2018-4-3

朋友们，今天的福音是圣若望记载的玛利亚玛达肋纳碰上复活了的耶稣。耶稣复活这个令人不安的事实引出一个有趣的教训，即这个世界并非终点。我的意思是这个世界并非我们的归宿。我们活于世上，都会假设身处的这个自然世界就是我们起居生活的最终框架，这是合乎情理的。而这个自然世界具有的最强大、最吓人的特征之一是死亡。所有活物都会死亡并且不会复活。

 

但是，如果死亡不是终点，那会怎样呢？如果天主以祂的力量和旨意创造一个“新天地”，那又会怎样呢？耶稣死而复活最明确地说明天主的计划远远超出我们的想象。

 

因此，死亡不再是我们的主宰。鉴于耶稣的复活，我们可以开始明白这个世界是个孕育之地，使我们得以成长和成熟，为更高尚、更恒久、更辉煌的归宿做好准备。

 

Friends, today’s Gospel reveals St. John’s report of Mary Magdalene’s encounter with the risen Jesus. An interesting lesson follows from the disquieting fact of the Resurrection, namely that this world is not it. What I mean is that this world is not all that there is. We live our lives with the reasonable assumption that the natural world as we’ve come to know it is the final framework of our lives and activities. And one of the most powerful and frightening features of the natural world is death. Every living thing dies and stays dead.

 

But what if death and dissolution did not have the final say? What if, through God’s power, and according to his providence, a "new heavens and a new earth" were being born? The Resurrection of Jesus from the dead shows as definitively as possible that God is up to something greater than we had imagined or thought possible.

 

And therefore we don’t have to live as though death were our master. In light of the Resurrection, we can begin to see this world as a place of gestation, a place of growth and maturation toward something higher, more permanent, and more splendid.