2018-8-26

朋友们，今天我们读到《若望福音》非凡的第六章结尾部分。先前，耶稣跟众人说：“你们若不吃人子的肉，不喝他的血，在你们内，便没有生命。”我们今天读到故事的结局。

 

福音中说“耶稣的门徒中有许多人说：‘这话生硬，谁能听得下去呢？’”注意这些是耶稣的追随者，然而他们却无法接受祂的话语。

 

如果耶稣的说话只是象征性的，那么听众就不会有这种震惊情绪。如果祂的意思仅仅是这个饼象征着我的身体的话，人们又怎么会有这么强烈的反应？犹太经文一直以来都使用诗意的隐喻。关键在于他们对祂的说话理解得非常透彻。

 

耶稣绝对可以更好地为自己辩解，但祂没有这么做。相反，祂斥责他们没有信德。因此天主教传统一向强调按字面意义来理解耶稣的这些话，反对所有缓解语气的企图。

 

Friends, we come today to the end of the extraordinary sixth chapter of John’s Gospel. Before this, Jesus told his listeners, "Unless you gnaw on the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you." Well, today, we have the denouement of the story.

 

We hear that "many of Jesus’ disciples who were listening said, ‘This saying is hard; who can accept it?’" Notice that we are talking about Jesus’ followers. And yet they find this teaching impossible to take.

 

If his words were meant in a symbolic sense, they wouldn’t have had this shocking effect. If what he meant was simply, This bread is a symbol of my body, why would there be such a strong reaction? I mean, the Jewish Scriptures deal in poetic metaphor all the time. The point is that they had understood him in this context only too well.

 

Given every opportunity to explain himself better, Jesus does nothing of the kind. Instead, he upbraids them for their lack of faith. This is why the Catholic tradition has insisted, against all attempts to soften these words of Jesus, that he should be taken straightforwardly.