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God Gives Us Many Possibilities to Love Him or Not to Love Him. You have to decide. Don Reto Nay 30th of March 2011 Eighths Homily Wroclaw, PolandMore
God Gives Us Many Possibilities to Love Him or Not to Love Him. You have to decide.
Don Reto Nay
30th of March 2011
Eighths Homily
Wroclaw, Poland
Don Reto Nay
Dear Holy Cannoli
Thanks for your precious comments. Let's cut right into the cake:
1. The homily is on the fourth sermon of the Gospel in Mt 18 which is the sermon on the Church.
2. The Old Testament is perhaps three times longer than the New Testament. The reason for this is that, most of the time, we live in the Old Testament. In this sermon, however, the focus is not on the Old Testament but …More
Dear Holy Cannoli

Thanks for your precious comments. Let's cut right into the cake:

1. The homily is on the fourth sermon of the Gospel in Mt 18 which is the sermon on the Church.

2. The Old Testament is perhaps three times longer than the New Testament. The reason for this is that, most of the time, we live in the Old Testament. In this sermon, however, the focus is not on the Old Testament but on the Church and the New Testament. That is the reason why I am so short on the Old Testament.

3. The indeed terrible imagery in Matthew that tells us to cut off an offending foot or hand or to pluck out an offending eye if they are a source of temptation and could lead us into hell, is actually not part of the fourth sermon on the Church, but of the first sermon, which is the "Sermon on the Mount". If I am not mistaken, I explain that passage there. In a nut-shell: The word about the eye and the food is part of the context where the attributes of the justice of God are explained.

Now, the suggestion of cutting off eyes or feet would (probably) be successfull only if not only eyes ad feet but everything else would be cut off as well. Referring to the justice of God this means: The justice of God cannot be based in any way on human flesh or human power.

4. Your comment on telling stories is very true. I would like to tell many more of them (and admire Protestant preachers who seem to have endless supplies of such stories). As you can see, I have only very few of them available...