“With Tears, Alabaster and Hair” Drawing by: Ronald Raab, CSC

My column from our parish bulletin

June 12, 2016

Dear Followers of Jesus,

Luke’s gospel (7:36-8.3) today invites us into an intimate story. An uninvited guest comes to Simon’s house where Jesus had been invited. The woman bathes Jesus’ feet with her tears. She anoints them with oil from her alabaster jar. She brings here complete life to the feet of Jesus, to the heart of the Messiah, the place of love.

This portrait of love and mercy is often difficult to take into our lives. Many of us think that sin is a list of do’s and don’ts. We tend to think that forgiveness happens when we give a list of sins in a two-minute confession and then we get on with our lives. There is something missing within our hearts when we think sin is a commodity that is traded for forgiveness. What is missing is that we never get to the real issues of our hearts, our consciences and how we truly live in all of our relationships in the world. Forgiveness is not cheap. Our faith demands that we risk letting go of old patterns as we move toward God’s fidelity within us.

The woman who washes the feet of Jesus is sick and tired of being sick and tired. She knows deeply within her heart what is missing. She knows that Jesus’ love and forgiveness is more than skin deep, it is a way of life. She models for us the true treasure of our relationship with God, that we cannot live our lives on our own power, greed, lust and convictions. We need the constant mercy of Jesus to invite us into a radical change of life. Conversion means a radical, loving letting go of our stubbornness and living in God’s grace. Faith is more than an intellectual pursuit.

One of the obstacles in parish life is that we come to church always needing to look good to others. We seldom want to admit our faults because we do not want others to think less of us. So many people want to be perceived as being “perfect.” This is a great trap because we then think our faith is about externals, about having the right education or saying all the prayers correctly. In fact, faith is about our being vulnerable enough before God so that we can feel and experience the love and mercy of Jesus. We need to build our communities based on our own and common poverty, our need for God. We need honesty about our struggles and needs. Then we will be more open to the human poverty others face in life as well.

Our sins are more than a laundry list. We have choices in life. Our sinfulness may lead us to bitterness and being judgmental or we can live within God’s fidelity and learn how to love fully and completely. Life is incredibly complicated and we really need God. So we need to come as we are, with the life experiences we have, with the brokenness that we find ourselves living today. Living a faith-filled life is about us finally realizing that prayer softens our hardened hearts and that confession will open us to the real love that is ours in Jesus’ name.

Our faith gives us a unique treasure in that we have an opportunity to come before God with our broken and fragile hearts. We need the experiences of a fragile community so that we can understand that we live in the mercy and consolation of Jesus especially among others.

The Year of Mercy as it unfolds is trying to get at the meaning of this story for every Christian. I see how the Year of Mercy is working among us who struggle to believe in Jesus amid the hardships, sins and turmoil in which we live. I see this year as a beautiful and joyous opening for us to encounter the real Jesus again. However, there is a need for continuing conversion within our Church. I pray that we could review again some of the issues of family life and sexuality especially. I pray for the continuation of our conversion toward the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the source of compassion and peace.

We welcome Rev. Joseph Corpora, CSC this weekend to Sacred Heart Church to preach on the Year of Mercy. Pope Francis mandated Fr. Joe as a Missionary of Mercy for this year. He will also preach Sunday Vespers this weekend. Fr. Joe is a classmate of mine and we were both in the first class at the novitiate in Cascade in 1978. He now ministers at the University of Notre Dame.

With abundant mercy of God,

Fr. Ron

“Of you my heart speaks” Painting: Ronald Raab, CSC

Today’s image was painted with bottle caps, cardboard, rubber mats and other assorted materials. No brush was used, no fingers this time. This was an exciting way to allow the image of Jesus to emerge. 

Today’s Psalm from the Liturgy

Responsorial Psalm Ps 27:7-8a, 8b-9abc, 13-14

On the Margins: Mater Dei Radio, Portland, OR

Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, June 12, 2016

LISTEN NOW: CLICK HERE

The outcast has a place at the table. The woman is forgiven, her heart is full of love. This is a powerful image in this Year of Mercy, the woman washing Jesus’ feet with her tears and hair. Listen to this text with love, with all your heart.

“Untie me and allow me to see your face, O Lord” Sketch: Ronald Raab, CSC

Gospel Lk 7:11-17

Jesus, Healer and Master,

I wait for your gentle hands to untie the shroud of death within me.

I wait to be united with the great grace that allows me full life and love in you.

Unwrap the ways my mouth, my body, my spirit are bound up by division and sin.

Untie me so that I may live in you.

I, too, stand with those who have died in spirit and in truth.

I wait for healing and your restorative presence so that our lives may bear witness to you.

Encourage us all who have lost love so that hope again may thrive.

Help our community and me to stand among suffering and death.

Give us courage to touch what is dead and awaken true discipleship here.

Open up the wrap of cynicism, mistrust and grief that ties us so tightly.

Show us how to throw the shroud away from our anger and shame.

Lift us up to life again, life in the Spirit of hope.

Jesus, Healer and Master, we do not know where else to turn when our words shut others down, when our actions cause death in our relationships, when our attitudes bind us up.

Be gentle with your people.

We desire to see your face calling us out of our numbness and stubbornness.

Be gentle with your people who long for forgiveness and a new relationship with you.

Amen

(Prayer text: Ronald Raab, CSC)

“Mary Searching for Her Son” Painting by: Ronald Raab, CSC

Today’s Gospel for the Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary

Gospel Lk 2:41-51

Each year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover,
and when he was twelve years old,
they went up according to festival custom.
After they had completed its days, as they were returning,
the boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem,
but his parents did not know it.
Thinking that he was in the caravan,
they journeyed for a day
and looked for him among their relatives and acquaintances,
but not finding him,
they returned to Jerusalem to look for him.
After three days they found him in the temple,
sitting in the midst of the teachers,
listening to them and asking them questions,
and all who heard him were astounded
at his understanding and his answers.
When his parents saw him,
they were astonished,
and his mother said to him,
“Son, why have you done this to us?
Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.”
And he said to them,
“Why were you looking for me?
Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”
But they did not understand what he said to them.
He went down with them and came to Nazareth,
and was obedient to them;
and his mother kept all these things in her heart.

– – –
Lectionary for Mass for Use in the Dio

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

Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time: June 5,2016

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Sit with the woman who lost her son in death. Sit with Jesus’ healing touch. Sit with the young man being raised to new life. What are you capturing in your heart from these central characters?

“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

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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.