2018-4-19

朋友们，在今天的福音中，耶稣献身为灵魂的粮食。生命食粮对话透露了一个伟大的真理：礼物定律。这位有着人性、道成肉身的天主想我们吃祂的肉、喝祂的血；祂彻底地、不留余地地为人着想。

 

为什么远古的神如此受欢迎？因为他们是人类的投射——虚荣、傲慢、充满怨恨、暴力。这意味着他们很少给我们施加道德压力。他们虽然可怕，但没有道德要求。

 

但我们这位天主表明祂完完全全就是爱，祂想我们把祂吃喝到肚子里，祂要我们就像祂一样。正如祂是世人的饮食来源，我们也必须是世人的饮食来源。正如祂彻底献身，我们也必须彻底献身。

 

我们不能紧握着世间的美好、名誉和价值观不放——这些东西只会夸大自我——而要献身自我。这是我们从送礼的天主那里学到的。

 

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus offers himself as food for the soul. There is a great truth revealed in the bread of life discourse: it is the law of the gift. This personal, incarnating God wants to be eaten and drunk, to be radically and fully for the other.

 

Why were the gods of the ancient world so popular? Because they were projections of ourselves—vain, arrogant, resentful, violent. This means that they put little moral pressure on us. They were frightening but not morally demanding.

 

But this God who shows that he is totally love, and who wants us to eat and drink him in, is the God who wants us to be like him. As he is food and drink for the world, so we must be food and drink for the world. As he gave himself away utterly, so we must give ourselves away fully.

 

We’re not to cling to the goods, honors, and values of the world—all those things that aggrandize the ego—but rather give ourselves away. That’s what we learn from the God of the gift.

 

2018-4-20

朋友们，今天的福音宣告圣言确实成了肉身。为什么道成肉身从一开始就遭到反对？为什么圣餐，即道成肉身的延伸，依然引起各种纷争？

 

我想问题在于肉身。天主成为我们中的一员，与我们亲如骨肉血。我们不能再说天主在天堂，我们在人间；也不能说天主是精神，我们是物质。物质已被精神侵入。天主在耶稣之内成为肉身，而且更确切地说，祂邀请我们吃祂的肉、喝祂的血。其意思是祂想让我们把祂纳入体内。

 

很多人会想：“等等！” 这样听起来让人觉得不太舒服，那就是说祂想成为我血肉的主，祂想充满我生活的每个角落。祂想主宰我做的一切世俗事务，如工作、休闲、性生活和娱乐等等！正是如此。

 

Friends, today’s Gospel declares that the Word really became flesh. Why has the Incarnation been resisted from the very beginning? Why is the extension of the Incarnation, which is the Eucharist, still such a source of division?

 

I think it has to do with flesh. God became one of us, as close to us as blood and muscle and bone. It is no longer correct to say simply that God is in his heaven and we are on the earth. It is not correct to say simply that God is spirit and we are matter. Matter has been invaded by spirit. In Jesus, God became flesh, and, more to the point, he invites us to eat his Body and drink his Blood. But that means that he wants us to take him into ourselves.

 

"Now, wait a minute!" many people think. That’s a little too close for comfort, for it means that he wants to be Lord of my flesh and my bones, that he wants to move into every nook and cranny of my life. My work, my recreation, my sexual life, my life of play—all those fleshy things that I do—he wants to be Lord of all of that! That’s precisely right.