原文|Bishop Barron
翻译|Carrie

朋友们，在今天的福音中，耶稣审判不信祂的城镇，祂叹息道：“苛辣匝因啊！你是有祸的了！贝特赛达啊！你是有祸的了！因为在你们那里所行的异能，如果行在提洛和漆冬，他们早已披上苦衣，坐在灰尘中，而改过自新了。”而这篇福音对我们也是有所警示的。

 

神职人员进入一座城时先要做的是什么？“治愈病患。”基督是救主，治愈我们的身体和灵魂。很多圣人都是医治者；圣母的现身大多产生治疗效果。

 

教会的另一个重任是宣扬“天国临近”。教会是通报、宣讲、传道的有机体。我们宣扬的是在耶稣基督之内，一种全新的秩序已经出现，天主通过基督把万物带回祂身边。这个世界的重要秩序原则——钱、名望、权力、性、享乐——已被颠覆。新的君王已经降临，祂是新的安排生活的方式。爱、包容、同情、非暴力、宽恕，尤其是宽恕敌人——这如今是天主认可的方式。

 

Friends, in today's Gospel Jesus passes judgment on towns who have failed to believe in him and his signs: "Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would long ago have repented, sitting in sackcloth and ashes." And this Gospel contains a word for us.

 

What is the first thing that the minister should do upon entering a city? "Cure the sick there." Christ is Soter, healer of both body and spirit. So many of the saints were healers; so many of the apparitions of the Blessed Mother lead to healing.

 

Another great task of the church is to proclaim, "The reign of God is at hand". The Church is an announcing, proclaiming, evangelizing organism. What we proclaim is that, in Jesus Christ, a whole new way of ordering things has appeared, that God, in Christ, is drawing all things to himself. The great ordering principles of the world—money, fame, power, sex, pleasure—are overthrown. A new king has come, a new way of organizing life. Love, inclusion, compassion, nonviolence, forgiveness, especially of enemies—this is now the way sanctioned by God.

 

2017-10-5

朋友们，今天的福音，摘自《路加福音》出色的第十章，是教会的写照。它体现了耶稣对信徒的要求以及如何实践。福音的开头如下：“耶稣选定了七十二人，派遣他们两个两个地在他前面，到他自己将要去的各城各地去”。

 

我们是传教教会。主派遣我们去传播祂的圣言、为祂工作。我们不应自私自利地把基督福音据为己有，而是应该把它像种子一样撒播开去。

 

祂成双成对地派遣信徒。我们同心协力、团结合作。神职人员需要群众的支持、祈祷、对话和质疑。方济各得到了圣痕之后数月内聚集了众多支持者；圣道明从一开始就有兄弟们的帮助。德兰修女引来了众多往昔的学生加入她的救济组织。我们不特立独行。

 

Friends, our Gospel, taken from the magnificent 10th chapter of Luke's Gospel, is a portrait of the Church. It shows us what Jesus wants his followers to be doing and how to do it. Listen to how the passage begins: "The Lord appointed a further seventy-two and sent them in pairs before him to every town and place he intended to visit".

 

We are a missionary church. We are sent by the Lord to spread his word and do his work. The Christian Gospel is just not something that we are meant to cling to for our own benefit. Rather, it is like seed that we are meant to give away.

 

He sends them two by two. We do this work together, with others, in community. Ministers need people to support them, pray for them, talk to them, challenge them. Francis has an experience of God and then, within months, gathers people around him; Dominic, from the beginning, has brothers in his work. Mother Teresa attracts a number of her former students to join her in her mission. We don't go it alone.

 

2017-10-4

朋友们，今天的福音是超脱原则的尤佳例子。当耶稣是你生活的明确中心，那么其他一切都各就各位、有条不紊。若任何东西企图影响我们和取代祂的地位，我们都必须全心全意去抵抗，并视之为谬误和诱惑。

 

我们看着耶稣向门徒说明一旦他们把祂尊为上主，那么许多世俗美事就烟消云散。我想审视其中之一。耶稣走向耶路撒冷的途中，有人接近祂说，“你不论往那里去，我要跟随你”。耶稣言简意赅地回答，“狐狸有穴，天上的飞鸟有巢；但是人子却没有枕头的地方”。我们珍惜的其中一样东西很自然就是家、落脚之地、一个窝、私密空间。无家可归和从头再来都有着无比可怕的性质。我们都想有枕头的地方。

 

但如果耶稣在我们生活中居首要地位，那么我们就不能把这件美事绝对化。我们必须心甘情愿跟随祂、任祂差遣，无论是天涯还是海角。

 

Friends, our Gospel for today is an especially good exemplification of the principle of detachment. When Jesus is the unambiguous center of your life, then everything else finds its place around him, in relation to him. And anything that would assert itself and take his position must be resisted wholeheartedly as an idol and a temptation.

 

We watch as Jesus clarifies for his disciples how a number of worldly goods fall away, once he is recognized as Lord. I want to look closely at one of these. As Jesus makes his way to Jerusalem, a man approaches him and says, "I will follow you wherever you go". And Jesus makes the laconic remark, "Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head". One of the things, quite naturally, that we savor is home, a place to stay, a nest, a man-cave. There is just something uniquely awful about being displaced, about starting all over. We all want a place to lay our heads.

 

But if Jesus is first in our lives, then we cannot absolutize this good thing. We have to be willing to follow him wherever he wants us to go.