Please pray for all Christians in the Middle East to be safe this Ramadan

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It’s your attitude that contradicts the Catechism. If you can’t see that, then I guess you’re just as hopeless as the Pharisees that you cite.
Have a nice day.
 
I don’t think that evangelizing Muslims and expressing the sentiment that their holy month be blessed with safety are mutually exclusive.

Often our best opportunities for evangelizing arise from showing respect for the beliefs of others. Many people stop listening when they think you are not showing them the respect that they believe they are entitled to.

Christ was and is better equipped to make judgments about people and their beliefs than I am. Showing respect is not an admission that I believe that Allah is the only God and Mohammad is his prophet.
 
thephilosopher6 said:
A blessed Ramadan? It’s fine to wish them a happy Ramadan, but a blessed one? There’s nothing holy about this holiday at all.
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Just to be clear. Are you saying you want to wish Muslims an unblessed Ramadan? One fill with violence? Seems to contradict your OP?
Please make up your mind.
I myself would want God to bless them with holiness so they don’t do any violence and that their lives will be filled with goodness and not persecute Christians or anybody else.
 
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The principal prayer for Muslims should be that they give up their false religion and find faith in Christ.
 
That is why Muslims need more not less of God’s blessings and grace and help in order for this to happen. Without God’s saving grace this cannot happen. I wish all kinds of goodness and holiness and blessings be upon our Muslim brothers and sisters!
 
The best part about Ramadan when I lived in Saudi Arabia was everything opened up after the evening prayer and stayed open all night - all the shops, restaurants, malls, it was mental. Most of the people were in a grand mood and the air was almost festive.

The worst part about Ramadan was the night we were driving back from the Faisaliah Centre and a laser pointer shot through our SUV and focused on both of us in turn for a few blocks. That was not fun. That was Ramadan in 2001, when a lot of that sort of thing was going on involving expats.

But you couldn’t live holed up in your compound. :woman_shrugging:t3:
thephilosopher6 said:
But it isn’t holy to us.
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When I lived over there I lived in their country, and I never took offense when someone would wish me “Ramadan Mubarak” (Happy Ramadan) or “Eid Mubarak”. Christmas is of course illegal in the Kingdom, but on Christmas Day we’d go out for coffee before I’d start cooking dinner and invariably a couple of Saudis would slip in close to our table and whisper “Merry Christmas” to my husband and nod with a smile at me (they were usually men, and legally could not speak to me).

It was their holiday, and it was their way of extending their feelings of the season to another person. Sure, maybe some of them wished to attempt to offend, but the ones I could speak to always got a smile and the phrase in return.

I was never offended when someone would wish me a Happy Ramadan. It’s no different than us wanting to wish someone a Merry Christmas (or in my house, Happy Christmas, of course, LOL) and not wanting them to be all up in arms about it.

Would you not tell a Jewish person “Happy Hanukkah?”

(On a side note, I’ll never forget the night we were in a BHS - sort of like a British Target - and one of the Bangladeshi salesmen looked at us and whispered, “Christian?” We wondered what he meant and said, “Yes,” in return. He looked at us and said, “Come,” and opened a side door where a very small shipment of Christmas decorations was secreted. “Christian!” he said again. No, I’m not making this up, LOL! So I have Christmas tree decorations that I bought in a British store in Riyadh!)
 
The Christian black market. lol. That is a great story. I’m going to share it with my friends.
 
I promise you it’s 100% true. We still have the ornaments to this day. One of them is a fat Christmas moose and is still my husband’s favorite. They were actually the first ornaments we bought as a couple. 🙂

(He used to drive around Riyadh on Christmas Day playing “Mary’s Boy Child” with the windows down. LOL.)
 
I believe you. I can picture it in my minds eye. Sneaking over to the side door to see the Christmas ornaments. lol.

Your story is a reason why everyone should travel and see the world. You miss out on life experiences that are some of the finest memories when you never venture out.
 
That is EXACTLY what happened. 😂😂

What was awesome was how happy the guy was to share it with us. Lol.
 
Pup7 said:
The worst part about Ramadan was the night we were driving back from the Faisaliah Centre and a laser pointer shot through our SUV and focused on both of us in turn for a few blocks. That was not fun. That was Ramadan in 2001, when a lot of that sort of thing was going on involving expats.
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Holy… I would have crapped my pants…
 
Yeah I know. Wasn’t the greatest place anyway. But the cafe in the one in Southampton at Below Bar had the best pasta. 😂😂
 
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Maximilian75 said:
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Pup7:
The worst part about Ramadan was the night we were driving back from the Faisaliah Centre and a laser pointer shot through our SUV and focused on both of us in turn for a few blocks. That was not fun. That was Ramadan in 2001, when a lot of that sort of thing was going on involving expats.
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Holy… I would have crapped my pants…
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It was close. Believe me.
 
My husband was working for the American government at the time. So we lived in Riyadh near the Royal Saudi Air Force base. I was there during the USS Cole attack (I had just seen her at the US base in Bahrain a couple of months before), the Al-Qeda bombings, the expat raids, 9/11, the anthrax scares, the US compound being bombed, all of it. This was just before I went to nursing school and after I separated as an enlisted USAF member.

It was…interesting.
 
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Woolies was by far the better store when it went. Wilkos has managed to fill its place in the market. BHS was tired and boring. I worked in a charity shop that sold BHS items from a few years back, and they were indisguishable from the clothes in there when they closed down. Still, they had fairly amusing gift items around Christmas time.

On topic though, yes, I will certainly pray for the safety of those who may become victims of extremist nutcases around this time. I have no axe to grind with the Muslims of my acquaintance practising their religion, but I certainly do feel a sense of familial bond with my fellow Christians who are targeted and will pray specifically for them. It’s not an either/or situation.
 
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