“Heart of Hope” Painting by: Ronald Raab, CSC

Good Friday 2018: Carrying Within, the Dark and Light

 I have walked among many families through a cemetery to a gravesite to bury a family member. The journey always brings pause and tears. The journey is emotionally taxing and full of darkness and light. The journey always highlights division among family members and holy memories that compel people to wake up the following morning and live their futures. The journey also reveals how many people do not believe in God or no longer believe the mystery of the Church and how many people cling to such hopes. The journey from our cars to the cemetery often seems long, even endless, and yet, the journey is for everyone. We all carry within us to the gravesite, the dark and the light.

We read John’s (18:1-19: 42) account of the Passion today. We feel the darkness of betrayal from Jesus’ friend, the love he experienced on the journey, the loneliness he faced heading to his place of death. Today, we lift up all the is dead within us, all that seems lost and hopeless, all that is cumbersome and overwhelming, all that is unjust and horrific, all that seems unaccounted for and all that rouses fear within us. Today, we walk with Jesus to his death once again, waiting for the light within us to blink a sign of hope for us that faith alone shows us the way for a better tomorrow.

Today, we bring with us to the cross of Jesus the world’s suffering. We leave nothing out. We pray for people who are starving to death around our world, starving for food and for equal rights, thirsting for clean water and basic respect. We pray for our prisons behind bars and for our prisoners who live behind the bars of ignorance, hatred, violence and terrorism. We pray for the grieving families who lost a child in recent school shootings and we pray for a Christian interpretation of peace where love is our only weapon. We pray this day for those who live in outrage because of political systems of injustice and those who survive unjust power and abusive control.

We pray for the many children in our world who are tortured and controlled for sex, for those who are trafficked among nations and cities along our freeways. We pray for affordable housing and for people who live in their cars or in tents. We pray for all who are addicted to false power, to pain medications and heroin, to alcohol and gambling. We pray for immigrants around the world and those who are condemned because of skin color and language. We pray for the injustice within our Church, for people who are marginalized in our cities and in our pews. We pray for all that we carry within us that remain dark, waiting for light. We lift up all that is broken, lost and weary within our lives on this Friday we call Good.

Questions to consider:

What in this Passion narrative strikes your heart today? As you read or listen to the gospel, what opens you to further reflection?

What in your heart is in need of redemption and forgiveness?

What injustice or tragedy do you especially lift up on this Good Friday?

What does it mean for you to die to self?

How is God calling you to surrender to his love? How is Jesus calling you closer to himself in this Holy Week?

What does your heart ache for on this Good Friday?

“Heart of Hope” Painting By: Ronald Raab, CSC

Holy Thursday 2018: Carrying Within, the Dark and Light

In John 13:1-15, Jesus gives the disciples the heart of his mission. He shows them that they must learn how to receive his love by allowing him to wash their feet. This very human and tender act shows us still that we must allow Jesus to love us and to teach us how to serve other people in the messiness and confusion of life.

I always find it fascinating that in John’s account on Holy Thursday, he does not mention the Eucharist. This is the gospel of deep theological reflection and we would expect high interpretation of what the bread and wine becoming his Body and Blood would mean for us. John’s gospel does not even mention bread and wine. Instead, foot washing becomes a deeply moving and compassionate act, an act of his Real Presence. The meaning of this gesture is broad and even in our day and time; the holy action becomes a rich source of reflection.

What does it mean for us to wash feet from Jesus’ command? We learn to care for an infant and to wash his or her body out of love. We learn to wash the body of a grandparent or spouse who is ill or dying, surely with love and tenderness. We wipe the nose of our kindergartener on his first day of school from the love we have for him in his nervousness. We bathe our teen with cancer. We care for people in nursing homes and hospitals, in daycare centers and in our own homes.

Jesus asks of us to step out of our patterns of comfort and familiarity. He asks of us to bend down to serve those who are trapped by our prejudice. He asks of us to go another mile for our children who are trafficked. He begs us to reach out to people whose disease we think comes from their weakness, like drug and alcohol addiction. He invites us with profound tenderness to wash feet of people we do not know or even people we do not get along with or people who have hurt us. He asks of us to cleanse the feet and heal the lives of prisoners and orphans, of widows and people marginalized by economics, race and language.

Foot washing is healing. It invites us into communion not separation. We cannot blame people for their dirty feet or the situations in which they find themselves. We cannot judge or bind. We are called to wash the immigrant and the elderly, the baby addicted to cocaine. We are challenged to wash the feet of our enemy. We are asked to walk in the shoes of a stranger, even when they do not have socks or shoes. Jesus invites us to wash when we would rather shun, to wash and dry when we would rather judge or condemn.

On Holy Thursday, we celebrate the Real Presence of Jesus at Eucharist and we remember him on the night before he died. This Real Presence is also demonstrated in the action of foot washing. This profound and tender act coming from Jesus is sacrament for us. His action binds us to love and this love calls for us to give love and service to other people.

Holy Thursday links Eucharist and justice, prayer and service. In this ancient Mass, I find my home this night.

Questions to consider:

How do you receive the love Jesus has for you? Can you accept his actions of tenderness toward you, his willingness to wash your feet with mercy and forgiveness?

Whose feet is Jesus asking you to wash? Whom is he asking you to forgive?

What does Holy Thursday mean for you? Can you sit with its many layers of meanings and find a home in Jesus actions of Eucharist and service?

How would you articulate the link of prayer and service in the Mass of the Lord’s Supper?

“Heart of Hope” Painting by: Ronald Raab, CSC

Wednesday of Holy Week 2018: Carrying Within, the Dark and Light

Today’s gospel, Matthew 26:14-25, reveals much of our human condition. Judas betrays Jesus with a few silver coins. This betrayal brings Jesus closer to his cross and death. This moment for Judas is raw and exposing, even carving him a place in history with this one act toward his friend Jesus.

In our human condition, sin settles into us with a sure fit. We stumble over ourselves with words of hurt toward other people and viewing others only in light of blame and jealously. Even our betrayal of love and connection becomes a story that we tell ourselves over the real story of how love itself brings us to friendship and harmony. So often in our lives hatred and bitterness are the things we remember and hold on to rather than the real connections of love, hope and fidelity.

Our sin against others is real. Yet, the real story of Jesus’ involvement with our hearts is that we also make a home for his love to settle into our hearts. How easy it is for us to forget this truth. Love changes us only when we invite Jesus into our lives to change the stories we tell ourselves about our darkness and lies.

As we move toward the Triduum, we bring with us the stories of our lives into the great story of Jesus’ passion and death, his resurrection. We bring everything to him, leaving nothing astray. We offer the darkness within our hearts, the stories we carry of our loneliness and pain. We offer again to him, the times we have severed such love because of our ego, our sin, our heartaches, our loneliness and especially our fear.

Jesus heals every aspect of our lives, every single aspect. All we need is to cooperate with his fidelity toward us. He will melt away all the betrayal within our hearts, all the hopelessness we carry about the future, all the pain that colors our hearts dark and dreary.

Jesus becomes for us the full measure of reconciliation in the Easter event.

Questions to consider:

How have you severed relationships that used to provide life and hope for you?

Have you betrayed people in the past?

How have others betrayed you?

Are you willing to change your story about these friendships today?

Can you bring healing to them with Jesus’ help?

What is the sin that you hold on to in your life?

Can you allow Jesus’ forgiveness to become greater than your sin?

“Heart of Hope” Painting by: Ronald Raab, CSC

Tuesday of Holy Week 2018: Carrying Within, the Dark and Light

In today’s gospel, John 13: 21-33: 36-38, we listen to Jesus tell his disciples that Judas will betray him and Peter will deny him. Also in the scene John, the Beloved Disciple, rests his head on Jesus’ chest during the meal.

We all hold within our human hearts the duality of betrayal and love. We experience both with people we love. We have betrayed our loved ones. We have experienced such betrayal from someone we love. Our hearts have an amazing capacity to love and hate.

In this Holy Week, we all are invited to examine our human hearts to sift through the sin, the doubt, the denial, the rage, the anger, the injustice as well as our ability to love. Holy Week invites us into the truth, the truth that we may not always want to admit.

As we ponder the gift of the gospel today, I invite you to consider your divided heart as a place of radical love and unbelievable denial. We all hold this tension of being human. In this place, God beckons us into new and amazing life. The great healer of our souls waits for us with abundant grace and mercy.

Many people wish to cover up such divisions. We hold tightly to the rigidity of our denial and never want to admit that our hearts have the capacity to hold such turmoil. We tend to justify our negative thoughts against a thoughtless boss. We hold revenge toward to a spouse or an adult child. We may think that a negative choice of a child reflects on our lives and we hold anger. Jesus invites us to explore what we carry within, the dark and the light.

Today, this day within Holy Week is worth the effort and time to examine the multiple layers of our attitudes, our approaches to others, and our verbal blame to others, our misfortunes, and our inability to accept responsibility for our actions. Our hearts are restless in this week until we realize that only Jesus offers us the truth, wisdom and love that we are looking for in our lives.

Questions to consider:

How have you betrayed people you love?

How have others betrayed you?

Are you willing to find forgiveness within your own heart?

What relationships or images within today’s gospel speak to you?

For what denials in your life do you need Jesus’ forgiveness?

How can you hold within your heart the tension of love and denial?

How does Jesus begin to set you free from such tensions and insecurities?

“Heart of Hope” Painting by: Ronald Raab, CSC

Monday of Holy Week 2018: Carrying Within, the Dark and Light

 John 12:1-11 offers us a scene of surrender and tenderness as Mary anoints the feet of Jesus with costly perfumed oil made from genuine aromatic nard. Mary dries his feet with her hair.

This image is so multi-layered with meaning. Judas, who will betray Jesus, baulks at such an action because Judas surrenders to money and greed and not to the person of Jesus. Money wins for him. Jesus says that her action of anointing is leading us all to his burial. This image also leads us to Jesus’ action of washing feet on the night before he died.

This action of Mary, the tenderness of anointing feet with expensive oil, is ultimately a gift of sheer surrender to the gift of who Jesus is not only for her but also for us all these centuries later. She shows us how to surrender our lives to such a mystery, how to allow love to show us the way to Jesus. Mary helps us know whom Jesus is and how to give our lives to his passion, death and resurrection.

Surrendering to Jesus is a life-long journey. We so prefer to live feeling we are in complete control of our lives, to know that our answers are correct, our lives are safe and that we live knowing we are at the center of the world. Surrendering to the mystery of faith invites us into a life of deep prayer, of profound letting go of the image of ourselves we cling to. Surrendering to God, to the mystery of love, offers us a home in the mercy and love only God has for us.

Many people in recovery from any addiction understand this surrender. Entering into powerlessness is very countercultural. We are educated to live enclosed within our own egos, our own interpretation of life and to live under the false power of our own self-sufficiency. To live a genuine life of service, of love of neighbor and learning to walk in the shoes of people who suffer requires of us surrender to the love and life God has for us. Surrender to God invites us into unity and not separation, to love not hate, to communion and not self-sufficiency.

This gospel story invites us into the story of real love in this Holy Week. Mary’s action helps us know that we are on the journey to offering our complete lives to Christ Jesus. This story of Jesus is not a story that is separate from our own lives. We must live the same surrender that Jesus lived out in the core of our faith, dying to our selves and living in the bountiful grace and beauty of Jesus’ redeeming love.

Questions to consider:

What does surrender to God mean to you?

How have you experienced such a mystery in your prayer and life?

What do you resist in this Holy Week? What are you being asked to let go of?

Who is Jesus for you?

The first reading today challenges us to realize God liberates us from the slavery of our selves. How do you pray with this text today? How can you realize who this God is for you and in the liberation of your own heart?

Isaiah says:

I have grasped you by the hand;
I formed you, and set you
as a covenant of the people,
a light for the nations,
To open the eyes of the blind,
to bring out prisoners from confinement,
and from the dungeon, those who live in darkness.

“The Heart of Hope” Painting: Ronald Patrick Raab, CSC

Holy Week 2018: Carrying within, the dark and light

Palm Sunday: The Passion Narrative, Mark 14:1-15:47.

 The human heart carries passion and integrity. It is also a stalwart of violence and hatred. We carry within our lives, especially our hearts, the vitality of faith and the assurance of Christ’s presence to change the world. Our hearts within Holy Week carry the mystery of Jesus’ passion, death and resurrection.

Faith cannot be contained in the intellect alone. Faith, the surety of conversion and love, rests in the human heart. We cannot love without our heartfelt experiences, our emotions and feelings. We cannot listen to the gospel within Holy Week and rest in its full meaning without feeling in our own bodies the betrayal and the hope of the people within the story.

We carry within our bodies our betrayal of Jesus.

Reading the passion narrative of Mark, we realize that those followers of Jesus who loved him also betrayed him. It is as if our human natures hold in tension such mysteries. We love and we betray. Peter denied Jesus. Judas betrayed him. The other disciples left him alone in the end. Unfortunately, our path to faith holds these two dimensions in tension. We love God and betray God all in one breath.

We betray God when we do not seek the value and dignity of our brothers and sisters, when our pride seems greater than offering concern to other people. When we are faced with people who have less than we do, they seem to be a threat to us because we fear the same loss. Sometimes our fear overreaches our love.

This weekend we witness across the country our young people speaking out from their experiences of gun violence, mental illness and hatred. We listen to this generation whose greatest fear is being shot in school. We listen to the fear within our own bodies that causes us to separate people, the good and the bad, those on one side and those on the other. We listen to people who challenge our rights and struggle to get our attention about real human concern. We listen to how we have betrayed our young people for we carry such enormous emotion within our lives from their fear and death. We listen to understand, to not only our own bodies and fearful hearts but to a new generation of people who are living with such violence. We lift up this new generation into the mystery of the cross of Jesus. We are challenged to feel the pain of the world beginning with our own children.

We carry within our bodies the hope that will set us free.

The reason we enter into Holy Week one more time is that our suffering will also come to new life in faith. I must believe this. I hold on to such a notion for the sake of our brothers and sisters who live in great need and pain and conflict.

Faith is far more than an intellectual pursuit. Faith challenges us to become converted in love that is inclusive, forgiving and merciful. We are called to become what we believe, the living mystery of Jesus no matter how difficult life can become.

We all long for such freedom, both earthly and eternal. The path to the cross opens us up to feel how Jesus sacrificed for our lives. This week we shall sit with our internal pain, our fragile and broken hearts and discover something more than our own lives. Hope must come from within. No other people can offer us such a beautiful and life giving experience. We cannot purchase hope or ask for a cup of hope from a neighbor. We are called this week to sit with Christ Jesus and listen attentively to his death and his resurrection to find a deep and vital hope within our own bodies for the welfare of our world.

Questions to consider:

How do you experience this Passion Narrative within your own life?

After reading this gospel, what rises up within your heart? What phrase captures your imagination?

How does your heart respond to such a story? What is Jesus asking of you as we enter into Holy Week?

To what does your heart cling in this gospel or within this Holy Week?

How do you feel betrayal and hope within your heart and life?

Dear Followers of Jesus Christ,

Welcome to Holy Week, the essential celebrations of our liturgical year. In these liturgies, we pray the journey of the Paschal Mystery, the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. I explain here the images from my cover of today’s bulletin:

Coins: Judas betrayed Jesus with a few coins. Judas was persuaded to hand over Jesus to the authorities. These coins become an image of our own betrayal as well. They signify how we live unable to surrender to Christ. Our pride, self-sufficiency and our lack of integrity are at the core of our Holy Week journey. We are led beyond ourselves this week. These coins also represent our almsgiving during this Lenten season. Our Rice Bowls are donated on Holy Thursday during the Mass.

Holy Oils: The Chrism Mass will be celebrated on Tuesday of Holy Week at the Cathedral. Bishop Sheridan and all of the clergy will bless the oils. The oils are essential for the mission of the Church. The Sacred Chrism (SC) is used for adults and children who will be baptized at the Easter Vigil and all through the year. Chrism is also used for the sacrament of Confirmation and Holy Orders. The aroma of chrism will linger long into the year. The Oil of Catechumens (OS) is used for those who will be joining our Church. The Oil of the Sick (OI) is used for the healing of the sick and to prepare the ill for their home in heaven.

The Holy Cross: Christ Jesus sacrificed his very life. His death opens our lives to the Kingdom of Heaven. All suffering is lifted up in Christ. We also kiss the wood of salvation on Good Friday, the path to love and mercy, to forgiveness and ultimate peace. The cross is our only hope as seen in the sunrise behind the cross as we all wait for eternal life.

The Key: This week is the key to faith, to Jesus’ life within the Universal Church and each of us. This key also represents the key to Sacred Heart Church as our long awaited journey of restoration will come to its completion in the Easter Season.

The Body and Blood of Christ and the Heart of Christ: The Eucharist was given to the disciples on Holy Thursday. Every time we offer such a miracle, we remember Jesus. His life and Real Presence remains among us. His heart bears our pain. We humbly approach the Eucharist with sincere longing and faith. Jesus feeds us to sustain the mission of faith and the Church.

The Word of God: The gospel is true food for us. When the gospel is proclaimed, the grace of God opens our hearts to hear the vital story of Jesus’ Passion, Death and Resurrection. The gospel was written after the Resurrection of Jesus and is still being written from our own faith in the world today.

The Pitcher and Bowl: On Holy Thursday, the Church washes feet. This is not just a reenactment of the gospel, but a sure call for each of us to live the gospel of mercy in all we do and all we hope to become. We learn to serve others from this Holy Week. We learn to bend down to touch the suffering of all people and to serve well beyond our expertise, well beyond our selfishness and pride.

The Palms: We begin Holy Week blessing palms and proclaiming the Passion of Jesus Christ. These palms invite us into real praise and thanksgiving in Christ Jesus leading us to Christ’s Resurrection.

Blessings in this Holy Week,

Fr. Ron

Image of Saint Joseph: Painting by: Ronald Raab, CSC  Originally published in AIM Magazine from World Library, Chicago, Illinois, Spring 2018

Dear Believers in Christ Jesus,

In today’s gospel, John 12:20-33, some Greeks who had come to worship at the Passover Feast came to Philip and asked him, “Sir, we would like to see Jesus.” This searching for Jesus caught my attention in this passage. During this Lenten season, our souls also long to see Jesus. We are all caught up in the search through our prayer, our fasting, and our alms giving.

I invite you to rest in the phrase, “We would like to see Jesus.” This request is not just a pious inquiry but a deep longing to be free of the sin, self-centeredness, and darkness of our own journey. To set our eyes on the Beloved, to search diligently for the face of the Christ, is to find for our own lives the mercy, hope and satisfaction we all long for on this side of the grave.

The gospel then challenges us to explore how to search for Jesus. We must learn from a grain of wheat. If we let go our burdens, our securities and surrender to God, we shall learn to live in great abundance. Jesus’ love is not skimpy or shallow. It is not for a precious few or timid about who can receive such compassion. We are the ones who lose sight of our desires to discover a life worth living, to discover a hope that is well beyond our own imagining. In these Lenten days, our sight is on the person of Christ. When shall you see Jesus?

We shall see Jesus…

…when we finally have the courage to speak from our hearts in prayer.

…when we learn we cannot control life or satisfy our own needs.

…when we quiet our inner life and offer our heartache to him.

…when we die like a grain of wheat and believe we shall grow in love.

…when Lent becomes an inner search for integrity and peace

…when we live His pattern of dying to self and rising in Him.

…when we admit our failures and entrust our life to God.

…when hope is not a theory but also a lived prayer in our daily lives. …

…when we have the courage to listen and not just utter formulas for prayer.

…when we reach out into the suffering of other people.

…when our hearts are broken open because of the misery of others. …

…when we come to the conclusion that we are all one in Christ.

…when we worship in community and not just pray for our own lives.

…when we die to our selfishness and learn to grow in unity and compassion.

…when tenderness replaces hatred.

…when the beauty of life draws us into the Divine.

…when His courage within us compels us to live our truth. …

…when we encounter the face of the stranger, the refugee and the child in faith.

Peace in this Lenten journey,

Fr. Ron

I preached a Lenten retreat at Holy Cross House last week. Three of my former pastors now live in our health care facility. Here are pictures of two of them, Fr. Bill and Fr. Clem. Also, below is a poem from my experiences last week. 

Fr. Bill Neidhart, CSC and I served at Saint Francis Xavier Parish in Burbank, California

Fr. LeRoy Clementich, CSC and I served at Sacred Heart Church (Tri-Community) in 1984.

Retreat Week

 A tiny American tree sparrow outside my window

Perched in a thick shrub

Protected its wings from the heavy snow

During the wintry week

On the inside of Holy Cross House

The elderly men in wheelchairs or leaning on canes

Built a fort of hope

Struggled to pray with stiff fingers

We endeared ourselves to the Cross of Jesus

Postponing despair for another day

We prayed into Mary’s sorrows from our earthly experience

Whittling new insights from strokes or bitterness

We told family stories and laughed at jokes one more time

Opening up a memory album

Even celebrating our first saint

Andre Bessette

Meeting him at the door of our fragile hearts

Where healing miracles still live

We built a fire on the altar where bread and wine

Sparked the Real Presence of Jesus and

The priests held up their hands to warm themselves

Against the clipped-wing regrets–

Moving into this common home

From various countries

In these wintery and blustery days

Just before an eternal spring

– Ronald Raab, CSC