Stephen K. Ray's Blog, page 92

Steve Ray’s Seven Rules for Dealing with Non-Catholic Family & Friends: Getting Ready for Christmas :-)

My Seven Rules for dealing with family and friends who disagree with us, oppose us, want to argue and are against the Catholic Church and our morals.

Cover story on Catholic Answers Magazine

Steve Ray’s Seven Rules:

1) Never argue with them, it will only push them further away.

2) Love them more than ever before, especially between spouses

3) Pray seriously and constantly and make sacrifices

4) Show the Joy of the Lord in your life so they see the result of the fullness of the Faith

5) Study apologetics and do biblical homework so you are ready when they finally ask questions

6) Be patient – God is not in as big a hurry as you are.

7) Ask God to bring someone else into their lives to influence them since they won’t listen to you

Joint us on a pilgrimage. Visit FootprintsOfGod.com.

Read the whole article in  Catholic Answers Magazine

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The “brilliance” of the Woke Corporate World – visual example

The woke community of liberals can’t help themselves and invariably show the stupidity of the whole woke culture. It is contrary to nature and to common sense.

This is an actual image used by KLM Airlines a while back to promote “diversity”. But how stupid is this image? It denies the whole purpose of a seatbelt and demonstrates the lunacy of the whole “rainbow crowd.”

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Interview with William Albrecht: Holy Land & Sacred Ground

William Albrecht is a great Catholic apologist, debater and biblical scholar. He wrote to me and asked for an interview and I granted it.

I hope you enjoy this animated conversation about Israel, biblical truth, holy sites, sacred ground and much more.

To learn more about our upcoming pilgrimages (and videos of past pilgrimages) visit FootprintsOfGod.com. It starts at 4:15 minutes into the video. Fast forward to 4:15.

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Hope you can join us in Beaverton Oregon – or Virtually

 
This Institute can be joined VIRTUALLY for those unable to visit Oregon. 

 

Two short interviews about the conference and the importance of retreats.

Part II

https://youtu.be/ooalwpoGpzc

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Can a Couple Really Stay Ma​​​​​​​​​​​​​​rried and in Love for a Lifetime? ​​​​​​​A free Q&A with Steve Ray

My wife Janet and I just celebrated our 45th anniversary and are more in love now than in the flush of youth. We had a plan and we worked it. The beauty of that plan is it bore fruit in the next generation. Our four kids all married young and we now have 19 grandchildren.

I am going to share some of our ideas and the original plan that has played out over the decades. Here is us today!

Hope you can join us this Thursday at 8 PM Eastern time for a free and live Q & A. Click here or the blue graphic below to learn more and to register.

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Today is our 28th Anniversary as Catholics!

Pentecost Sunday 1994 our family of six along with friend Rob Corzine entered the Catholic Church with tears and new friends. We lost all of our Evangelical friends within two weeks but it was a small price to pay. Our beloved friend and priest Fr. Ed Fride received us into the Church.

Here you can see pictures of that momentous day — our family on May 22, 1994 at Christ the King in Ann Arbor Michigan. Below is a picture of me holding the first copy of my conversion story Crossing the Tiber in 1997.

I always say that when I was 17 years old Jesus introduced himself to me; when I turned 39 he decided it was time to introduce me to his family.

You can read the short version of conversion story here with lots of pictures.

Every single Mass since 1994 I have whispered in my wife’s ear, “I love being a Catholic with you!”

When we joined the Church it was Janet, me and our four kids. Now our family has grown to 29 of us!

Thanks everyone for the great welcome and the marvelous family!

 

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Pope John Paul on Gay Pride Event in Rome in 2000: The Church Cannot Be Silent about the Truth

 

Sunday, July 9, 2000, Pope John Paul celebrated the Jubilee for Prisoners at “Regina Caeli” Prison in Rome…

He then said, “I feel obliged, now, to mention the well-known demonstrations held in Rome in the past few days.”

Rome had just hosted its first ever Gay Pride event that was attended by tens of thousands of activists.

“In the name of the Church of Rome,” said the Holy Father, “I can only express my deep sadness at the affront to the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 and the offence to the Christian values of a city that is so dear to the hearts of Catholics throughout the world. The Church cannot be silent about the truth, because she would fail in her fidelity to God the Creator and would not help to distinguish good from evil.

“In this regard, I wish merely to read what is said in the Catechism of the Catholic Church which, after noting that homosexual acts are contrary to the natural law, then states: ‘The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided’.

“These persons are called to fulfil God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition” (CCC, n. 2358). May the heavenly Mother assist us with her protection.”

Read Joan Lewis’ whole article here.

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Monkeypox vs. Covid 19

For 2 years Covid has been a thing. It was passed on by breathing and touching. To stop its transmission we were forced to wear masks, stay away from people and they closed our churches.

Monkeypox is now becoming a thing. It is mainly passed on by gay sex. To stop its transmission will they forbid random encounters and sodomy and close down gay bars?If not, why not? I think we all know.

Sixteen out of seventeen cases currently in the US are among gay men who have sex with other men according to CDC and Washington Examiner

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What Happened to the Apostles after the New Testament?

Here are two helpful charts with information about the life of the Apostles after Pentecost (coming up soon) and the way they were martyred.

Click on each image to enlarge it.

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The Inspiration of Scripture and “People of Faith”

A fellow Catholic wrote with a good question.

I would like to ask you a question. When I was in grade school, everyone just accepted the Bible as the Word of God. If you said, “It’s in the Bible” then it was assumed to be true, even if it was a very questionable interpretation. Now, I think that the number of people who believe that the Bible is true is dwindling rapidly.

If someone were to ask, “Why should I accept the Bible as the Word of God?”, I think Protestants would quote 2 Tim 3:16 (“All scripture is inspired by God”) or say that it is self-evident. Catholics would say that Scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit, who cannot lie, therefore, it is true. I think that is a valid argument, but it seems like not enough for many people today. 

So the question is, why don’t Catholics defend the Bible using other arguments as well? For example, archaeology? You have been very good at that, and John Bergsma talks about the Dead Sea Scrolls and has a talk called ‘But Did it Really Happen’ but I don’t hear much about it in general. 

How about textual criticism (and countering Bart Erhman)? Brant Pitre has the Case for Jesus, but otherwise, I only know of Protestants e.g. Craig Evans making a case. Any comments are welcome. It just seems like I am missing something. FYI, I personally believe that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God. 

Patrick from Wisconsin

My response:

Patrick

I agree with you completely. We have done a very poor job in our age of making our case. Catholic tend to retreat into a life of devotion and prayer and detach themselves from the bump and grind of the real world and its issues. In some ways, we have fallen prey to the secular way of looking at Scripture. We think of ourselves as “faith people” with a “faith walk” which are phrases that are new on the scene and I have a big aversion to them.

The world, and all to often our own camp as well, think that faith = fairy tale, or faith = believing in something completely non-verifiable in a scientific way. This is not me and many of the new scholars like Hahn, Pitre, and others of course, but unhappily it is true of too many Catholics and Protestants.

I understand the word “faith” as a belief in something with good and sufficient reasons, verifiable facts, and rational arguments. As an example, why do I sit on my dining chair? Because I have good and sufficient reasons to believe it will hold me up. I have faith in the chair.

But the modern use of the word to often means to be a silly adherence to irrational and unscientific things— like healings, miracles, the resurrection, need for prayer, Real Presence, the inspiration of Scripture, etc. Very sad and we tend to play right into the hands of the secular world.

By the way, 2 Timothy 3:16 does not necessarily prove our 73 books of the Bible are all inspired. It only informs us that St. Paul claims the Old Testament writings were breathed by God but has nothing to say concerning the New Testament books except by extrapolation.

When I was younger there was an atheist named Madeline Murray O’Hare who has since disappeared. She would get on TV shows and the Christians in the audience would stand up and quote at her from the Bible. She would say, “I don’t believe that silly old book full of old tales and spiritual experiences. It has no authority.” The next person would stand up and quote from the Bible again. It was useless and embarrassing. No one knew how to confront her in a meaningful way.

We have to confront the atheist, secularist, materialist, Marxist, skeptics on their OWN ground. They have no ultimate meaning to life and we need to push them into a corner and force them to see their meaningless existence without God and the Christian gospel. It is satisfying to do, but very few do it. They retreat into the “faith walk” and join the “faith groups” and have no idea how to explain and defend the truth of Catholicism philosophically, historically, archaeologically, rationally and biblically. Sad.

No wonder the world is not flocking into the Church the way it did when we had intellectual giants and a whole different world view we wore on our sleeves. Do I see a change on the horizon— unhappily no. I pray for a combination of spiritual and intellectual reformation and revival.

Steve Ray

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