|Bishop Barron
翻译|Carrie

朋友们，在今天的福音篇章中，主把我们当代无知的行为与诺厄时代的人们相比。听听祂的警告：“耶稣向门徒说：‘在诺厄的日子里怎样，在人子的日子里也要怎样。’”这些话令人不太安心。

 

然后祂具体说明：人们吃喝婚嫁，直到洪水来了。突如其来的洪水消灭所有人。旧世界的末日来临，但该世界的居民对此一无所知。新世界来临，但该世界的候选居民并不知道如何作好准备。

 

诺厄时代灭绝性洪水在我们当代的版本可能是巨大的彗星撞地球。如果我们预先知道有彗星要撞来，却不采取任何措施，不作任何准备，那会怎样呢？诺厄时代的人们正是如此，而且耶稣暗示祂所处时代的人们也是如此。我们当代的人们同样。我们必须根据福音书的宗旨生活，以此来为主的光荣来临作好准备。

 

Friends, in today's Gospel passage the Lord compares the clueless behavior of our time with that of Noah. Listen to his warning: "Jesus said to his disciples, 'The coming of the Son of Man will repeat what happened in Noah's time.'" Those aren't very reassuring words.

 

Then he specifies: people were eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage right up to the time of the flood. And then, when it came with shocking suddenness, they were destroyed. The end of an old world had arrived, but the inhabitants of that world were clueless. A new world was coming, but the prospective citizens of it had no idea how to prepare for it.

 

Our version of Noah's world-destroying flood might be the crashing of a huge comet into the earth. What if we knew that a comet was coming, but we did nothing about it, we adjusted in no way to it? This was the situation of those in Noah's time and, Jesus suggests, those in his own time. And it's our situation, too. We must prepare for the Lord's coming by patterning our lives on the Gospel.

 

2017-11-18

朋友们，今天的福音敦促我们坚持不懈地祈祷。这个命令在《圣经》中到处可见。例如亚巴郎以索多玛人的名义不断请愿；又如今天福音中执着的寡妇；还有耶稣非比寻常的教诲：“你们求，必要给你们；你们找，必要找着；你们敲，必要给你们开。”

 

我们祈祷却未能如愿以偿的原因是我们太轻易放弃。这一祈祷规则有何道理？奥古斯丁说，天主有时延迟满足我们的愿望因为祂希望我们的心得到扩展。我们越是渴望某样东西，那么得到时就更加心满意足、更加懂得珍惜。我们正是通过坚持不懈地祈求来达到某种重要的精神状态。所以，当主似乎对你的祈祷迟迟不作出回应时，千万不要放弃。

 

Friends, today's Gospel exhorts us to pray with persistence. This command is everywhere in the Bible. We see it in Abraham's steady petition on behalf of the people of Sodom. We see it in today's account of the persistent widow. We hear it in Jesus' extraordinary teaching: "Knock and the door shall be opened to you; seek and you will find; ask and it will be given to you."

 

One reason that we don't receive what we want through prayer is that we give up too easily. What could be behind this rule of prayer? Augustine said that God sometimes delays in giving us what we want because he wants our hearts to expand. The more ardently we desire something, the more ready we are when it comes, the more we treasure it. The very act of asking persistently is accomplishing something spiritually important. So, when the Lord seems slow to answer your prayer, never give up.