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甲年—圣神降临节

Fr. Jijo Kandamkulathy CMF

甘天霖神父

Gospel： John 20：19-23（若20：19-23）

A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to John,

Glory to you, O Lord!

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, "Peace be with you." When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. (Jesus) said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained."

The Gospel of the Lord.

Praise to You, Lord Jesus Christ.

Homily： The Spirit: Hope for a New World

Jesus promised his disciples that he would not leave them alone and that he would send the Spirit. Today we celebrate the feast of this gift of the Risen One. 

While John places the outpouring of the Spirit on the day of Easter to show that the Spirit is the gift of the Risen One, Luke places the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost. Pentecost was a very ancient Jewish holiday, celebrated fifty days after the Feast of the Passover. It commemorated the arrival of the people of Israel at Mount Sinai. The Law was given there. Luke wants to teach that the Spirit has replaced the old law and became the new law for the Christian.

Here’s what the law of the Spirit is: it is the new heart; it is God’s life. When it enters in a person, it transforms them, and from bramble, they become a fruitful tree, able to spontaneously produce the works of God.

When a person is filled with the Spirit, something unheard of happens in them. They love with the love of God himself. From that moment on, “they do not need someone to teach them” (1 Jn 2:27); they won’t require another law. John comes to say that those animated by the Spirit become even incapable of sinning: “Those born of God do not sin, for the seed of God remains in them; they cannot sin because they are born of God” (1 Jn 3:9).

And the thunder, the wind, the fire? In the book of Exodus these phenomena accompanied the gift of the old law. “All the people witnessed the thunder and lightning and heard the blast of the trumpet and saw the mountain smoking” (Ex 20:18). The rabbis said that at Sinai, on the day of Pentecost, when God gave the Law, his words took the form of seventy tongues of fire, indicating that the Torah was destined to all peoples (thought to be exactly seventy at that time).  Luke uses the same imagery for the gift of the Spirit—the new law. If he wanted to be understood, he had to use the same images.

And the many languages ​​spoken by the apostles? Probably Luke refers to a very common phenomenon in the early church. After receiving the Spirit, the believers began to praise God in a state of exaltation. As if in ecstasy, they uttered strange words in other languages.

Luke used this phenomenon in a symbolic sense to teach about the universality of the church. The Spirit is a gift meant for all persons and all peoples. Faced with this gift of God, all barriers of language, race and tribe collapse. On the day of Pentecost, the opposite of what happened at Babel, where people began to misunderstand and to distance from each other, occurred (Gen 11:1-9). Here the Spirit puts into action an opposite movement, bringing together those who are scattered.

Whoever lets themselves be guided by the word of the gospel and by the Spirit speaks a language that everyone understands and everyone joins in: the language of love. It is the Spirit who transforms humankind into one family where all understand and love each other.

证道：圣神是耶稣的恩赐，让人彼此理解和相爱！   

耶稣给门徒们许诺：他不会留下他们作孤儿，而会派遣圣神。我们今天庆祝的就是复活的那位给我们恩赐的节日。

若望把圣神的涌现置于复活节那天，就显示出圣神是复活者的恩赐；而路加把圣神的降临放在五旬节。五旬节是非常古老的犹太节日，是在逾越节后的第五十天庆祝的。这节日是为纪念以色列到达西乃山。法律就在山上赐下了。路加想要教导的是圣神替代了旧法律，成为了基督徒的新法律。

这就是圣神的法律：是一颗新心，是天主的生命。当圣神临于某人时，就会转变他们，使他们从荆棘中成为结果实的树，能够自发地孕育天主的作品。

当一个人充满圣神的时候，就会有一些不寻常的事情发生在他们身上。他们以天主的爱去爱。从那时起，“他们不再需要任何人教训了”（若一2：27）；他们也不再需要其它法律了。若望所说的那些被圣神感动的人甚至不能犯罪：“凡由天主生的，就不犯罪过，因为天主的种子存留在他内，他不能犯罪，因为他是由天主生的”（若一3：9）。

那么，雷声、风和火是怎么回事呢？在《出谷纪》中，这种现象伴随着旧约法律的恩赐。“众百姓看见打雷、打闪、吹角、冒烟的山”（出20：18）。拉比说，在西乃山的五旬节，当天主赐予法律时，祂的话语取了七十个火舌的形状，表明《托拉》（法律）是为所有人指定的（在那时认为是确切七十位）。路加为圣神的恩赐——新法律采用了同样的比喻。如果他想要读者理解，必须要用同样的比喻。

另外，宗徒们所说的各种语言又是什么意思呢？路加很可能指的是初期教会中一个非常普遍的现象。在接受圣神之后，信徒们开始在欣喜中赞美天主。仿佛是在出神中，他们用其它语言说出不寻常的话语。

路加在象征的意义上采用这种现象教导有关教会的普世性。圣神是恩赐，适用于每个人和任何民族。面对天主的恩赐，所有语言、种族和部落的障碍都瘫痪了。在五旬节，巴贝尔塔曾发生的反叛，人们在那里开始出现了彼此误解和疏离（创11：1-9）。在这里，圣神采取了相反的行动，把那些分散的人集合起来。

谁让自己被福音的话语所指引，并藉着圣神说同一种语言，使每个人都理解和参与，就是爱的语言。天主圣神把人类变成一个大家庭，让每个人都彼此理解和相爱。