CLICK Here for the Mass Scriptures for Christ the King
CLICK here to listen to today’s homily
Please note: Once again, I will be offering a daily homily during the Advent season. I will begin next Sunday November 29, 2020.
I believe in the King.
I believe his face overwhelms any darkness.
I believe all will be right in the end.
I believe even the wicked will find home under his crown.
I believe we do not earn his mercy.
I believe the lost shall show us the way to him.
I believe the hungry reveal our deepest desires.
I believe the prisoner unlocks our selfish confinement.
I believe the naked shall show us not to live in shame.
I believe the ill show us how to heal the world.
I believe that we are to act justly and love honestly.
I believe faith is measured by love alone.
I believe service is golden in the eyes of the King.
I believe listening is rewarded in the King’s presence.
I believe hope is modeled by the addicted and mentally ill.
I believe salvation comes in offering a cup of water.
I believe the King waits for us.
I believe the King summons us.
I believe the King welcomes and never condemns.
I believe the King shall come.
I believe the King believes in me.
I believe in the King.
CLICK here to read full bulletin for Christ the King
November 22, 2020
Dear Followers of Christ the King,
Today marks the conclusion of our liturgical year with the Solemnity of Christ the King. This feast draws us into the reality that all things will be one in Christ Jesus in the end. All things will be in Christ Jesus. All things, including violence and racism, including doubt and hopelessness, including greed and substance abuse, including pandemic and job loss, including every fear, will all be healed and loved in Christ the King.
The Solemnity of Christ the King means a great deal to me. I cling to the notion that all things will be healed, loved and forgiven in the end. As a priest and pastoral minister, I hold on to this for dear life. The gospel today helps us understand the real meaning of the Solemnity.
Matthew 25:31-46 is one of the most important salvation texts in the gospels. Our salvation rests in giving a thirsty person a drink and a naked man some clothing. Our hope for heaven means that we visited the prison while on earth and cared for people who are ill. Being at the right hand of the Father begins with us on earth claiming our responsibility for feeding people food and sitting with strangers with an attentive ear and a heart full of hope.
If you read only one gospel text this year, read this one at its conclusion. Our salvation begins with us doing simple things for others. Salvation is not passing an exam on the Catechism or based on attendance records from Mass. Even confession is not on this list to get into heaven.
What is on the list to enter salvation is that we care for people. What a surprise. Salvation is not only a personal experience but also a communal reality. We find our way to Jesus’ face because we showed up to the real human faces of people in need. We showed up to help others without judgment, condemnation or ridicule. We showed up to relieve people of their burdens because we are already one in Christ Jesus.
So, as we end our liturgical year and begin a new year next week on the First Sunday of Advent, let’s remind ourselves that salvation rests on our conscience to befriend the least among us, not the powerful and the glitzy, but the worn out, the tired and the smelly. Salvation comes in ways in which we least expect. Tell everyone you know that all will be well in Christ Jesus, King of the Universe.
Some thoughts for the week:
Take some time and reflect on what it means for Christ to come in glory…
Reflect on what it means to see Jesus Christ in the fragile and ill…
Talk with your family about the fact that salvation comes from befriending the marginalized…
Pray for the broken, lost and uncertain as we celebrate Christ the King…
Find your way to the face of Jesus, the King of the Universe in your prayer this week…
“The lost I will see out, the strayed I will bring back, the injured I will bind up, the sick I will heal, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy, shepherding them rightly.” Ezekiel 34
God give you peace,
Fr. Ron
I recently ran across an African proverb. “When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground,”
Even our experiences become ash.
The Bible is the one book we have in common. How it was lived varies from man to man. I can’t imagine the wisdom that floats among these stones.
The older I get, the more I want to go back and listen to them. I wonder what our spiritual directors would say about our divided world. I am grateful they are protected from such clamoring.
I would love to hear from our scientists from the past opinions about today’s pandemic.
Much has burned.
All things lie under the cross.
As another liturgical year comes to an end in the Solemnity of Christ the King, I know all experiences rest in the King.
This King is not about politics. Imagine that. Every sadness and every joy, every hardship and every tender relationship, belongs to Jesus Christ. I love this.
Every library of the heart is ultimately a book about the King.
Most of our men were content to take their volumes of experiences with them in death.
I remember Fr. Cornelius in the 1970’s who rewrote his dissertation when he was 90 years old. He held on for dear life as he handed me a copy of his book on the Holy Spirit. I think I finally gave it away just a few years ago.
I wish I had kept the book.
All things are one in Christ the King.
Our men are buried next to each other in the order of their death. There are several men buried next to their perceived enemy on earth. These relationships get a chuckle when those who know them see the names chiseled on the crosses. These are family ironies.
No matter who got fired from a job or who declared the firing, the experiences are sorted through on the other side of the stone.
Even fear is gathered into the King’s arms.
Fr. John was a friend of the Kennedy family. He offered Mass at the White House the day after JFK’s assassination. I cared for Fr. John at Holy Cross House. He feared the nighttime. I sat with him in the dark the few times I worked the nightshift. He told me Jackie was the boss of that house. Fr. John’s brother was Fr. Joe, an English professor. I wish I could read the story they are writing.
I can’t get another Fr. Joe out of my heart. His dementia rose up quickly. However, it did not affect his loving personality. When I knew him, he could not remember five minutes after lunchtime whether he had eaten meatloaf with mashed potatoes or a bologna sandwich. Whatever he had, we laughed up a storm in the hallway when I pursued the questions. His smile rises in me still.
I can’t imagine bologna is served there anymore.
Fr. Bill was an opera singer. Fr. George led both high school and college jazz bands. Fr. Claude played the clarinet as did Fr. Jim. Fr. Gene sang like an ancient prophet. I wish I could listen in to the celebrations of the King this weekend. The King shall come when morning dawns. Indeed.
I wonder if they are socially distancing.
Imagine the libraries buried in this cemetery.
Please note: Advent begins November 29, 2020. I will post a daily audio homily for the four weeks of Advent, as I did during the Lenten season. I hope you will listen as we yearn for hope in our world. The theme of my Advent reflections: Advent: On the ground of hope.
CLICK HERE To read the complete bulletin for November 15, 2020
33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
My dear followers of Jesus,
Today’s gospel, Matthew 25: 14-30 opens a door for our reflection on the gift of life, how we are responsible for it, and how we return the treasure God has given us. We are all given talents, not in money like the parable states, but in the gift of our humanity. As we soon close out another liturgical year, we reflect upon the value of what God gives us in our hearts, in our lives, and in all relationships.
I realize this is a year most of us would like to forget. Even though we cannot control every outcome of our lives, life is still sheer gift. We have a responsibility for the many talents, loves, and beauties God gives us, not only as individuals, but as Church. In November, we take stock of life as we prepare for end times. How we live today, reveals our happy death and God’s eternal love for us.
So, what if your life ended today? What have you done with your incredible, beautiful, loving life? What are the regrets that harm you? What are the moments that give you joy and exuberance? What are the things that cling to your sense of guilt or shame? How can you turn your sorrow into joy in your reflection?
God is not in our lives to condemn us; God is brought into our hearts so to heal us and offer us forgiveness. I meet people every day who think God hates them, because of petty sin or things they just cannot let go of or heal. This reveals the importance of living a spiritual life that is vital and authentic. If we have been reflecting all along on God’s mercy, then we shall know Jesus in our pain, our regret and our sin. If we have not lived in Him, then in the end, we will think our lives are useless and sinful. I pray we may all find God, in good days and in bad.
About forty years ago, one of our Holy Cross priests was going to build a chapel at our retreat center at Notre Dame. He sent every person on his list of donors a $5.00 bill. He gave them instructions to use the money to benefit the new building. Over the course of a few months, the people made five dollars into many thousands. He built a new chapel that is still standing and used today. We have many gifts and many ways to increase what God has already given us. We are instruments of divine love in our world and it is up to us to spread the Good News.
No matter where you are on the spiritual journey, I hope you can use your life and your life work for the common good. Who knows what God has in mind for you? Now is the time for you to explore the grace given you and how you have lived such grace. You can still multiply the benefits and gifts God has given you with love and generosity.
In today’s second reading from 1Thes 5:1-6, we here that the Lord will come like a thief in the night. We are to remain sober and alert. We are to stand in the dark and yearn for the coming light of Christ. I pray that we may all have that hope in the end. I pray for courage as we learn to rebuild from a pandemic and live with hope that things can be reborn, and our priorities expanded. God is in our world and in each and every heart. What a treasured gift.
“For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will grow rich…”
God give you peace,
Fr. Ron
November 10, 2020
Holy Cross Cemetery: A November Reflection, Part 7
Yesterday, I celebrated my 65th birthday. A lovely moment of reflection during pandemic. Texts pinged and calls rang throughout the day. Being seated with a friend for lunch and others for dinner helped me digest the reality of getting older and coming closer to being myself in the world. I am less a stranger to myself in my mid-sixties.
I strolled through our cemetery again, this time, not in person. In that soil lies a paradise of reflection, where my imagination sees the smiles, the intentions, the books written, the sermons preached, of my ancestors. That cemetery is a cave of mystery, that I know I need to enter, so that I may still walk on this earth knowing the relationships that have formed me. On this soil, hope springs up through the autumn oak leaves and the smell of winter approaching.
I first journeyed to Fr. John’s cement cross. He died at 64. High noon on Easter. He listened to me rant and rave for nearly nine years. He was so patient with me. Now, I wish, we could sit together. I would tell him that I have relaxed a bit in my own skin. I would shake his hand, even during a pandemic, and thank him for revealing to me the face of Jesus. I am calmer now. There is deeper prayer, a fearlessness, that resides in me now at 65, just past his earthly life.
I needed to rest at Fr. Jim’s grave. He was an artist. He was a man of few words. So, when he spoke, I listened as best as I could. When I was in the novitiate, the first class at Cascade, CO, a classmate and I created a banner for our makeshift chapel. Everything we needed there, we had to create. The first class paved the way. When we finished the banner, sewing together silks and linens and assorted colors from remnants for Lent and Easter, another priest stared at our creation.
The other priest said to us, “Who would waste their time doing something like that?” Well, my classmate and I were taken aback as we hung our creativity on the wall for prayer. The priest who bent our pride was a mountain climber.
Later, I told this story to Fr. Jim. He eased the tension in me with these words, “A man may climb a mountain because it is there. Another man creates art because it is not.” I have hung on to these words for over forty years. Those words have become a banner of love. I climb the mystery of my creativity because others before me dared to scale such a mountain. The creative paths inside are just as treacherous and are so often hidden. I rest my art in the lives of those who believed their art was from the creating efforts of God.
The mountains are outside my window in Colorado. However, a large charcoal drawing from Fr. Jim of a woman holding her son dying of AIDS, hangs in my living room. I am constantly walking into the unknown, the ways in which Jesus leads me. I so often think falsely that I am in control of my life. Life and art are lovely journeys.
Several years ago, Fr. Jim was in the first stages of dementia. One summer, he took me to his large, cluttered studio. We toured mountains of drawings, sculptures and unfinished works. As we unearthed tools, plans, and scraps of note paper in his messy cabinets, I purposely asked him questions to help him track the past. He pointed to the tools he used to create, to the works themselves, to proto-types and sketches, because his words were fleeting. He did not always have words to connect the art to his ideas or commissions or his hope that I would learn to scale such a mystery.
As I watch in my mind that story unfold again, I revere the sacredness of his art and his life. He invited me into unknown places of the soul. Those mountains need exploration. They need skill and attention. Most of all, life and art, are only revealed in prayer. Yesterday, on my birthday, I realized once again, that he passed on to me a desire to create with God, what is not.
CLICK HERE to pre-order “The Stations of the Cross in Atonement for Abuse the the Healing of All” from Liturgical Press, Collegeville, MN. Commentary is written by Fr. Paul Turner and illustrated by Fr. Ronald Raab, CSC. The book will be published in mid-December, 2020.
This video was published this weekend in our Flocknote for our Sacred Heart Parish community.
Last November I wrote a series of reflections about our Holy Cross Cemetery at Notre Dame. You can find them from November 2019 on my blog. Here is a reflection for 2020.
CLICK here to read the recent obituaries from our CSC website.
I visited Holy Cross cemetery at Notre Dame during Labor Day weekend.
I did not need a mask to visit my brothers.
However, two of our men from our province died of COVID-19 this year. Fr. Gene served in Bangladesh for many years and is buried among us at Notre Dame. Fr. Bob served in Chile and died of the pandemic.
Archbishop Costa in Chittagong, Bangladesh also died of this world-wide disease. Even a bishop is vulnerable to such illness and the common denominator of death. He is buried in Bangladesh.
I remember Fr. Bob well from the 1970’s. He was tall in stature. His life as a missionary loomed large at the table in the seminary refectory. He would visit family once a year with a stop-off at the seminary for some rest. He is laid to rest among other giants who gave everything to the world-wide Church. A missionary of God has to have strong shoulders.
I stopped and prayed at Fr. Bill’s headstone. He was one of my pastors. He loved Jesus. Bill cracked me up. Thursday was his day off. He always golfed. One Friday, my day off, I asked him if he had ever been to an art museum in Los Angeles. He quipped, “Gosh, Ron, it has never rained that hard on a Thursday.” I loved him. He always desired to preach from his true relationship with Jesus.
Fr. David died at 55 this year. His large family prepared him to live and serve among young people at Notre Dame. He was pastor of Sacred Heart Church. I prayed to the Sacred Heart the day he died, since I know what it means to rely on the mercy, the heart- warmth, of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. He loved the color orange. I noticed a pair of orange framed sunglasses on his tombstone. I pray he sees the truth of his life and the bountiful presence of Jesus.
The line of tombstones has grown long since I first entered the community as a freshman in 1974. As I strolled along the line of crosses, I stopped at Fr. John’s. He died in 1980. I cared for him at Holy Cross in 1976-77. I sure have been thinking about him lately.
The first time I entered his room, I was drawn to his body curled up in bed. Silence seemed to be his partner and his prayer. As I raised my eyes and glanced around the room, I was so struck that he did not have a single possession of his own in the room. He was unable to care for himself. Yet, he did not have a token or prayer card or photograph in the room that could remind him of his life and priesthood.
As a young religious, I was taken aback by the starkness of the room. I could not image why no one had surrounded him with a few reminders of who he was and the people he had ministered among in his life. I felt in my heart the poverty of his life. As I left the room, I touched the bareness of the cold walls.
A few months ago, as I was praying about him, something happened. A new insight swept by my heart like an oak leaf carried by the autumn wind in the cemetery. I realized that Fr. John’s prayer had readied him to go home. He had shed his possessions and was open for Jesus’ invitation. I had imposed my youthful notions on a holy man. As I cared for his body, he had already done the work of letting go. I see this now only in my sixties.
Every time I visit this cemetery, the stories become so real again. My teachers never quit reminding me to hold fast to Jesus. I pray to let go of youthful pride and befriend the journey home.
After my September visit to the cemetery, I put on a mask and celebrated our men who were ordained deacons and priests that autumn day at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart.
CLICK HERE to read complete bulletin for this weekend.
32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Dear Believers in the Kingdom,
In Matthew’s text today for Mass, the ten virgins are waiting for the bride groom. “Stay awake!” is the call and command not only for them but for us as we come to the conclusion of another liturgical year in a couple of weeks. Being ready for the Kingdom is our real goal here on earth. The conclusion of the liturgical year is a metaphor for the end of time, not only for our own individual lives, but for the end of life as we know it. Death for the believer is not a threat, not something we dismiss or shun. The end, of course, is our real home with God.
The ten virgins argue about having enough oil for the lamps. I believe this is a metaphor that no one can help another person prepare for the Kingdom. The virgins wanted the other virgins to share the oil. They said no. That is because people need to find their own way to God and to prepare for God in their own ways.
In other words, the work of life and most especially of death, is up to each of us. We all die alone, no matter the money we have saved or how many family members surround our death bed or the power and authority we have accumulated in life. The act of death is a matter of our individual souls. We can either fear death or push it out of our minds and then postpone our preparation until our last breath. We are sure to settle into fear if we push such reflection down the road. Life is incredibly beautiful and so is death. The virgins hold up a lantern to help us find the light as well.
In the sacred liturgy, we have remembered All Saints and All Souls in this past week. Throughout the month of November, images, prayers, metaphors and love help us heal our grief and carry on our lives. I love this month when the Church offers us opportunities to remember that Christ’s passion, death and resurrection become the pattern we all face in life. We cannot escape death nor the grief we feel when a loved one is welcomed home. Death is fuel for faith. God’s love is the beginning of wisdom.
In my ministry, I encounter many people who fear death. Their lives are full of rage because they cannot control every aspect of living here on earth. I remember an aunt of mine who lost a son in his prime. She never got over his death. She never gave herself permission to let go of him. No other person could help her or save her from such grief as losing a child. That was also in an era where people seldom grieved in public nor even behind closed doors. She grew more and more angry at life, her relatives and friends. Bitterness takes hold when grief is squelched in a soul.
The Old Testament reading from Mass today gives us the goal of perspective and of age and maturity. Wisdom. How beautiful to find wisdom in our lives if we truly trust in the mystery of life, of God, and the beauty of death. Wisdom is resplendent and unfading. Wisdom is revealed upon our asking and makes itself known at dawn. So, when we are faced with profound grief, weariness of life, and when life does not turn out as we had planned, wisdom becomes a cushion to rest our souls. Wisdom happens when our hearts are open, when we have the courage to reflect on life and trust God in prayer. Real wisdom happens in the second half of life. The virgins in the gospel were either foolish or wise.
I pray for such a gift in everyone in our parish, that wisdom may calm the uproars of violence. I pray wisdom may put out the flames of mistrust and hatred among us. I pray we may face the consequences of our own lives so we may be freed with wisdom to live lives of integrity and justice. Wisdom takes a heart that is ready for life beyond our own. Selfishness and self-sufficiency squelch a wise heart. Wisdom is the result of humility and tenderness as we face even the harshest of realities, even death itself.
“Therefore, stay awake, for you know neither the day or the hour.”
God give you peace,
Fr. Ron
Broken But Not Divided 