教宗若望保禄二世2004年第十九届世界青年节文告《我们想看见耶稣。若12：21》

 

 

亲爱的青年：

 

1.二○○四年是德国科隆青年大会前的最后一个准备阶段，届时我们将于二○○五年举行第二十届普世青年节。我谨敦嘱你们要加强心灵上的准备，深入探讨我为第十九届普世青年节所选定的主题：「我们想看见耶稣」（若 12:21 ）。

这句话是某日几位「希腊人」向宗徒们提出的请求。他们想知道耶稣是谁。这话不仅表示他们想知道耶稣这个人的仪态模样。他们受到大好奇心的驱使，且预感能找到他们心中重大问题的答案，所以很想知道他究竟是谁？来自何方？

2. 亲爱的青年，我请你们效法这些「希腊人」，他们为了要「看见耶稣」，径自走到斐理伯面前。至于你们，你们的追寻不应只出于求知心切，虽然那也有其价值，但尤其应出于内心追寻生命意义的需要。就如福音上那位富贵少年，你们也要寻找耶稣，好能向他发问说：「为承受永生，我该作什么？」（谷 10:17 ）。圣史马尔谷特意指出耶稣定睛看他及喜爱他。你们要想想，那另一段记载耶稣对纳塔乃耳说：「斐理伯叫你以前，当你还在无花果树下时，我就看见了你。」这话令那心中绝无欺诈的以色列人（若 1:48 ），从心底发出一句美妙的宣信：「拉比！你是天主子！」（若 1:49 ）。那虚心摒除成见而亲近耶稣的人，很自然地矢发信德，因为正是耶稣自己首先看见了他，幷爱了他。人类本性最难能可贵之处，就在于他的圣召，幷能与天主四目交投地彼此交流，从而改变自己的生命。要能看见耶稣，就先要让自己被他看见！

不论男女，各人心中都有这股要看见天主的欲望。亲爱的青年，你们要让耶稣坦然直视，这样才会增强你们亲睹真光和品尝真理光辉的切愿。不拘我们是否感觉得到，天主确造生了我们，因为他爱我们，幷愿我们以爱还爱。为此，人心无可压抑地思念着天主：「上主，我在寻求你的仪容，求你不要向我掩住你的脸面」（咏 27:8-9 ）。这仪容──我们都知道──天主已在耶稣基督身上启示给我们了。

3. 亲爱的青年，你们是否也想瞻仰这神妙的仪容？这正是我在二○○四年普世青年节要向你们发问的。你们不要急于回答我，却要首先归心静思，让你们从内心深处产生这股热切要看见天主的心愿──这心愿往往会被世俗的烦嚣和逸乐的诱惑所窒息。你们要让这切愿浮现出来，幷亲历与耶稣邂逅的奇妙经验。基督信仰不只是套教义；它更要人以信德去邂逅那位在耶稣身上降生人类历史中的天主。

你们要设法造就这样的邂逅，注视那位苦心守候你们的耶稣。你们要用肉眼在世事和他人脸上寻找他；同时也要藉祈祷和默想天主圣言，以灵目来寻找他，因为「瞻仰基督的面容，定能让我们想起圣经中关于他所说的一切」（「新千年的开始」， 17 ）。

4. 看见耶稣幷瞻仰他的仪容，是一个无法抑压的热望，可惜这热望也可以被人扭曲。这正是罪恶所引致的情况，因为罪恶的本质，就是要把我们的目光由造物主身上，转移到受造物上面去。

那几个寻求真理的「希腊人」，他们那自由和自愿地产生的欲望，如果未能作出实在而清晰的决定：「我们想看见耶稣」，便无法令他们走到基督跟前来。真正的自由，在于有能力选择我们为了他而受造的那位，幷乐意让他统治我们的生命。你们在心灵深处也体会到：世上一切财富，事业上的成就，以至你们所渴望的人性爱情，无一能满全你们最深切的期望。只有与基督邂逅，才能令你们的生命充满意义：「因为我们是为了你而受造，除非安息在你内，我们的心将得不到安宁」，奥思定就曾这样写（《忏悔录》 I, 1 ）。你们追求这事时，切勿让自己分心偏离正道。你们要恒心到底，因为关系重大的，正是你们圆满的自我实现和你们的喜乐。

5. 亲爱的朋友，你们若能在圣体圣事中找到耶稣，必也能在兄弟姊妹身上找到他，尤其是在那些最贫穷的人身上。怀着爱情领受圣体，幷虔诚恭拜，你们便能学习到自由和爱德，以实践爱德的诫命。耶稣向我们讲论的，正是自我奉献和爱情的神妙言词，直至牺牲自己的生命。这是否信口开河的话？不，这点你们清楚知道！忘却自己幷非易事；但它能令人抛弃据为己有和孤芳自赏的爱，让人敞开心怀作出自献的爱，从而感受到喜乐。在圣体圣事中学习自由和爱德，能教人克服肤浅的情感，稳固扎根于真与善，摆脱自我桎梏，从而自我开放于他人，幷由感性的爱（ affective love ）提升至实质的爱（ effective love ）。因为爱不止于情感，尤其更是意志的行为，即贯彻始终地寻求他人的福祉较之于自己的幸福：「人若为自己的朋友舍掉生命，再没有比这更大的爱情了」（若 15:13 ）。

耶稣教我们要以这样的内心自由和炽热的爱，在他人身上与他邂逅，尤其在穷人那被扭曲的面容上。加尔各答的真福德兰修女爱在自己的「名片」上写着：「静默带来祈祷，祈祷带来信德，信德带来爱德，爱德带来服务，服务带来平安」。这就是与耶稣邂逅的途径。你们要带着慷慨的胸怀，带着天主藉圣神倾注在你们心中的爱德，去邂逅一切人间疾苦：「我实在告诉你们：凡你们对我这些最小的兄弟中的一个所做的，就是对我做的」（玛 25:40 ）。世界正急需看到兄弟友爱的重大先知性标记！实在，「讲论」耶稣还不足够，我们还要透过令人信服的生活，让人们能以某方式「看见」耶稣（见「新千年的开始」， 16 ）。

你们也要不忘在教会内寻找基督和看出他的临在。教会是基督救恩行动在时空的延续。耶稣在教会内幷借着教会，继续让自己今日被人看见和邂逅。你们要在自己的堂区、运动和团体中彼此接纳，以增长你们之间的共融。这便是基督临在教会内的可见标记，虽然人的罪过多次令这标记变得模糊不清。

6. 此外，你们也不要为这路上遇到的十字架而惊讶不安。耶稣岂不是曾对自己的门徒说过，麦子必须掉在地里死去，，才能结出丰硕的果实吗（见若 12:23-26 ）？他说这话是指他至死的自我奉献，要结出美满的成果。你们都知道：基督复活后，死亡便再没有最后话事的权力。爱情比死亡更有力。耶稣之所以接受架上的死亡，使之成为生命之源和爱情的标记，幷非因为自己的软弱，也非因他酷爱受苦，而是为给我们赚取救恩，幷让我们如今已开始分享他天主性的生命。

我在一九八四年救赎圣年结束时，把一个巨型木十字架交予普世青年，正是为提醒他们这一个真理。从那时起，这个十字架走遍了不同国家，为你们准备善度历届普世青年节。成千上万的青年人曾围在这十字架旁祈祷。他们把自己的重负卸在这十字架下时，发觉自己是天主所爱的，而且他们当中许多人还找到力量，改变了自己的生活。

今年正是这事件的二十周年，这十字架将隆重地由德国柏林接收，再巡经德国各地，直至明年抵达科隆为止。我愿意在今日重复当年我所说的话：「亲爱的青年，…我把基督的十字架交给你们！你们要把它带到世界各地，作为主耶稣爱世人的标记，幷要向世人宣布说，只有在死而复活的基督身上，才有救恩和救赎」。

7. 当代的人正期望你们成为你们曾邂逅和令你们生活的那位的见证人。你们要在日常生活的事实中，为那猛于死亡的爱情作不畏缩的见证。你们要迎接这项非你们莫属的挑战！你们要以自己的才干和年青的热忱，为传布这福音喜讯而服务。你们要成为耶稣热诚的朋友，把他介绍给所有愿意看见他的人，尤其是那些远离他的人。斐理伯和安德肋曾领这些「希腊人」去见耶稣：天主利用人的友谊引导人心走近天主圣爱的泉源。你们要认清自己在朋友和同辈当中的福传责任。

童贞圣母玛利亚在世时曾努力不懈地瞻仰基督的圣容，愿她不断地保守你们于她圣子的垂鉴下（见「童贞玛利亚的玫瑰经」， 10 ），幷支持你们准备庆祝在科隆举行的普世青年节。我恳请你们现今已开始以负责和实干的兴致，去期待这日子的来临。纳匝肋的贞女，是无微不至和忍耐的母亲，她要在你们内塑造一颗默观的心，幷要教导你们注视耶稣，因为你们在这要消逝的世界上，要成为那永生不死的世界的先知。

我谨赐各位一个特殊的祝福，幷在你们的旅途上中，与你们幷肩前进。

 

若望保禄二世

二○○四年二月廿二日 发自梵蒂冈

 

下为文告英文版：

 

 

My dear young people!

 

1. This year 2004 is the final stage before the great event in Cologne, where the 20th World Youth Day will be celebrated in 2005. I therefore invite you to intensify your path of spiritual preparation by reflecting on the theme I have chosen for this 19th World Youth Day: “We wish to see Jesus” (Jn 12:21).

This is a request made to the Apostles one day by some “Greeks”. They wanted to know who Jesus was. They had come not simply to see what kind of impression the man Jesus would make. Moved by great curiosity and a presentiment that they had found the answer to their deepest questions, they wanted to know who he really was and whence he came.

2. My dear young people, I want you too to imitate those “Greeks” who spoke to Philip, moved by a desire to “see Jesus”. May your search be motivated not simply by intellectual curiosity, though that too is something positive, but be stimulated above all by an inner urge to find the answer to the question about the meaning of your life. Like the rich young man in the Gospel, you too should go in search of Jesus to ask him: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Mk 10:17). Mark the Evangelist states clearly that Jesus looked at him and loved him. You may remember another episode in which Jesus says to Nathaniel: "Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you”, drawing from the heart of that Israelite, in whom there was no guile (cf. Jn 1:47), a fine profession of faith: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God!” (Jn 1:49). Those who approach Jesus with a heart free of prejudice can quite easily come to have faith because Jesus himself has already seen them and loved them first. The most sublime aspect of human dignity is precisely man’s vocation to communicate with God in a profound exchange of glances that is life transforming. In order to see Jesus, we first need to let him look at us!

The desire to see Jesus dwells deep in the heart of each man and each woman. My dear young people, allow Jesus to gaze into your eyes so that the desire to see the Light, and to experience the splendour of the Truth, may grow within you. Whether we are aware of it or not, God has created us because he loves us and so that we in turn may love him. This is the reason for the unquenchable nostalgia for God that man preserves in his heart: “Your face, Lord, do I seek. Do not hide your face from me” (Ps 27: 8-9). That Face - we know - was revealed to us by God in Jesus Christ.

3. My dear young people, don’t you too wish to contemplate the beauty of that Face? That is the question I address to you on this World Youth Day 2004. Don’t be too hasty in your reply. First of all, create a silence within yourselves. Allow this ardent desire to see God emerge from the depth of your hearts, a desire that is sometimes stifled by the distractions of the world and by the allurements of pleasures. Allow this desire to emerge and you will have the wonderful experience of meeting Jesus. Christianity is not simply a doctrine: it is an encounter in faith with God made present in our history through the incarnation of Jesus.

Try by every means to make this encounter possible, and look towards Jesus who is passionately seeking you. Seek him with the eyes of the flesh through the events of life and in the faces of others; but seek him too with the eyes of the soul through prayer and meditation on the Word of God, because “The contemplation of Christ's face cannot fail to be inspired by all that we are told about him in Sacred Scripture” (Novo millennio ineunte, 17).

4. To see Jesus, to contemplate his Face, is an unquenchable desire, but it is a desire that man unfortunately may also deform. This is what happens with sin, because it is the very essence of sin to draw our eyes away from the Creator and to turn them towards what he has created.

Those “Greeks” in search of the truth would not have been able to approach Christ if their desire, animated by a free and voluntary act, had not been expressed through a clear decision: “We wish to see Jesus”. To be truly free means having the strength to choose the One for whom we were created and accepting his lordship over our lives. You perceive it in the depths of your heart: all that is good on earth, all professional success, even the human love that you dream of, can never fully satisfy your deepest and most intimate desires. Only an encounter with Jesus can give full meaning to your lives: “for you made us for yourself, and our heart finds no peace until it rests in you” (Saint Augustine, The Confessions, book 1, chapter 1). Do not let yourselves be distracted from this search. Persevere in it because it is your fulfilment and your joy that is at stake.

5. Dear friends, if you learn to discover Jesus in the Eucharist, you will also know how to discover him in your brothers and sisters, particularly in the very poor. The Eucharist received with love and adored with fervour becomes a school of freedom and charity in order to fulfil the commandment to love. Jesus speaks to us in the wonderful language of the gift of self and of love so great as to give our own life for it. Is that an easy thing? You know very well that it is not! It is not easy to forget our self, but if we do, it draws us away from possessive and narcissistic love and opens us up to the joy of a love that is self-giving. This Eucharistic school of freedom and charity teaches us to overcome superficial emotions in order to be rooted firmly in what is true and good; it frees us from self-attachment in order to open ourselves to others. It teaches us to make the transition from an affective love to an effective love. For love is not merely a feeling; it is an act of will that consists of preferring, in a constant manner, the good of others to the good of oneself: “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lays down his life for his friends” (Jn 15:13).

It is with such inner freedom and such burning charity that Jesus teaches us to find him in others, first of all in the disfigured face of the poor. Blessed Teresa of Calcutta loved to distribute her “visiting card” on which were written the words: “The fruit of silence is prayer; the fruit of prayer is faith, the fruit of faith is love, the fruit of love is service, the fruit of service is peace”. This is the way to meet Christ. Go out to meet all of human suffering spurred on by your generosity and with the love that God instils in your hearts by means of the Holy Spirit: “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40). The world is in urgent need of a great prophetic sign of fraternal charity! It is not enough to “speak” of Jesus. We must also let him be “seen” somehow through the eloquent witness of our own life (cf. Novo millennio ineunte, 16).

Do not forget to seek Christ and to recognise his presence in the Church, which is like the continuation of his saving action in time and space. It is in the Church and through her that Jesus continues to make himself visible today and to allow humanity to come to him. In your parishes, movements and communities, be welcoming to one another in order to build communion among yourselves. This is the visible sign of the presence of Christ in the Church, in spite of being so often blurred by human sin.

6. Do not be surprised, then, when you meet the Cross on your way. Did not Jesus say to his disciples that the grain of wheat must fall into the earth and die in order to bear much fruit (cf. Jn 12:23-26)? He was indicating in this way that his life given unto death would bear fruit. You know this: after the resurrection of Christ, death shall no longer have the last word. Love is stronger than death. If Jesus accepted death on the cross, thus making it the source of life and the sign of love, he did so not out of weakness, or because he wished to suffer. He did so to gain our salvation and to allow us henceforth to take part in his divine life.

It is just this truth that I wished to bring to the minds of the young people of the world when I entrusted them with a large wooden Cross at the end of the Holy Year of the Redemption in 1984. Ever since then, it has travelled through different countries in preparation for your World Days. Hundreds of thousands of young people have prayed around this Cross. By laying at the feet of the Cross the burdens that had lain heavily upon them, they discovered that they were loved by God. Many of them also found the strength to change their lives.

This year, on the 20th anniversary of that event, the Cross will be solemnly welcomed in Berlin. From there it will commence its pilgrimage throughout Germany, concluding in Cologne next year. Today I wish to repeat the words I said to you back then: “My dear young people, ...  I entrust to you the Cross of Christ! Carry it throughout the world as a symbol of Christ’s love for humanity, and announce to everyone that only in the death and resurrection of Christ can we find salvation and redemption”.

7. Your contemporaries expect you to be witnesses of the One whom you have met and who gives you life. In you daily lives, be intrepid witnesses of a love that is stronger than death. It is up to you to accept this challenge! Put your talents and your youthful enthusiasm at the service of the proclamation of the Good News. Be the enthusiastic friends of Jesus who present the Lord to all those who wish to see him, especially those who are farthest away from him. Philip and Andrew brought those “Greeks” to Jesus: God uses human friendship to lead hearts to the source of divine charity. Feel responsible for the evangelisation of your friends and all your contemporaries.

Throughout her life, the Blessed Virgin Mary steadfastly contemplated the face of Christ. May she keep you forever under the gaze of her Son (cf. Rosarium Virginis Mariae, 10) and sustain you as you prepare for World Youth Day in Cologne. I ask you to set out towards it from now with responsible and active enthusiasm. The Virgin of Nazareth, the compassionate and patient Mother, will mould within you a contemplative heart, and teach you to fix your gaze on Jesus so that, in this world that passes away, you shall be prophets of a world that does not die.

With affection I impart a special blessing upon you that will accompany you on your way.

 

From the Vatican, 22 February 2004