July 5, 2010 – Fraternized

For any who followed the release of GOD QUESTIONS HIS CREATION: A LOOK AT GENESIS 4-11 through the blogs of the last several months, I also made the blogs for each chapter of Genesis available as a PDF. If you would like to see the entire manuscript as one PDF document, it can be found at the link above.

Just a note, as I was releasing the reflections as a series of blogs, I did edit a very things in the texts – a very few additions and also corrections of typing and grammatical errors. The text in the PDF documents do not have these edits/corrections. The PDF is the document as originally produced in a series of emails to the members of St. Paul Church, Dayton, OH, and to anyone who asked to be included on that email list.

I thank everyone who noted edits which needed to be done, especially Brad M from St. Paul Church.

The reflections began with the blog God Questions His Creation. You can find links to the PDFs of each Genesis chapter at https://frted.wordpress.com/2010/07/02/god-questions-his-creation-genesis-11-as-one-pdf-document/

In commenting on Matthew 18:21-35 (the unforgiving servant), St. John Chrysostom focuses on the idea of forgiveness of sins taught by Jesus:

The Prodigal Son embraced by His Forgiving Father

These words, however, about talents and denarii he did not speak idly; instead, his words are about sin and the immensity of our failings, so that we may learn that, though we are due to pay a debt to the Lord for our countless faults, we receive from him a remission of them on account of his ineffable love. If, however, we prove harsh and inhumane towards our fellow servants and our peers and those who share our nature with us, and do not cancel the faults they commit against us, but rather act badly on the grounds of those peccadilloes…then we will call down on our own heads the Lord’s anger, and for the debts of which we have received remission we will force him to require strict accounting under torture…Notice also the precision of the expression: he did not simply say, If you do not forgive people their sins, but what? “ ‘If each of you does not forgive his brother his failings from his heart.’” Notice how he wants even our hearts to have the good fortune to enjoy peace and quiet, our thinking to be undisturbed and rid of every passion, and ourselves to demonstrate great kindness towards our neighbor. (St. John Chrysostom, The Fathers of the Church, Vol. 82, pg 179)