2018-5-28

朋友们，在今天的福音中，阔少年问耶稣必须做什么才能得以永生。这个少年有着真知灼见，他的灵修生活生机勃勃，他深知自己对于永生的渴求，并知道如何得偿所愿。

 

耶稣列举了众多诫命来回答他的问题。少年聆听后回答：“师傅！这一切我从小就都遵守了。”耶稣于是充满爱意地看着他说，“去，变卖你所有的，施舍给穷人。然后来跟随我。”

 

天主完完全全就是爱，因而在最丰富的意义上，与天主为友的人生即是彻底、忘我地去爱的人生。耶稣感到这个少年能够应付灵修生活的大冒险；他问到点子上了而且也准备充分。

 

然而说到这个份上，少年人悲剧性地退缩了。最高意义的精神生活在于把自己的人生奉献出去，因此，丰厚的家产是个难题。

 

Friends, in today’s Gospel a rich young man asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. There is something absolutely right about the young man, something spiritually alive, and that is his deep desire to share in everlasting life. He knows what he wants, and he knows where to find it.

 

Jesus responds to his wonderful question by enumerating many of the commandments. The young man takes this in and replies, "Teacher, I have kept all these since my childhood." So Jesus looks at him with love and says, "Go and sell what you have and give to the poor. After that come follow me."

 

God is nothing but love straight through, and therefore the life of friendship with him, in the richest sense, is a life of total, self-forgetting love. Jesus senses that this young man is ready for the high adventure of the spiritual life; he is asking the right question and he is properly prepared.

 

But at this point, the young man tragically balks. The spiritual life, at the highest pitch, is about giving your life away, and this is why having many possessions is a problem.

 

2018-5-29

朋友们，今天的福音告诫我们领会追随耶稣的激进性及其回报，因为追随耶稣打破了许多当时及现今的社会惯例。祂敦促我们明白到所有人——贫富、男女、圈内圈外人——都受召唤成为耶稣的信徒，而这个召唤是世上最重要的事情，比任何事情都更好，用耶稣的话说，就是最必要的一件事。

 

圣奥古斯丁说得对：“主啊，我们生来本就属于你；因此，离开了你，我们的心就颠沛流离。”我们都是为天主而设的。我们心中都有种饥渴是这个世界永远无法填充的。只有耶稣能带领我们进入天堂的盛宴，所以我们必须追随祂。

 

Friends, today’s Gospel exhorts us to see the radicality and rewards of Jesus’ call to discipleship, which cuts through so many of the social conventions of his time and ours. He urges us to see that everyone—rich and poor, men and women, those on the inside and those on the outs—is summoned to discipleship, and that this summons is the most important consideration of all. It is the better part, to use Jesus’ words; it is the one thing necessary.

 

St. Augustine was right: “Lord, you have made us for yourself; therefore, our heart is restless until it rests in thee.” We are all wired for God. There is a hunger in us that nothing in this world can possibly satisfy. Only Jesus can lead us to the heavenly banquet; and that’s why we must follow him.