Having enriched the faith of the laity, for the last two days, Mr. Stephen Ray touched and stirred the hearts and souls of about a thousand priests and religious men and women with the witness of his life in a special faith formation programme exclusively for them. Exposing the chief tenets of catholic faith Mr. Ray let the priests and the religious men and women to understand the unique gift of priesthood in the church. It is by means of the Apostolic succession, that priesthood has continuous link with the apostles and Jesus Christ , he asserted the practice of laying of hands of the Bishops, the men who wear the sandals of the Apostles that has been uninterruptedly practiced for the last two thousand years directly to bring priesthood in contact with Jesus Christ, who walked on this planet two thousand years ago, He affirmed the priests and the religious with great conviction. He further said that the call to religious life in the church sets apart men and women and lead them to be like Jesus Christ in full freedom and deep commitment to the Church and humanity. Passion for Jesus Christ and passion for humanity is the foundation of religious life in the Church.

He appealed the priests and religious to remain faithful to the Church and their catholic faith and protect the lay faithful from straying away from the catholic fold often tempted by the gospel of prosperity preached by dubious faith healers in our days.  He said that the gospel of prosperity is nothing but Cafeteria  religiosity that propagates a consumerist ‘name it and claim it’ mentality that is based on a  heretic theology  which equates health and wealth with divine blessings without any reference to the cross and the suffering .    He said that Jesus takes care of church through the ministry  Bishops and the Pope in his church . Hence, the priests and the religious are to live their life and ministry in communion with their respective Bishop who is the source of  apostolic  succession and communion with the universal church.