原文|Bishop Barron
翻译|Carrie

朋友们，在今天的福音中，耶稣称其门徒和我们“小孩子”：“你将这些事瞒住了智慧及明达的人，而启示了给小孩子”。何解？小孩子不懂得如何伪装、如何口是心非。“童言无忌”是因为他们不知道怎样隐藏真心。

 

这样说来，他们就像星星或者花朵或者动物，所有表里一致的东西，毫不含糊。精神生活的挑战在于认识到天主对我们的期许，从而简单直白地全身心去配合；在于找到自己最深刻的存在意义。

 

换个说法，小孩子还没学会怎样把目光放在自己身上。为什么孩子们做事时能够充满热诚、全神贯注？因为他们可以忘我；因为他们不在意自己，不在意身边人的反应、期望和认可。人生至乐在于丢失自我、忘我地活着、恰如其分地符合天主的期许。

 

Friends, in today's Gospel Jesus calls his disciples and us "childlike": "Although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike". How so? Children don't know how to dissemble, how to be one way and act another. "Kids say the darndest things," because they don't know how to hide the truth of their reactions.

 

In this, they are like stars or flowers or animals, things that are what they are, unambiguously. The challenge of the spiritual life is to realize what God wants us to be and thereby come to the same simplicity and directness in our existence. To find out what is in line with the deepest grain of our being.

 

Let me put this another way: children haven't yet learned how to look at themselves. Why can a child immerse himself so eagerly and thoroughly in what he is doing? Because he can lose himself; because he is not looking at himself, conscious of the reactions, expectations, and approval of those around him. The best moments in life occur when we lose the ego, lose ourselves in the world and just are as God wants us to be.