|Bishop Barron
翻译|Carrie

朋友们，在主受洗节这天，让我们默想洗者若翰。年轻的若翰是司祭匝加利亚的儿子，在圣殿里面和周遭成长，熟悉圣殿礼仪。他感到真正的默西亚快要来临，所以离开旧圣殿，但继续作为新圣殿的司祭。

 

他给人们施洗。为什么？因为在耶路撒冷的圣殿，朝圣者要先在mikvah （仪式之浴）清洗自己，再入圣殿进贡。若翰执行着司祭的职责，约但河则是他的mikvah。但新圣殿是什么？或者更准确地说，新圣殿是谁？耶稣由加里肋亚纳匝肋来受洗于若翰。天裂开了，圣神有如鸽子，降在他上面。

 

这是圣殿语言。当大司祭进入圣中之圣，也就是进入天堂领域。圣中之圣是“天裂开”之处，谦卑的人可以由此进入。所以，重点就是耶稣本人就是新的圣中之圣。

 

Friends, on this feast of the Baptism of the Lord, let us meditate on John the Baptist. Young John, the son of the priest Zechariah, grew up in and around the Temple, acquainted with its rituals. And he sensed that the true Messiah was on the horizon. And so he went away from the old Temple, but he continued to act as a priest of a new Temple.

 

He was baptizing people. Why this ritual? Well, in the Jerusalem Temple, a pilgrim would cleanse himself in a mikvah, a ritual bath, before he entered to make sacrifice. John was acting as a priest, and the River Jordan was his mikvah. But what—or, better, who—was the new Temple? Jesus who came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John. The heavens were torn open and the Spirit, like a dove, descended on him.

 

This is Temple talk. When the high priest entered into the holy of holies, he was entering into the heavenly realm. The holy of holies was the place where the "heavens were torn open" and a humble human being could enter. So the point is that Jesus is himself the new holy of holies.

 

2018-1-9

朋友们，今天的福音讲述耶稣在葛法翁会堂遇到一个附魔的人。耶稣首次与邪魔对峙之处是个供人礼拜的神圣之地，听起来是不是挺有趣的？而这个附魔的人有何特质？他虽然是单独的个体，但他自称复数：“纳匝肋人耶稣！我们与你有什么相干？你竟来毁灭我们？”

 

diabalein，即邪魔，是一种分散的力量。Sunde（与分裂有关），即罪恶，不仅离间人们，还使我们的内心四分五裂、自相矛盾。我们都有过这样的经历：朝三暮四、三心两意、最深的信念也受到情感的动摇。

 

耶稣权威性的声音使附魔的人恢复真我。朋友们，古往今来耶稣的声音从来都是如此有效。当你让祂的圣言深入内心，你就得到缝合。当耶稣成为你人生的明确中心，那么你的思想、意志、情感、私生活、公众生活——一切的一切——都围绕这个中心而达到和谐的境界。

 

Friends, today’s Gospel finds Jesus encountering a man with an unclean spirit in the synagogue at Capernaum. Isn’t it interesting that the first unclean spirit that Jesus confronts is in the holy place, the place of worship? And what marks this man? Though he is a single person, an individual, he speaks in the plural: "What do you have to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?"

 

The diabolic is, literally, a scattering power: diabalein. Sin separates us from one another—Sunde, related to sundering—but it also divides us interiorly, setting one part of the self against another. We’ve all experienced this: our minds are divided, our wills are split, and our emotions militate against our deepest convictions.

 

The authoritative voice of Jesus brings the man back to himself. And friends, this is precisely the effect that Jesus’ voice has had up and down the ages. When you allow his word to reach deep down within you, you get knitted back together. When Jesus becomes the clear center of your life, then your mind, your will, your emotions, your private life, your public life—all of it—finds its harmonious place around that center.