Take a pilgrimage with Steve and Janet Ray!

Flying to Speak in Texas! Join the Conference!

June 11, 2021 No Comments

For the 3rd weekend in a row I am flying out to speak at conferences! Good to be back in the air and meeting with real people and real places!

I am speaking this week along with Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers and Trent Horn at the Fullness of Faith Conference entitled “Why Be Catholic When You Could Be Anything Else?”

If you’re anywhere near Plano Texas (suburb of Dallas), we hope you can join us. You can also join virtually by clicking here.

Temple Sizes Compared – bigger than a football field

June 9, 2021 1 Comment

I thought I would share again this blog about the size of temples of Israel.

The 1) Tabernacle in the wilderness, the 2) Temple of Solomon, 3) Herod’s Temple at the time of Christ and 4) Ezekiel’s Temple are compared. The football field looks insignificant compared to the temples (in more than one way 🙂

The Muslim Shrine that now sits atop Temple Mount is built over the rock where Abraham offered his son Isaac as a holocaust. Solomon’s Temple had earlier been built over this site (Gen 22:2; 2 Chron 3:1). Solomon’s Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC and it was rebuilt when the exiled Jews returned to Jerusalem about seventy years later. It was not as elegant as Solomon’s but King Herod later rebuilt the Temple during the time of Christ. The 2nd Temple rebuilt by Herod was a glorious structure.

The Romans razed Herod’s Temple to the ground in 70 AD. In the 7th century, Suleiman the Magnificent built the current Muslim Shrine in the place of the Temple where it still stands today.

Will the Jews ever build a new temple there – what they call “The 3rd Temple”? No, because the 3rd Temple has already been built! It is the one described in Ezekiel 40. The Jews think this refers to an actual physical temple they hope to build someday in place of the Dome of the Rock, but Ezekiel is actually prophetically referring to the new Temple which is Christ’s Body. We are the Church and the Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, the New Temple.

I also do not believe the Ark of the Old Covenant will ever be found (no matter how hard Indiana Jones looks for it). The old Ark has been replaced by the Ark of the New Covenant just like the old Temple has been replaced by the Temple of the New Covenant. Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant.

Screen Shot 2013-12-26 at 10.16.52 AM — Notice the River of Life flowing from the Holy of Holies!!

Cicadas invade our quiet neighborhood

June 8, 2021 No Comments

Every seventeen years the cicadas come out of the ground. They have been living underground in the larvae stage for seventeen years. However, there are some species that live a year in the ground and others live 13 years in the ground. The species that emerge after 17 years — this is their year, and BOY, can you hear them from our front porch. The woods are full of them.

Enjoy this short 1 1/2 minute video I took in the woods adjacent to our land.

From Encyclopedia Britannica: ”

Female cicadas usually lay their eggs in woody plant tissues that drop from the plant when, or shortly after, the eggs hatch. Newly hatched nymphs burrow into the ground where they suck juices from roots of perennial plants. Nymphs usually undergo five molts during the several years required to reach maturity. Although not ordinarily considered a pest, the females, if numerous, may damage young saplings during their egg-laying.