原文|Bishop Barron
翻译|Carrie

2017-9-12

朋友们，在今天的福音中，耶稣先点了十二门徒的名，然后治愈了为数众多的病人。这一大帮病人代表着我们，因为我们都需要救世主的回春妙手。

 

我们本来是为了爱、联合、正义和非暴力而活的，却事事处处都朝仇恨、分离、非正义和暴力的方向扭曲着。正如圣奥古斯丁所说的，我们在统治欲的掌控下徘徊于各执己见的国度里。当代哲学家勒内·吉拉尔曾提醒过我们：人类所有的社会制度安排都是以诿过于人和镇压为特征的。

 

把人类描述为“反常的精神家族”是最好不过的，我们一出生就被罪恶的影响打上了烙印。从个人到社会机构，罪恶都深入到人类生活的各个方面。我们若对此持有异议则是幼稚得无可救药。

 

因此，我们需要的并不只是一个哲学家或者社会理论家或者政治活动家或者军事英雄，而是一个能从外面打入我们的反常之内并治愈我们的救世主。

 

Friends, after Jesus names his twelve apostles in today’s Gospel, he heals a multitude of people. And that multitude represents us, for we all stand in need of the Savior’s healing touch.

 

We are made for love and connection and justice and nonviolence, but at every turn and in every way we are twisted in the direction of hatred, separation, injustice, and violence. We are, as St. Augustine put it, wandering in the land of dissimilitude and in the grip of the libido dominandi. The contemporary philosopher Rene Girard has reminded us that all of our social arrangements are marked by scapegoating and oppression.

 

The human race is best characterized as a dysfunctional spiritual family, all of us having been marked from birth by the effects of sin. Sin has found its way into every aspect of human life, personally and institutionally. We would be hopelessly naïve to think otherwise.

 

And so we need, not just a philosopher or social theorist or political activist or military hero, but a Savior, someone who can break into our dysfunction from the outside and heal us.