The Father Ray - Father Knott Connection

IT'S ALL RELATIVE!

Father Bob Ray and I go back a long way. We are both from St. Theresa Parish in Meade County. 

We both started out in the old St. Theresa Academy and were taught by
our beloved Sisters of Charity of Nazareth.

This is our Confirmation picture from 1955.
I was 11 years old and 3 years away from going to the seminary in 1958.
 We were both confirmed by Bishop Charles G. Maloney and
both ordained by Archbishop Thomas J. McDonough.

Sometime in the 1970s. I wonder why he always looked younger!

Celebrating St. Theresa's 175th anniversary. 

OUR SHARED FAMILY

Our grandmothers were sisters. 

These are Father Ray's grand parents, Lon and Mary (Mills) Ray

These are my grandparents, Lillian (Mills) and Leo Knott

His brother Richard and my sister Kaye are married to each other so we share common nephews. For them, I am sure it has been a burden sometimes to have two priest uncles!

Todd Ray, Craig Ray, Kaye (Knott) Ray, Richard Ray and Eric Ray. 

We both went to the parish school (St. Theresa Academy, St. Theresa School and Cross Roads School). I can still remember the day and location when and where Father Ray (we called him "Bud" and I was called "Ronnie."), told me that there was a seminary in Louisville that took guys out of grade school. He decided to go to the Catholic high School in Hardinsburg (St. Romuald High School was right across the border in the Owensboro Diocese) where my sister, Brenda, went as well. I decided to go to St. Thomas Seminary in Louisville. Father Ray joined me at St. Thomas for his first two year's of college. When he graduated, he went to St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore and I went to St. Meinrad's in Indiana. We were ordained a year apart. We have both been employed by St. Meinrad in our later years - he as a spiritual director and me as director of the ongoing formation program.

There were other Louisville priests from our parish when we were growing up: Father Joseph Henry Elder, Father Henry Lee Egert, Father Paul Manning OFM, Father Thomas Buren, Father Henry Vessels and Father Sebastian Cunningham, OFM, Conv. There have been several Sisters (Loretto, Charity, Ursuline, Dominican and Mercy). There was one religious brother, Brother Edwin Leonidian Burch of the Community of the Brothers of the Christian Schools. Not bad for a very small parish!

OUR CHILDHOOD PASTOR

Father Felix J. Johnson was our pastor from 1937-1960. He was your quintessential country pastor/builder/ruler of by-gone days. He built the rectory, convent, school, new cemetery and parish hall, laying most of the bricks personally. He raised sheep in the cemetery, offered his services as a "water witch" for people needing to drill for water and general consultant in legal matters.

GROWING UP COUNTRY

Like a scene from the 1986 movie, STAND BY ME, this is a local gang of country kids 

playing in the woods on a Sunday afternoon.

That's me on the left eating a roasted marshmallow with my shirt buttoned to the very top. 

The rest are Rays, Pophams and Speaks.

I know that Father Ray has been a horse admirer most of his life, but I forgot how much
I shared in his love of horses. That's me on one of his horses.

Another shot of me holding the reins while his brother held the bridle.

"Ronald Reagan" Knott around 1960 on one of Father Ray's horses
during a summer break from Saint Thomas Seminary.  

Father Bob Ray's First Mass. 

On the right, I served as the Deacon, on the left is Father Thomas Buren also from the parish and to the left of him is Father Edward Reavy, a former pastor. 

Another shot at Father Ray's First Mass. He still looks younger!

 Another shot of Father Ray's First Mass. He looked younger still! 

On his left, is his brother Richard, my brother-in-law. On my  right is his brother, Kenny. 

Father Ray's First Mass and My First Mass (below) almost look identical. 

My First Mass.

Father Ray second to the right me. Father Henry,Vessels third to the left of me, also ordained from St. Theresa parish. 

Saint Theresa Church - 175th Anniversary Celebration 

Father James Meder (a former pastor), Father Al Wilson (a former pastor), 

Archbishop Kelly, Father Ray and myself.

THE END

We will both be buried in St. Theresa Cemetery, a few feet from each other, as well as a few feet from Father Buren, Father Vessels and Father Johnson.

Since Father Ray is older, I guess he should go first? On second thought, I was in the seminary three years longer than he. However, he has been a priest a year longer! "You, first!" "No, you first!"

             WELCOME HOME,  BOYS, WELCOME HOME! 

MOVE OVER BILLY GRAHAM!

"Priests have as their primary duty the proclamation of the Gospel of God to all. For through the saving Word the spark of faith is struck in the hearts of unbelievers and fed in the hearts of the faithful."

Presbyterorum Ordinis

Vatican Council II

COMING TO MEADE COUNTY IN AUGUST

The Meade County Preaching Event of the Season

"A County Wide Catholic Revival" 

A SAMPLING OF MANY PAST PREACHING EVENTS

OVER 75 PARISH MISSIONS AND 100 PRIEST RETREATS 

Preaching at St. John Church, Mesopotamia, on the island of St. Vincent in the West Indies.

Preaching to the Chancery Staff in the Diocese of Victoria, British Columbia, CANADA

Preaching at daily Mass at Saint Meinrad Seminary

Preaching in the Owensboro, Kentucky, Cathedral of St. Stephan

Preaching to Young Protestant Preachers at Louisville Presbyterian Seminary 

Preaching at the Cathedral of the Assumption in Louisville, Kentucky, for 14 years

Preaching at Bellarmine University almost every Sunday night for 16 years. 

Preaching and Celebrating the Eucharist at St.Theresa Church on my Fortieth Anniversary

Preaching at the annual Louisville Presbyteral Assembly

Preaching to the archabbot, monks, retired archabbots of St. Meinrad and retired abbot and monks of Blue Cloud Abbey in the St. Meinrad Chapter Room for a week.

A break after preaching to the monks of St. Benedict Abbey in Atchison, Kansas, for a week.

A group picture after a week of preaching to Archishop Neary and the priests of Tuam, Ireland.

An official group shot after preaching for a week to Archbishop Weisgerber and the priests of Winnipeg, Canada. 

A group shot after a week of preaching to Bishop Lori and the priests of Bridgeport, Connecticut.

A nice shot of the priests of Little Rock after a week of preaching.

I actually preached to Cardinal Collins and the priests of Toronto, Canada, for four weeks!

Yes, the Cardinal listened to me preach

for two weeks, two years in a row. 

A nice group shot of Bishop Barnes and the priests of San Bernadino, California, at the end of their week long retreat. 

I preached to the priests of Cardiff, Wales, in this old castle for a week. 

I preached to the bishop and priests on London, Ontario, for a week.

I even preached at the Hotel Stanley (where the movie The Shining was shot) to the bishop and priests of Denver, Colorado, for a week.  

I preached to the bishop and priests of Richmond, Virginia, for a week as well.

Then there was a week with the bishop and priests of Scranton, Pennsylvania. I will actually be going back again this spring. 

Then there was a week with the bishop and priests of Regina, Canada. 



A week of preaching to the bishop and priests of Corner Brook-Labrador, Canada.

A week of preaching to the bishop and priests of Victoria, Canada

An evening of preaching to one of two groups of parishioners of Victoria, Canada

HOMILY 1-31-16

THE GOSPEL IS A TWO-EDGE SWORD 

IT UNSETTLES  THE SETTLED .....

.....AND SETTLES THE UNSETTLED

 BELLARMINE UNIVERSITY

Rev. Ronald Knott

January 31, 2016

They all spoke highly of him and were amazed at the gracious

 words that came from his mouth.

When the people heard (Jesus say) this, they were filled

with fury. They rose up, drove him out of town and led

him to the brow of the hill...to hurl him down headlong.

Luke 4

Preaching can be hazardous to your health and this story should make every preacher shake in his boots. I tremble every time I read it. I learned a long time ago that, when you preach, the safest approach is to tell people what they want to hear. You can, like Jesus, be run out of town on a rail if you cross the line and tell people what they don’t want to hear.

What went wrong in the pulpit that day that turned the crowd against Jesus?

We learned last week that Jesus had gone back home to Nazareth where he had been reared. On arriving at the local synagogue, he was asked to do the reading and give the homily. The first part of the homily went well. In fact, it says today that “people spoke highly of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.”

As he continued to preach, all of a sudden, things turned ugly. What ticked the congregation off? Well, you have to remember that Jews, “God’s chosen people,” taught back then that God’s love was exclusive to the Jews.  Gentiles, or non-Jews, were merely fuel for the fires of hell. In his homily, Jesus challenged that long-held belief by citing two examples from their own history. Jesus pointed out that in the days of the great prophet, Elijah, there were many hungry Jewish widows during a great famine, but God sent Elijah, not to them, but to a gentile widow of Zerephath.  Jesus also pointed out that in the days of the great prophet Elisha, there were many Jewish lepers, but God sent Elisha to cleanse none of them, but only a gentile leper from Syria. Here Jesus is telling them that God’s love is not restricted to Jews, but includes everyone. This was heresy and they weren’t about to hear any more of it, so they dragged him out of the pulpit, to a cliff outside town, intending to throw him over. He escaped by the skin of his teeth and got the hell out of Dodge.

I have been there and done that! I was regularly pointed out, in print and on the radio, as an example of the “unsaved” by fundamentalist preachers in southern Kentucky during my ten year stint down there. I was attacked on multiple fronts in an awful “white paper” circulated through our city by an anonymous group of fundamentalist Catholics when I was pastor of the cathedral. I even had a knife pulled on me in the cathedral during those years for reaching out to the divorced, gays and lesbians, minorities and fallen-away Catholics. The mistake I made, at least in their books, was to get up in the pulpit and tell them that God loved them too.  One man called us “the church of Satan.” They wanted these people excluded, condemned, shunned and banished from any hint of God’s love. 

I have been open and lucky enough to experience a variety of religions in the last 45 years. I have worked for the United Church of Christ. I graduated from a Presbyterian Seminary. I have helped start two interfaith organizations and I have worked as a “home missionary” in the Bible Belt. Some of those religions like to talk about exclusion. They like to talk about who’s in and who’s in God’s eyes, who will be saved and who will be damned, who is deserving of God’s love and who is not. Others of those religions talk about inclusion. They like to talk about other religions with respect, embracement, incorporation, admission and assimilation.

What is it about people who have a such a burning desire to dig holes for other people? This need to exclude others must be a cheap way of feeling superior and special, as if there was a shortage of love when it comes to God. This is not the view of Jesus. Jesus teaches us in the parables that God’s loves is universal and inclusive. The parables of the Prodigal Son, the Vineyard Workers, the Wedding Feast and the Lost Sheep have always given me personal encouragement and a clear vision for ministry. In the parable of the Prodigal Son, the Father loves both his sons: the one who left home and got down with the pigs, as well as the one who stayed home and did all the right things. In the parable of the Vineyard Workers all got a full days pay, not matter how much or how little they worked. In the parable of the Wedding Feast, the good and bad alike are invited to the feast. In the parable of the Lost Sheep, the shepherd leave the ninety-nine good sheep and goes off looking for the one who got lost.

At our baptisms, we were commissioned “ambassadors of Christ,” committed to carry his message of universal love to a world where people are constantly being put down, discriminated against and even hated in the name of God for looking different, believing differently and behaving differently. As baptized people who are loved, gifted and connected, we are also included in the boundless love of God. As baptized people, we are called, not only to believe it, but to teach it by the way we live and treat others.

I am not just a “catholic” by birth. I am a “catholic” by choice. “Catholic” means “universal” and “inclusive.” For that reason I am “catholic” and proud of it. As a “catholic,” I do not hope to be among the “few in number who will be saved.” I pray that we all make it: Catholics, Baptists, Jews, Methodists, Muslims, agnostics, atheists and everything in between! In one of the Eucharistic Prayers, at least in the old version, we pray that “In the new world where the fullness of your Peace will be revealed, gather people of every race, language and way of life, to share in the one eternal banquet with Jesus Christ our Lord.”