將臨期：第一個主日

等候與守望

禱告：滿有恩典的上帝，此刻我懷著等候的心和無限的渴望，佇立在你面前。開啟我的眼，讓我看見你所應許的已經成就；開通我的耳，讓我聽見你在我心靈最深處的說話。奉主耶穌名字祈求，阿們。

經文默想：以賽亞書2:1-5；羅馬書13:11-14；

詩篇122；馬太福音24:36-44

以賽亞書63:16-64:8；哥林多前書1:3-9；

詩篇80:1-7；馬可褔音13:32-37

耶利米書33:14-16；帖撒羅尼迦前書3:9-13；

詩篇25:1-10；路加福音21:25-36

延伸閱讀：

「世界在等候，歷史也在勞苦等候。有些東西亦步亦趨，但我們卻寧願它離我們遠一些，除非當我們等候那故事展開時，它已在我們中間發生。事實上故事的結局已大白，但我們仍然渴望將它重溫，就像我們從未聽過一樣：那就是主耶穌降生的故事，而它的意義就是我們活著的意義。

這不就是天使加百列向世人所宣佈的信息？馬利亞雙手合拾，動也不動地坐在那裡，聆聽著天使對它那駭人的稱謂：Ava Maria gratia plenah. Dominus tecum，一字一句，仿如雀鳥的翅膀擱在空氣中的金網子裡一樣。然後，天使說：“你要懷孕生子，可以給他起名叫耶穌……”不過，在加百列還沒有說之前，馬利亞、以至我們都已知道他的名字，因為那將要降生的，是馬利亞的孩子，也是我們的孩子。這將要降生的嬰孩，就是整個世界的歷史、以及我們每人的個人歷史都在勞苦等待降臨的。這並不是一般的生產，而是童女所生的，凡在這個嚴厲的世界所產生公義和慈愛，都是童女所生的；從來沒有任何人、民族、權勢、或世人的智慧足以使它成就，唯有神能夠。難怪天使高聲宣告：“他要為大，稱為至高神的兒子”。」

“The world waits. History waits and labors. Something draws near, and we love its being far away there rather than here, among ourselves. Except, of course, that it is here among us too and within us as we wait for the story to begin, the story whose end we already know and yearn to know again and wish we did not know: the story whose meaning may be our meaning, as we wait for the child to be born.

For this is what Gabriel comes to announce, and Mary stands there as still as life in her blue mantle with her hands folded on her lap, and the terrible salutation is caught like a bird’s wing in the golden net of the air – Ave Maria gratia plenah. Dominus tecum. And then she hears him say, ‘Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name …..’ But she knows his name before Gabriel says it, just as we also know his name, because the child who is going to born is our child as he is her child. He is that which all the world’s history and all of our own inner histories have been laboring to bring forth. And the birth of righteousness and love in this stern world is always a virgin birth. It is never men nor the nations of men nor all the power and wisdom of men that bring it forth but always God, and that is why the angel says, ‘The child to be born will be called the Son of God.’”

From The Magnificent Defeat by Frederick Buechner

結束祈禱

主啊！在這將臨期開始的時候，願我所看見的你、和聽見你所說的每一句話，洗滌我的心靈。差遣我，去到每個需要你的人身邊，以你道成肉身的大能來愛他們。奉主耶穌名字祈求，阿們。