|Bishop Barron
翻译|Carrie

2017-12-12

朋友们，今天我们庆祝瓜达露贝圣母节。玛利亚在特佩亚克现身后发生的一切是基督教福音传道历史上最令人震惊的篇章之一。

 

虽然圣母现身前圣方济各会传教士已经在墨西哥辛勤工作了二十年，但效果不明显。但瓜达露贝圣母现身后十年内，几乎所有墨西哥人，人数达九百万之多，都皈依基督教。事实证明，圣母在福音传道上比圣伯多禄、圣保禄、圣帕特里克和圣方济·沙勿略四位圣人合并起来还更有效。而且因为整个国家都皈依基督，阿兹特克人以活人献祭的习俗也画上了句号。圣母与堕落之灵大战一场，并为身为爱的天主赢得了改变文化的胜利。

 

对于敬礼圣母的我们来说，需要做的就是加入她的战斗队伍。我们必须向当下的文化宣布以色列天主的真理、耶稣基督天主的真理、非暴力和宽恕仁爱的天主的真理。而且我们应该像圣母一样，在这个史上最需要基督的世界上成为耶稣的载体。

 

Friends, today we celebrate the great feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. What followed the apparition of Mary at Tepeyac is one of the most astounding chapters in the history of Christian evangelism.

 

Though Franciscan missionaries had been laboring in Mexico for twenty years, they had made little progress. But within ten years of the appearance of Our Lady of Guadalupe, practically the entire Mexican people, nine million strong, had converted to Christianity. La Morena had proved a more effective evangelist than St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Patrick, and St. Francis Xavier combined! And with that great national conversion, the Aztec practice of human sacrifice came to an end. She had done battle with fallen spirits and had won a culture-changing victory for the God of love.

 

The challenge for us who honor her today is to join the same fight. We must announce to our culture today the truth of the God of Israel, the God of Jesus Christ, the God of nonviolence and forgiving love. And we ought, like La Morena, to be bearers of Jesus to a world that needs him more than ever.

 

2017-12-13

朋友们，在今天的福音中，耶稣给出的并不是又一条天主的哲理。祂给出的是来自圣三位一体内部的观点。正因如此，我们应该响应祂的这个激动人心的邀请：“凡劳苦和负重担的，你们都到我跟前来，我要使你们安息。”

 

每个人都想获得安息，但这种安息指的不是放松，而是获得喜乐。我们认为把自我塞满了各种美好事物就能得到喜乐的观念是极其错误的。事实上，喜乐源于掏空自我、颠覆生活、朝天主的方向前行。 

 

我们在今天的福音中还读到这句异乎寻常的话：“你们背起我的轭，跟我学吧。” 耶稣自己正在背着祂所说的轭，因为祂和圣父共负一轭，祂看见圣父做什么，只会照着做。耶稣最本己的性质是言听计从。

 

因此，祂的意思是要我们跟祂并肩站在一起，就像并排拉犁的两只牛一样。正如耶稣与圣父同负一轭，我们也应该跟耶稣同负一轭，像祂服从圣父那样服从于祂。

 

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus is not offering us one more philosophy of God. He is offering us the view from the inside of the Trinity. And that is why we should respond to his compelling invitation: "Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest."

 

What everyone wants is rest, but not in the sense of relaxation. Rest here means achievement of joy. The great illusion is that joy will come from filling up the ego with goods. In fact, it will come from emptying out, from turning one’s life over to the direction of God.

 

We also find in today’s Gospel those extraordinary words: "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me." Jesus himself is bearing the yoke that he speaks of since he is yoked to the Father, doing only what he sees the Father doing. Jesus is, in his innermost nature, the one who listens and obeys.

 

What he is saying, therefore, is to stand next to him, just as one ox stands next to the other as they pull together. Just as Jesus is yoked to the Father, so we should be yoked to him, obeying him as he obeys the Father.