2018-6-1

朋友们，今天福音的核心是清理圣殿。耶稣进入耶路撒冷的圣殿——这座圣殿对当时的犹太人来说是最重要的——并开始全面整顿。圣殿被商人的买卖占据了，这一切使耶稣目瞪口呆，正是因为圣殿本应是神圣的。

 

从最初开始，基督作者和灵修导师就把圣殿看作是人的象征。事实上，圣保禄本人不是把人的身体称为圣神的宫殿吗？你自身本来就应该是天主之神居住的宫殿，在这个宫殿里面，祈祷以及与天主的共融是最重要的。

 

但我们这些罪人怎么了？货币兑换商和商人长驱直入。祈祷之地却成为贼窝。因此主必须像清理圣殿那样清理我们的内部：进行大扫除。你灵魂的宫殿状况如何？假如耶稣拿着一条用绳索编织着十大诫命的鞭子，祂在你内部驱逐出来的会是什么？

 

Friends, at the heart of today’s Gospel is the cleansing of the Temple. Jesus entered the great Temple in Jerusalem—which for a Jew of that time was everything—and began to tear the place apart. Precisely because the Temple was supposed to be so holy, Jesus was flabbergasted at what had happened to it, and how the trading of merchants had come to dominate.

 

From the earliest days, Christian writers and spiritual teachers saw the Temple as symbolic of the human person. In fact, didn’t Saint Paul himself refer to the body as a temple of the Holy Spirit? Your very self is meant to be a temple where God’s spirit dwells and where prayer, communion with God, is central.

 

But what happens to us sinners? The money changers and the merchants enter in. What is supposed to be a place of prayer becomes a den of thieves. And so the Lord must do in us now what he did in the Temple then: a little house-cleaning. What shape is the temple of your soul in? Suppose that Jesus has made a whip of cords, knotted with the Ten Commandments. What would he clear out of you?

 

2018-6-2

朋友们，在今天的福音中，司祭长、经师和长老来到耶稣跟前问：“你凭什么权柄作这些事？”

 

耶稣言行中的权威使祂的首批见证人大为惊讶。这不是因为祂的言行举止坚定又充满热情，而是因为祂拒绝参与所有辣彼的游戏，即以梅瑟为最终的权威。可以说，祂越过了梅瑟，就像祂在山中圣训开端时说：“你们一向听过给古人说…我却对你们说…”

 

祂的听众深知耶稣在本质上有别于的其他一切宗教传统或宗教体验。他们面对的是比梅瑟更伟大的先知。

 

而且，耶稣必须不只是一个先知。为什么？因为在存在的更基本的层面上发生了一场战争，它使我们都受伤了，确实，它使我们整个世界都受到损害。这场战争的后果是罪恶的破坏力，这一点我们都心知肚明。谁能承担这个后果？一个凡间俗子？恐怕不行。我们需要造物主的权力和权威，决意重造和救赎祂亲手创造的世界、包扎我们的伤口、使一切改邪归正。

 

Friends, in today’s Gospel, the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders approach Jesus and ask him, "By what authority are you doing these things?"

 

The first witnesses of Jesus were astonished by the authority of his speech and his actions. This wasn’t simply because he spoke and acted with conviction and enthusiasm; it was because he refused to play the game that every other rabbi played, tracing his authority finally back to Moses. He went, as it were, over the head of Moses, as he did at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount: "You’ve heard it said...but I say..."

 

His listeners knew they were dealing with something qualitatively different than anything else in their religious tradition or experience. They were dealing with the prophet greater than Moses.

 

And Jesus had to be more than a mere prophet. Why? Because we all have been wounded, indeed our entire world compromised, by a battle that took place at a more fundamental level of existence. The result is the devastation of sin, which we all know too well. Who alone could possibly take it on? A merely human figure? Hardly. What is required is the power and authority of the Creator himself, intent on remaking and saving his world, binding up its wounds, and setting it right.

 

2018-6-3

朋友们，今天的福音重点在于圣餐的精神力量。天主教教会最重要的主张是在圣餐的饼和葡萄酒之中有着耶稣的实质性存在。祂的存在不只是鼓舞性和象征性的，而是实际的、真实的和实质的。 

 

要以《圣经》来印证的话，可以读《玛窦福音》、《马尔谷福音》和《路加福音》中关于最后晚餐的描述——还可以读保禄的书信。但特别要读的是《若望福音》第六章。耶稣说：“你们若不吃人子的肉，不喝他的血，在你们内，便没有生命。”但当人们反对，祂并没有软化自己的说话，反而还加强语气。

 

这就是教会维护耶稣真实存在的根据。我们该如何理解？重点在于耶稣的身份。如果祂仅仅是个凡夫俗子，那么祂的说话充其量就是象征性的语言。但耶稣是天主，祂实话实说。

 

于是，当神父在圣餐仪式的祷文中引用耶稣的原话时，饼和葡萄酒即实际地、真实地、实质地变成了主的圣体和圣血。

 

Friends, today’s Gospel focuses on the spiritual power of the Eucharist. The central claim of the Catholic Church is that Jesus is substantially present under the forms of bread and wine. His presence is not simply evocative and symbolic, but rather real, true, and substantial.

 

To verify this scripturally, look at the accounts of the Last Supper in Matthew, Mark, and Luke—and also in Paul. But look especially at the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel. Jesus says, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” But when they object, Jesus does not soften his language; he intensifies it.

 

This is the ground for the Church’s defense of the Real Presence. How can we make sense of it? It has everything to do with who Jesus is. If he were simply an ordinary human being, his words would have, at best, a symbolic resonance. But Jesus is God, and what God says, is.

 

Thus, when Jesus’ words over the bread and wine are spoken, they change into what the words signify. They become really, truly, and substantially the Body and Blood of the Lord.