to lift up all who work to sustain the Church’s mission of service and healing.

We pray to the Lord.

Let us be guided by the strong wind of justice for people, for an end of racism in our cities, for an end of misogyny, for an end of xenophobia. May we build a Church on unity and hope for all people.

We pray to the Lord.

Let us be guided by the strong wind of healing by the Holy Spirit for all people who face difficulties in marriage, those who struggle to raise and support their young children, and for people who cannot care for their ailing parents.

We pray to the Lord.

Let us be guided by the strong wind of integrity and peace, especially for our bishops and clergy and for all who make decisions within our institutions. May we rely solely on the gift on a new Pentecost.

We pray to the Lord.

Let us be guided by the strong wind of prayer for our dead whom we have loved on earth. In this Mass…

We pray to the Lord.

Dear Followers of Jesus,

We celebrate Pentecost today. I know I say this often, but Pentecost in my favorite feast in the Church. Today’s gospel, John 20:19-23, invites us into great love and trust.

Pentecost reveals the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity. After Jesus left this earth, after the Resurrection and the Ascension, he readied our hearts for the power, love and sustaining life of the Holy Spirit. He did not want us to be alone. He desired for us, even in our restless hearts, to remain one in him and with the Father.

The Holy Spirit creates hope within our lives on earth. In this passage from John, which we heard on the Second Sunday of Easter, Jesus reveals immediately after the Resurrection, the gift of the Holy Spirit. I can’t imagine that the disciples locked up in fear behind closed doors really understood such a gift. In John’s gospel, Pentecost happens immediately, while other texts tell the story of Pentecost much later.

I want to believe that the Holy Spirit comes to us in immediate fear. When we find our lives locked up in uncertainty of a recent cancer diagnosis, or the fear of abuse from a family member, or the threat of losing another job, the Holy Spirit comes directly to our aid. We are the family of God in the world and I believe God’s family, the Trinity, guides us into living fearless and beautiful lives. Our role in this activity of God is to be open, receptive and inviting to the Holy Spirit so that God may accomplish within us great love and comfort.

After Jesus rose from the dead, his first words spoken to the disciples in the closed, dark room were “Peace be with you.” These words are loaded with potential and love, with concern and satisfaction. Peace is not just one thing or the other. It is not just the absence of war and violence or the calming of the human heart. It is the miracle of our relationship with God. When we are united with the Trinity, we are being guided into a new way of seeing the world and a new way of viewing people in the world. Peace is not a moment but a lifestyle of living in great trust, hope and tenderness in God. This peace is not worldly but divine; this peace is not what we do, but what God can accomplish within us.

Pentecost is the foundation of the Church. In fact, Pentecost is the birthday of the Church. The Holy Spirit guides us so that we can manifest in our world the work of Christ Jesus, the work of a beautiful and accepting community, the recognition of the love imbued in our sacraments and the service we render for the good of people. Pentecost creates community that transforms the world. The Church’s place in our world is to bring good, to work for justice in the places where justice is needed, to offer the food of the Eucharist not only in our churches but when we learn to feed the real needs of people.

Faith is not tied down in a room of fear. Faith is lived fearlessly among people who most need God. Faith is roused from the gift of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost Sunday.

Blessings this Pentecost,

Fr. Ron

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June 2, 2019

Ascension

Let us pray to set our sights on our Church Universal, that we may work diligently to spread the Good News of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ Jesus.

We pray to the Lord.

Let us pray to set our sights on the needs of parents who struggle to raise their children with autism or disease or disability. May we walk among people who need strong shoulders and immense resources.

We pray to the Lord.

Let us pray to set our sights on our desperate poor here on earth, for our families who stray from our nests, and for people who face catastrophic need from storms and floods.

We pray to the Lord.

Let us pray to set our sights on the person of Christ Jesus living here on earth among all who most need healing, love and forgiveness. May we walk in faith, integrity and service.

We pray to the Lord.

Let us pray to set our sights on healing and hope for people with mental illness and who may not want to live another day. May we as believers offer remedy and insight to people who question their very existence.

We pray to the Lord.

Let us pray to set our sights on the needs of people who are ill or homebound, that we may serve to alleviate fear among those who sit at the bedsides of the dying. For our beloved dead and in this Mass we pray for…

We pray to the Lord.