2018-6-18

朋友们，今天的福音是耶稣关于不抵抗恶人的教导。我们一直想天主与我们言行一致，也就是说不去爱那些不值得爱的人，只爱那些值得爱的人。但天主之道并非如此。

 

为什么你要为迫害你的人祈祷？为什么你不能以恶报恶——以牙还牙？因为天主之道并非如此，而你正被引入神圣的生活中。为什么有人掌击你的右颊，你应把另一面也转给他？是因为这样做切合实际？不是，而是因为天主就是这样做的，而天主正召唤你进入神圣的生活中。为什么你不能只爱那些爱你的人？因为天主就是这样的：祂爱圣人，也爱最坏的罪人。

 

这一切容易做吗？当然不是。我们是否只要下决心勤奋去做就能做得到？当然不行！因此爱被称为一种神学美德。爱是对神圣生活最纯粹的参与，爱只能来自天主。

 

Friends, today’s Gospel gives Jesus’ teaching about non-resistance to evil people. We are continually wanting God to behave as we would, that is to say, withdrawing his love from those who don’t deserve it and giving his love to those who do deserve it. But this is just not the way God operates.

 

Why should you pray for someone who is persecuting you? Why shouldn’t you be allowed at least to answer him in kind—an eye for an eye? Because God doesn’t operate that way, and you are being drawn into the divine life. Why should you turn the other cheek to someone who has struck you? Because it’s practical? No, because that’s the way God operates, and you’re being called into the divine life. Why should you go beyond simply loving those who love you? Because that’s the way God operates: he loves the saints and he loves the worst of sinners.

 

Is any of this easy to do? Of course not. Are we able to get to this state through willing it, through earnest practice? Of course not! That’s why love is referred to as a theological virtue. It is the sheerest participation in the divine life, and it can only come from God.

2018-6-19

朋友们，今天的福音吩咐我们去爱我们的敌人，从而使得我们能像天父那样。耶稣基督的父亲是怎样的？听着：“他使太阳上升，光照恶人，也光照善人；降雨给义人，也给不义的人。” 耶稣基督的父亲完全就是爱。爱是天主的全部；天主能做的除了爱，还是爱。天主不像我们这样捉摸不定、变幻莫测、见异思迁。天主纯粹就是爱。

 

无论如何，恩典先行，天主能给予我们的除了恩典，还是恩典。那就是为什么阳光雨水的比喻是如此的恰如其分。太阳在照耀之前并不先问谁值得享受它的光和暖，它只管普照大地，好人坏人均可享用。同样，雨水在滋润万物之前不会先问人们的道德操守如何，它只管倾注—同时滋养着正人君子和卑鄙小人。

 

Friends, today’s Gospel tells us to love our enemies so that we may be like the Father. What is the Father of Jesus Christ like? Well, listen: "He makes his sun to rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust." The Father of Jesus Christ is love, right through. That’s all God is; that’s all he knows how to do. He is not like us: unstable, changing, moving from one attitude to another. No, God simply is love.

 

In every case, his grace comes first, and grace is all that he has to give. This is why the comparison to the sun and the rain is so apt. The sun doesn’t ask who deserves its warmth or its light before it shines. It just shines, and both good and bad people receive it. Neither does the rain inquire as to the moral rectitude of those upon whom it showers its life-giving goodness. It just pours—and both just and unjust people receive it.

 

2018-6-20

朋友们，今天的福音要求我们做三件事：祈祷、禁食和施舍。今天让我们重点说说祈祷。研究显示祈祷是一种非常普遍、受欢迎的行为，甚至不信天主的人都会祈祷。

 

什么是祈祷？我们应该怎样祈祷？祈祷是我们与天主的亲密交流和对话。根据耶稣的人生历程来判断，我们应该经常祈祷，尤其是在关键时刻。

 

那么，我们应该如何祈祷？祈祷是怎样的？你祈祷时必须心怀信德，并且以耶稣为榜样，带着宽恕之心祈祷。祈祷的效力似乎有赖于各种差异的和解。

 

你还必须坚持祈祷。我们祈祷却未能如愿以偿的原因是我们太轻易放弃。奥古斯丁说，天主有时延迟满足我们的愿望因为祂希望我们的心得到扩展。

 

最后，我们必须以耶稣的名义祈祷。这样，我们靠的是耶稣对圣父的影响力，深信圣父会听从耶稣。

 

Friends, today’s Gospel asks us to do three things: pray, fast, and give alms. Let’s focus today on prayer. Studies show that prayer is a very common, very popular activity. Even those who profess no belief in God pray!

 

What is prayer, and how should we pray? Prayer is intimate communion and conversation with God. Judging from Jesus’ own life, prayer is something that we ought to do often, especially at key moments of our lives.

 

Well, how should we pray? What does it look like? You have to pray with faith, and according to Jesus’ model, you have to pray with forgiveness. The efficacy of prayer seems to depend on the reconciliation of differences.

 

You also have to pray with persistence. One reason that we don’t receive what we want through prayer is that we give up too easily. Augustine said that God sometimes delays in giving us what we want because he wants our hearts to expand.

 

Finally, we have to pray in Jesus’ name. In doing so we are relying on his influence with the Father, trusting that the Father will listen to him.

2018-6-21

朋友们，今天的福音具有重大意义，因为圣子耶稣在教我们如何祈祷。这并不是什么精神领袖、灵修导师或宗教天才，而是天主的亲子。所以天主经，也就是主祷文是所有祈祷的典范。

 

主祷文是为基督教的信仰旅程而设的，在过去的两千多年来一直被念诵。我们想想，主祷文是怎样把我们和基督教历史上的伟人们联系起来的，从伯多禄和保禄到奥古斯丁、多马斯·阿奎納、阿西西的方济各、若望·亨利·纽曼、G.K.切斯特顿、若望·保禄二世，直到今天。

 

请记住，祈祷并不是用来改变天主的心意或者告知天主闻所未闻的事情。天主不像土豪劣绅或达官贵人那样需要我们去说服。更确切地说，天主唯一想做的就是给予我们好东西—尽管这些好东西不一定是我们想要的。

 

Friends, the Gospel for today is of great significance, for in it the Son of God teaches us to pray. We hear from not just a guru, a spiritual teacher, or a religious genius, but from the very Son of God. This is why the Our Father, the Lord’s Prayer, is the model of all prayer.

 

The Lord’s Prayer is the prayer for the Christian journey which has been offered up consistently for the past two thousand years. Think for a moment how this prayer links us to all of the great figures in Christian history, from Peter and Paul to Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Francis of Assisi, John Henry Newman, G.K. Chesterton, John Paul II, and right up to the present day.

 

Keep in mind that prayer is not designed so much to change God’s mind or to tell God something he doesn’t know. God isn’t like a big city boss or a reluctant pasha whom we have to persuade. Rather, he is the one who wants nothing other than to give us good things—though they might not always be the things we want.

2018-6-22

朋友们，在今天的福音中，耶稣叫他的门徒不要在地上积蓄财宝，但该在天上积蓄财宝，“因为那里没有虫蛀，没有锈蚀，那里也没有贼挖洞偷窃。”

 

圣奥古斯丁曾说因为所有受造物都是无中生有，所以万物都带有非存在的传承。一切有限之物都无法摆脱虚无的阴影。

 

我们都深切体会到这个道理，用一种高度哲学性方式来说就是：在这个世上的事物无论是多么善、多么美、多么真或多么令人兴奋，都注定逐渐变成非存在。想想绚丽的烟花，绽放成巨大的花朵，然后眨眼之间永远消失。虚无缠绕着万物；一切最终都是烟花。

 

但这个道理不是要让我们沮丧，而是要我们把注意力转向天上的财宝和天主的永恒。一旦我们以天主为出发点来看待万物，我们就能学会爱世上的一切但不会紧握不放，也不会寄予厚望。想一想如果我们都懂得这个真理，那么我们就能避免多少失望和心痛啊！

 

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples not to store up treasures for themselves on earth, but to store up treasures in heaven, "where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal."

 

St. Augustine once said that since every creature is made ex nihilo, it carries with it the heritage of non-being. There is a kind of penumbra or shadow of nothingness that haunts every finite thing.

 

This is a rather high philosophical way of stating what all of us know in our bones: no matter how good, beautiful, true, or exciting a thing or state of affairs is here below, it is destined to pass into non-being. Think of a gorgeous firework that bursts open like a giant flower and then, in the twinkling of an eye, is gone forever. Everything is haunted by non-being; everything, finally, is that firework.

 

But this is not meant to depress us; it is meant to redirect our attention precisely to the treasures of heaven, to the eternity of God. Once we see everything in light of God, we can learn to love the things of this world without clinging to them and without expecting too much of them. Think of how much disappointment and heartache could be avoided if we only learned this truth!

2018-6-23

朋友们，今天的福音敦促我们把人生完全交托于天主。《圣经》中使我们不得不深思何为信德的地方多不胜数！可以说，《圣经》以信德为基础，处处可见受信德精神鼓舞的痕迹。

 

保罗·蒂利希说“信德”是宗教词汇中最被人误解的词语，我一直觉得他说的对。信德是什么？是信赖天主存在的态度。信德是无论天主启示什么、要做什么、要向我们作出怎样的邀请，我们都坦然接受。在面对无限的、全能的天主，我们显然从来都没有控制权。

 

我们在圣人们身上看到的正是这种情况：特蕾莎修女怀着对天主的信任住进了全世界最脏乱的贫民窟；亚西西的方济各放弃一切全然为天主而活；罗斯·霍索恩决定让癌症患者住进自己的家中；圣安东尼把所有抛诸脑后走进沙漠；马希连·国柏说，“我是个天主教神父，让我来代替他去死。”

 

别忧心忡忡，把一切交托给天主。要心怀信德！

Friends, our Gospel today calls us to entrust our lives completely to God. How often the Bible compels us to meditate on the meaning of faith! We might say that the Scriptures rest upon faith, and that they remain inspired at every turn by the spirit of faith.

 

Paul Tillich said that "faith" is the most misunderstood word in the religious vocabulary, and I’ve always felt that he’s right about that. What is faith? Faith is an attitude of trust in the presence of God. Faith is openness to what God will reveal, do, and invite. It should be obvious that in dealing with the infinite, all-powerful person who is God, we are never in control.

 

This is precisely what we see in the lives of the saints: in Mother Teresa moving into the worst slum in the world in an attitude of trust; in Francis of Assisi just abandoning everything and living for God; in Rose Hawthorne deciding to take cancer sufferers into her own home; in Antony leaving everything behind and going into the desert; in Maximilian Kolbe saying, "I’m a Catholic priest; take me in his place."

 

Do not worry, and depend on God for everything. Have faith!