黃謙善神父 – 主日講道

Nick Vujicic was born without arms and legs. He was teased and bullied as a child, and first thought about killing himself when he was eight. He didn’t know if he would get married, be independent, or if he had a purpose, so, at age ten, he tried to drown himself but stopped for his parents’ sake.

尼克 Nick Vujicic生來就沒有胳膊和腿。從小時候被人戲弄和欺負，八歲時第一次想自殺。他那時不知道自己將來是否會結婚，是否會獨立，會有一個目標，於是，他在十歲的時候，曾試圖淹死自己，但為了他的父母, 他中途放棄了。

In elementary school, I remember being on a school bus going South on Granville Street, when we stopped at a light by the Chevron gas station. There was a homeless man in rags sleeping on the sidewalk, and some of the kids in the bus waved at him like he was spectacle and showed had no pity.

二零一六年上映的電影《降臨》，提出了一個問題，如果知道生命中會有痛苦我們是否還願意接受生命。這是一分鐘半的開場鏡頭，從路易絲的女兒的出生—— 到隨著時間的推移，她早逝了。

在聖安多尼堂，有一些事情可能會導致我們意見分歧：一些人認為我們不應該使用Alpha；一些人不希望我們把奉獻的百分之十捐給有需要的人；有些人不喜歡一個小時十五分鐘的彌撒；有些人不同意我們在道德問題上的立場，比如墮胎、談論大罪、酗酒等等；有些人甚至抱怨我的講道！ (倒抽一口氣！)。

Here are some things that may be dividing us at St. Anthony’s: A few people don’t think we should be using Alpha; a few didn’t want us to give 10% of our annual collection to those in need; some don’t like the one hour, 20-minute Masses; some disagree with our stance on moral issues like abortion, talking about mortal sin, getting drunk, etc.; some have even complained about my homilies (gasp!).

讓我們來處理兩個有關友誼的問題。首先，所謂的「不相稱的軛unequally yoked」，來自聖保祿(格林多後書6:14)的教導，現在這個詞語指的是一段婚姻或一對情侶約會，其中一方在靈性上比另一方強大。當同一個犁上兩頭牛帶軛的力量和速度不平均時，傷害就有可能發生。

Bob was only 13 when his father left the family. Being the second oldest of seven children, Bob felt he had to become the man of the home. Weeks later, he was also devastated when his basketball coach tried to molest him. The pain continued a year later when his father eventually started a second family and when his family moved to Florida.

你希望今年過得比去年好些嗎？我再問一遍：你希望今年過得比去年好些嗎？可惜，根據我的經驗，大多數人都會犯同樣的錯誤，因為他們無法突破每天每天的循環慣例。大多數的生活都有一股我們無法阻擋的趨勢。

How do you want this year to be better than last year? I’ll ask again: How do you want this year to be better than last year? From my experience, it’s unfortunate that most of us will make the same mistakes, because we can’t break out of the cycle of our daily lives. Most of our lives have a momentum that we can’t stop.

Once I was doing a video conference call with eleven priests, and the topic for discussion was: What’s your greatest fear in trying to renew your parish, make it spiritually alive? So I wrote down my answer.

Three weeks ago, we gathered donations for the seven people who lost their belongings in a fire that burned their three-storey apartment building in our neighbourhood. Two of them, Fernanda and Curtis, are part of our parish family, so, an e-mail blast about the fire went out to the whole Alpha team, of which Fernanda’s a part. If you got that e-mail, how would you respond? Who here would offer them sympathy in the e-mail? What about prayer? What about a place to stay for the next week?

天主以讓我們變老來喚醒我們，並讓我們為死亡做好準備。我們被召　走向永生，但卻被我們現世舒適的生活分心了。所以，祂仁慈地允許我們行動變僵硬、發胖、有皺紋和脫髮。這裡有人掉頭髮了嗎？沒有人嗎。願天主保佑你們。

God allows us to grow old to wake us up and get us ready for death. We’re called to eternal life, but get distracted by the good life we have here. So, in His goodness, He allows us to get stiff, put on weight, have wrinkly skin, and lose hair. Anyone here losing their hair? No one. God bless you.

God is calling us to understand the big story of our faith, today. In other words, what’s the essence of Christianity? We’re going to answer this using a very practical scenario which builds upon years of talking about our relationship with God, the reality of free will, and consequences.

知道為什麼我們總說自己很忙嗎？如果誠實點，我們不得不承認，儘管我們的日程安排很緊張，但我們仍然在浪費時間呢？一項調查發現，百分之七十的人承認在工作中浪費時間，主要是在花在社交媒體上，然後是網上購物，瀏覽旅遊，體育和娛樂網站，或者只是毫無目的地向上下滾動網頁。