Stephen K. Ray's Blog, page 27
July 30, 2024
“The Keeper” – A Redemptive Drama that Keeps one on the edge of their seat (no pun intended)
Janet and I always look for good movies to watch. We don’t have local TV or cable TV but we watch good streaming movies (and love avoiding all the trashy commercials). This week Janet discovered a real gem.
Not to give the story away, but it is about a German footballer (soccer player) who ends up in a prison camp in England. It is a wonderful drama that drew us in. A story of redemption, heroic action, love and overcoming national and political hatred and contempt.
I told all our kids to stop what they were doing, gather the older kids around and enjoy a good heart-lifting movie.
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July 28, 2024
Multiplication of Loaves a Miracle or Just a Lesson in Sharing?
I post this blog again every time the readings at mass her about the multiplication of loves and fish.
When confronted with this at Mass a while ago I wrote a letter to the priest which became an article in Catholic Answers Magazine. Article HERE. The priest said there was no miracle when Jesus multiplied the loaves and fish. All he did was teach selfish people to share and they pulled extra loaves and fish from their picnic baskets and shared them with everyone. The sharing was so generous that there was a whole lot left over.
In John 6:1-14 it says Jesus fed 5,000 men plus women and children. When Jesus fed the 10,000+ people, he didn’t really do a miracle, right?
He just taught everyone to care and share, right? You’ve probably heard that homily, right?
The people had all brought picnic baskets which they kept hidden up under their robes.
Jesus convinced them all to pull out their picnic baskets to share with everyone else. The REAL miracle was not multiplying loaves and fish, but in teaching selfish people to share.
Isn’t that sweet? And after they shared their food Jesus taught them all to sing “Kum Ba Ya” and they joined in the liturgical dance. A good time was had by all! Or so say some trendy homilists!
Click here for more info or to buy, only $5***Click on the image to learn more about Steve’s talk DEFENDING THE EUCHARIST: YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT ***
Well I had ENOUGH of that nonsense. I sat at Mass on Corpus Christi Sunday and heard the priest insult the intelligence of everyone in the church. He also insulted the Word of God and the tradition of the Church. He twisted the Gospel reading like a rubber nose.
I almost stood up to protest but my good wife said, “Steve, no! Go home and write!” So I did.
About 12 pages later I had written a very thorough response to the trendy priest and to all others who preach this nonsense. I sent a copy to the priest, to his bishop and to Catholic Answers. It was then published in the January 2008 issue of THIS ROCK Magazine.
I hope this thorough rebuttal of nonsense will be copied and given to every homilist who insults us with such pablum. Hopefully we can put this insulting claptrap to bed once and for all.
For the whole article in THIS ROCK click here. My book CROSSING THE TIBER deals extensively with the Eucharist in the Old and New Testaments and the first five centuries of Christianity. You can learn more here.
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July 26, 2024
How Did a Nice Baptist Kid from Texas Become a Catholic Priest? “Are You Saved?”
Click on image for whole storyHow did a Baptist kid from Gilmore Texas eventually become a Catholic priest? This is a delightful story full of instruction and apologetics.
I love to share conversion stories to affirm our Catholic Faith. Such a story as this rings in our hearts and confirms that we are in the right place. It also gives us knowledge and insight to share the truth with others.
The title of the interview is “Are You Saved?” Coming from Texas, which is known as part of the Baptist Bible Belt, this is a timely and appropriate article.
You can enjoy the who interview and moving story HERE.
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July 25, 2024
Was Jesus Nice?
I wish I had a dollar for every time someone has said to me. “That was not very Christ-like.” This response usually comes after being honest to the point of making someone upset. The implication is that Jesus was a cuddly little nice guy who was always smiling, always accepting with kind words – in short NICE.
In America we tend to be pretty nice, except maybe if you live in New York City. But in contrast to the rest of the world we tend to be very polite, genteel, gracious and nice. Tour guides in other countries say that Americans are the nicest people. We transpose our niceness onto Jesus and think he was a lot like us.
But does LOVE = NICE?
Of course Jesus was loving. He is God after all and God is love (1 John 4:8). We also know that love does not always equate to NICE. God allowed Paul to have a thorn in the flesh to keep him humble (2 Cor 12:7). Three times Paul prayed for it to be removed. God said NO. God was not acting very American. He certainly wasn’t very nice about it.
Nice is defined primarily as “pleasant or commendable, kind or friendly” (Collins English Dictionary). It originally comes from the Latin meaning “simple, silly or ignorant.”
There is such a thing as “tough love.” It is the kind of love that cares enough to be honest, to confront, to discipline, to cause temporary pain to bring about eternal glory. On the surface “tough love” does not always appear to be nice. How often has a child, sent to the corner blurt out “You are not very nice!”
Was Jesus nice?
Like Aslan the Lion in C. S. Lewis’ Narnia series, Jesus is approachable and loving, but don’t ever consider him “tame” or too cuddly. Jesus is God as well as man. He expressed the wrath and anger of God as well as the mercy and love of God.
Imagine coming to the Temple in Jerusalem one day to pray. You hear a great commotion and run over to see an angry man throwing over tables, grabbing the money from the merchants and throwing the money on the ground.
But worse, you see him make a scourge of cords – a whip – and striking people with it. You are shocked that anyone would be so rude and destructive, so inconsiderate and mean to lash people with a whip. People ran in fear! Everyone was upset. Jesus was red in the face and scowling. It certainly wasn’t very “Christ-like.” How nice was that?
Jesus was always loving, but he was not always nice, as we Americans count niceness. Here is just one example. Jesus spoke very harshly to his fellow Jews.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but within you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. . . . You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? (Matthew 23:27, 28, 33).
Ouch! It doesn’t sound very kind and courteous: not very thoughtful or nice!
So, maybe there is more to WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) than we’ve been led to believe. Maybe we shouldn’t worry so much about being nice, being liked, acting like genteel Americans. Maybe we ought to be more honest and forthright about the things that really matter. Maybe we should be more willing to hurt some feelings, step on some toes, show tough love to those in sin.
Maybe we should be more Christ-like.
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July 24, 2024
Wisconsin Pilgrimage Last Day – Farewells & Departures
It’s been a marvelous pilgrimage together and today is our last day. Cardinal Burke was the highlight of the trip for most of the pilgrims—like the crescendo!
We started our last day with Mass at the hotel and breakfast and then the ride back to Milwaukee for us all to catch your airline flights home.
Along the way we prayed the Rosary and talked, napped and laughed and had a good time together.
Looking forward to our upcoming pilgrimages and hope you can join us.
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July 23, 2024
Wisconsin Pilgrimage Day 3
Rudolph Grotto Gardens is a spectacular property with caves, tunnels, walkways and gardens all designed with biblical and Catholic themes. Free time to wander and enjoy.
Lunch on the way to La Crosse for the gorgeous and deeply spiritual Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe started by Cardinal Raymond Burke. After our tour we had adoration and Vespers with the Norbertines.
Holy Mass and dinner with Cardinal Burke. He talked with everyone individually and blessed us all. We then settled in to our Radisson Hotel in La Crosse.
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July 22, 2024
Wisconsin Pilgrimage Day 2
The Hyatt Regency hotel is beautiful and everyone really enjoyed it. After our private breakfast, we boarded our good air-condition bus with our driver, Mike and headed to the Norbertine Abbey for a tour. The modern architecture and art is not to my liking but when they describe it all it is intriguing.
Then to the National Shrine of Saint Joseph with the Norbertines and took another tour with Fr. Mike, and then I gave my talk on “St. Joseph, the Manly Man”.
We dropped folks off in DePere for lunch before heading to the Shrine of the Apparition of Our Lady of Champion (formerly of Good Hope). The shrine is out in the middle of farm country and even while you’re walking around, you can smell the cows in the breeze. But then again, Adele Briese was a farm girl and this is where the apparition took place.
Lovely gift shop, café, the priests heard confessions, we had adoration and prayed the Divine Mercy with lots of free times before we had Mass. Then to our Italian Restaurant and headed back to the Hyatt Regency for the night.
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July 21, 2024
Wisconsin Shrine Pilgrimage Day 1
These videos are mostly made for our current Pilgrims and their family and friends watching them back home. But everyone is more than welcome to enjoy our videos while we’re in Wisconsin.
Today we all fought through cancelled flights and overly busy airports due to the Microsoft computer fiasco BUT we arrived and had a great first day.
1) Arrivals 2) Bus ride with prayers, priest vocation stories and fun, 3) Mass at St. Joseph’s in Sturgeon Bay and 4) Delicious outdoor dinner on the coast watching pelicans and the gorgeous sunset.
Rosary on the way to our Hyatt Regency Green Bay Hotel. Off to a great start. See you tomorrow!
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An Insightful Article on the Life & Times of Joe Biden and what the future holds
Joe Biden entered the Senate in 1973, at the tender age of 30. He looked like a president, he felt like a president and he fully expected to rise to the top. His formula for success was that of every ambitious politician deprived by nature of directing principles or opinions: Find the meandering mainstream of his party’s establishment, where the big fish swim, then wade in and drift.
Biden was in turn strongly against and stridently for abortion, a righteous Vietnam dove and then a stern Iraq hawk, a friend of racist Democratic senators before becoming a promoter of compensatory quotas for racial minorities.
Virtually every time a vacancy arose, Biden, by his own admission, considered running for the presidency. In 1988, at the age of 46, he actually did so—and failed. Biden may look and feel like a president, but he has never sounded like one. Long before old age turned him into a bleary-eyed mutterer, he tended to get lost in his own verbiage.
He told fantastic stories about his personal life that could be easily disproven. He plagiarized bits from Bobby Kennedy and an entire speech by British Labour leader Neil Kinnock. Biden, it seems, was as needy as he was ambitious. His campaign resembled a prolonged pratfall. He dropped out before the first primary.
He spent 36 years in the Senate but never rose to any kind of power or influence there. His hour in the sun came in 1991 when, as chair of the Judiciary Committee, he was charged by Democratic Party grandees with the destruction of Clarence Thomas as a nominee to the Supreme Court. He failed. Thomas’ eloquence and intellectual firepower easily overwhelmed the woodenly partisan Biden….
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July 18, 2024
“The 12 Unknown Sorrows of Mary” – Steve Ray’s Biblical Meditations
We have the Devotion of the “Seven Dolores”, or the Devotion of the Seven Sorrows.
But Mary suffered far more sorrows than those seven.
From ‘The Glories of Mary’ by St. Alphonsus Liguori we read,
“In this valley of tears, every man is born to weep, and every one must suffer those afflictions that daily befall him. But how much more miserable would life be, if every one knew also the future evils which are to afflict him!
“The Lord exercises His compassion towards us, because He does not make known to us the crosses that await us; that if we are to suffer them, at least we may suffer them only once.
“But He did not exercise this compassion with Mary, who, because God wished Her to be the Queen of Sorrows, and in all things like His Son, and to see always before Her eyes, and to suffer continually all the sorrows that awaited Her; and those were the sufferings of the passion and death of Her beloved Jesus.
“For St. Simeon in the temple, after having received the Divine Child in his arms, predicted to Her that this child was to be the mark for all the opposition and persecution of men; “Set for a sign which shall be contradicted”; and that therefore the sword of sorrow should pierce Her soul: “And Thy own soul a sword shall pierce.”
“The Holy Virgin Herself said to St. Matilda, that at the announcement of St. Simeon all Her joy was changed into sorrow.”
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