2018-6-24

朋友们，今天的福音庆祝洗者若翰的诞辰。老实说，你若不了解若翰，就无法真正了解耶稣，所以四位福音书作者都以施洗者的故事作为耶稣生平的序曲。

 

若翰没有哗众取宠，反而，他说自己只是一种铺垫、一个先驱，为主铺路的先知。他总结起以色列人的历史，但强调该历史是开放式的、未完成的。

 

因此，当他突然看见前来受洗的耶稣，他说，“看，天主的羔羊。” 那一刻该是多么震撼人心。当时活在公元一世纪的以色列人没有谁不懂他的意思：看，这位来做祭品的人。看，这份供品将总结、完善、成全圣殿。还有，看，这逾越节羔羊将总结逾越节的意义并使之得以成为现实。

 

因而，若翰说，“他应该兴盛，我却应该衰微。” 换句话说，序曲已尽，正剧登场。以色列的筹备工作已经完成，现在救世主将君临天下。

 

Friends, today’s Gospel celebrates the birth of John the Baptist. I think it’s fair to say that you cannot really understand Jesus without understanding John, which is precisely why all four Evangelists tell the story of the Baptist as a kind of overture to the story of Jesus.

 

John did not draw attention to himself. Rather, he presented himself as a preparation, a forerunner, a prophet preparing the way of the Lord. He was summing up much of Israelite history, but stressing that this history was open-ended, unfinished.

 

And therefore, how powerful it was when, upon spying Jesus coming to be baptized, he said, "Behold the Lamb of God." No first-century Israelite would have missed the meaning of that: behold the one who has come to be sacrificed. Behold the sacrifice, which will sum up, complete, and perfect the Temple. Moreover, behold the Passover lamb, who sums up the whole meaning of that event and brings it to fulfillment.

 

And this is why John says, "He must increase and I must decrease." In other words, the overture is complete, and now the great opera begins. The preparatory work of Israel is over, and now the Messiah will reign.

2018-6-25

朋友们，在今天的福音中，耶稣命令我们不要判断他人。他问，“为什么你只看见你兄弟眼中的木屑，而对自己眼中的大梁竟不理会呢？” 我们非常擅长找出别人的缺点，对自己的缺点却常常视若无睹。

 

在我年少时，曾经有本畅销书，名叫《我好你也好》（“I’m Okay and You’re Okay.”). 它代表了一种流行文化，即：自我开脱和自我感觉良好。几年前，歌手克里斯蒂娜·阿奎莱拉在歌中浅吟低唱着：“我在每一个方面都如此美丽，你的话打击不了我。” 看看当今众多的辩论，赢家的态度都是我有我创造和我有我主张。你有什么资格对我指手画脚？

 

这些都只能说明，我们根本就是不愿意正视自己的过失、缺点和阴暗面。我们为自己注射特效药，止住了来自真正自我觉悟的痛楚。从而，我们把自己贵为天主，自命十全十美、完美无缺并且无可挑剔。因此，“先从你眼中取出大梁，然后你才看得清楚，取出你兄弟眼中的木屑…”

 

Friends, in today’s Gospel Jesus commands us to stop judging others. He asks, "Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye?" We are exceptionally good at seeing the fault in others, but we are exceptionally adept at ignoring it in ourselves.

 

There was a very popular book that came out when I was a teenager. It was called, I’m Okay and You’re Okay. It represented the culture of exculpation and feel-good-about-yourself. Some years ago, Christina Aguilera crooned, "I am beautiful in every single way and words can’t bring me down." Look at so many of the debates today: the attitude that is winning is one of self-invention and self-assertion. Who are you to tell me how to behave?

 

In all of this, we are fundamentally looking away from our guilt, our fault, our darkness. We are effectively drugging ourselves, dulling the pain of real self-consciousness. In the process, we turn ourselves into God, pretending to be absolute, flawless, and impervious to criticism. So "remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye."

2018-6-26

朋友们，在今天的福音中，耶稣警告：“你们要从窄门进去，因为宽门和大路导入丧亡；但有许多的人从那里进去。”

 

自古以来，人们都一直在问这个问题：“是不是只有少数人获救？”天堂、地狱、救赎、永堕地狱——究竟谁会得救，谁会落入地狱？

 

我们对这些问题一直如此着迷是不足为奇的。但教会的官方回答是没有人知道答案。耶稣清晰地警告我们永堕地狱的真实可能性。我们确实知道天堂里有很多人，因为教会正式宣布所有圣人都进入了天堂。但教会里没有反圣人；从来没有人被教会正式宣布为地狱的居民。

 

因此，在不作出怎样都无所谓的假定的情况下，我们可以希望所有人都可能会获救。确实，圣保禄对弟茂德写道：“天主愿意所有的人都得救，并得以认识真理。”

 

因此，祈祷、希望并且尽力进入那道窄门。

 

Friends, in today’s Gospel Jesus warns, "Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through it are many."

 

A question that people have been asking from time immemorial is this: "Will only a few people be saved?" Heaven, hell, salvation, damnation—who will be in and who will be out?

 

We have remained, understandably enough, fascinated with these issues and questions for a long time. But the official answer of the Church is that we don’t know. We are clearly warned about the real possibility of damnation. We do indeed know that there are many in heaven, for the saints are formally declared to be so. But there are no anti-saints in the Church; there is no one whom the Church has formally declared to be a denizen of Hell.

 

Therefore, without succumbing for a moment to anything-goes presumption, we are permitted to hope that all people might be saved. Indeed, St. Paul writes to Timothy: "God wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth."

 

So pray, hope, and strive to enter through the narrow gate.

2018-6-27

朋友们，在今天的福音中，耶稣叫我们凭果实辨别树。保禄在《迦拉达书》第五章中写得很明确，他说圣神的效果是“仁爱、喜乐、平安、忍耐、良善、温和、忠信、柔和、节制”，暗示一个人若拥有圣神，其生活则会散发出这些扩展灵魂特质的光辉。

 

所有保禄所说的“圣神的效果”都是向外看、扩展性的伟大灵魂的标志，与罪人狭窄的灵魂相反。因此，仁爱就是为他人的利益服务；喜乐是奉献自我；忍耐是宽容烦恼；良善使他人变得温和；节制限制自我意识造成的混乱；等等。

 

圣神什么时候与我们同在？就是当我们唤醒并保持这些特质；当我们的灵魂变得伟大的时候。

 

Friends, in today’s Gospel Jesus tell us that a tree is known by its fruits. In the fifth chapter of his letter to the Galatians, Paul makes this very specific. He tells us that the fruits of the Holy Spirit are "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control," implying that the Spirit’s presence in one’s life can be read from its radiance in these soul-expanding qualities.

 

All of Paul’s "fruits of the Holy Spirit" are marks of an outward-looking, expansive magna anima (great soul), which stands in contradistinction to the pusilla anima (the cramped soul) of the sinner. Thus love is willing the good of the other as other; joy is self-diffusive; patience bears with the troublesome; kindness makes the other gentle; self-control restricts the havoc that the ego can cause; etc.  

 

When is the Spirit present? When these attributes are awakened and sustained; when our souls are made great.

2018-6-28

朋友们，今天的福音问我们如何应用主的教诲。“凡听了我这些话而实行的，就好像一个聪明人，把自己的房屋建在磐石上：雨淋，水冲，风吹，袭击那座房屋，它并不坍塌。”这段话的核心是：如果你植根于天主，那你就能经得起任何考验，正是因为你与创造宇宙的力量相连。在那最深处，你是有福的，是刀枪不入的。

 

但不把耶稣的圣言牢记于心的人，“就好像一个愚昧人，把自己的房屋建在沙土上：雨淋，水冲，风吹，袭击那座房屋，它就坍塌了，且坍塌的很惨。”当无可避免的考验到来，那些建于享乐、金钱、权力或名望之上的人生将分崩离析。

 

因而，问题是简单的：你站在哪里？你的心态如何？你的整个人生究竟是建于什么之上？

 

Friends, today’s Gospel asks how we apply the Lord’s teaching. "Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. But it did not collapse." This is the heart of it: if you are rooted in God, then you can withstand anything, precisely because you are linked to that power which is creating the cosmos. You will be blessed at the deepest place, and nothing can finally touch you.

 

But the one who does not take Jesus’ words to heart "will be like the fool who built his house on sand. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds buffeted the house. And it collapsed and was completely ruined." When the inevitable trials come, the life built on pleasure, money, power, or fame will give way.

 

So the question is a simple one: Where do you stand? How goes it with your heart? On what, precisely, is the whole of your life built?

2018-6-29

朋友们，今天的福音详细说明了伯多禄声明的重要性，因为教会正是建立于这一天启的声明。注意，教会并非建立于变幻无常、举棋不定的舆论之上，也不是建立于千载难逢的凡人圣洁之上，而是建立于伯多禄天启的权威之上——对此，我表示：“感谢天主！”

 

我们这个声明既令人不安又非比寻常：伯多禄及其继任者正是通过圣神特赐的神恩来统治教会的。我知道我的读者中有很多新教教友，而这篇福音一直以来都是天主教徒和新教徒之间的绊脚石。让我阐明至关重要的一点。

 

伯多禄的声明重点是什么？是耶稣的身份。这才是教会立足的磐石。我们并不是说伯多禄的所有实际决定、所有发言都是正确的，而是说他正确道出了耶稣的身份：既是人，又是永生天主之子。这就是整个教会的来源和根据。

 

Friends, today’s Gospel spells out the importance of Peter’s confession. For it is upon this inspired confession that the Church is built. Not, mind you, on popular opinion, which is shifting and indecisive, and not on personal holiness, which is all too rare. It is built upon the inspired authority of Peter—and I say, “thank God!”

 

We make this troubling and extraordinary claim that it is through a special charism of the Spirit that Peter and his successors govern the Church. Now, I realize that I have many Protestant readers and that this text has been, between Catholics and Protestants, a stumbling block. Let me clarify what is and is not at stake here.

 

What is the focus of Peter’s confession? It has to do with who Jesus is. This is the rock upon which the Church is built. We don’t say for a moment that all of Peter’s practical decisions are right, that everything he says is right. But we are saying that he is right about who Jesus is: a man who is also the Son of the living God. And this is the source and ground of the whole operation.