原文|Bishop Barron
翻译|Carrie

朋友们，在今天的福音中，耶稣提出天国属于那些像小孩子一样的人。为什么？首先，小孩子不懂得如何伪装、如何口是心非。他们表里如一、言为心声。“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，毫不复杂。他们符合天主最深的旨意。

 

换个说法，他们还没学会怎样把目光放在自己身上。为什么小孩子做事时能够充满热诚、全神贯注？为什么他们能够在最简单的事情上找到乐趣，例如围绕单一的轨道推着玩具火车，或者对一个视频百看不厌，或者一个球能踢半天？因为他们可以专心致志；因为他们不在意自己，不在意别人的反应、期望和认可。

 

注意，这种童真并非不谙世故、一事无成或者幼稚无知。多玛斯·阿奎那是人类历史上最有造诣的学者之一、教会历史上最伟大的知识分子、西方历史上最有洞察力的思想家之一。然而，当人们形容他时用得最多的词语是“孩子般的”和“天真无邪”。

 

童真植根于天主对我们的旨意。多玛斯是个天生的神学家和作家，没有什么能让他迷失自我：反对者的评论打击不了他；修会会长的吹捧左右不了他；成为主教的诱惑影响不了他。他不改初衷、矢志不渝地遵从天主对他的旨意，因此他就像一座大山或者一朵鲜花，或者，真真正正地像一个小孩子。

 

Friends, in our Gospel for today, Jesus proposes that the Kingdom of heaven belongs to those who are like children. Why? For starters, children don't know how to dissemble, how to be one way and act another. They are what they are; they act in accordance with their deepest nature. "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, uncomplicatedly. They are in accord with God's deepest intentions for them.

 

To say it another way, they haven't yet learned how to look at themselves. Why can a child immerse himself so eagerly and thoroughly in what he is doing? Why can he find joy in the simplest thing, like pushing a train around a track or watching a video over and over, or kicking a ball around? Because he can lose himself; because he is not looking at himself, not conscious of other people's reactions, expectations, and approval.

 

Mind you, this childlikeness has nothing to do with being unsophisticated, unaccomplished, or childish. Thomas Aquinas was one of the most accomplished men to ever live, the greatest intellectual in the history of the Church, one of the subtlest minds in the history of the West. Yet the terms that were used over and over to describe him were "childlike" and "innocent."

 

Childlikeness has to do with that rootedness in what God wants us to be. Thomas was born to be a theologian and a writer, and nothing would get him off of that beam: neither the critiques of his enemies, nor the blandishments of his religious superiors, nor the temptations to become a bishop. He was and remained who God wanted him to be and thus he was like a great mountain or a flower or, indeed, a child.