当你途经奇迹盛放

时间:2022-06-09 02:05:30

Sometimes, just when we need the power of miracles to change our beliefs, they materialize in the places we’d least expect. They can come to us as a drastic alteration in our physical reality or as a simple 1)synchronicity in our lives. Sometimes they’re big and can’t be missed―the vision of 2)Our Lady of the Rosary that appeared to 50,000 people on a hillside near 3)Fátima, Portugal, in 1917, for example. Other times they’re so subtle that if we aren’t aware, we may miss them altogether. They can come from the lips of a stranger we suddenly and mysteriously encounter at just the right instant. If we listen carefully, we’ll always hear the right words, at the right time, to dazzle us into a realization of something that we may have failed to notice only moments before.

On a cold January afternoon in 1989, I was hiking up the trail that leads to the top of Egypt’s 4)Mt. Horeb (the mountain of 5)Moses). I’d spent the day at St. Catherine’s Monastery and wanted to reach the peak by sunset to see the valley below. As I was winding up the narrow path, I’d occasionally see other hikers who were coming down from a day on the mountain. While they would generally pass with simply a nod or a greeting in another language, there was one man that day who did neither.

I saw him coming from the last switchback on the trail that led to the backside of the mountain. As he got closer, I could see that he was dressed differently from the other hikers I’d seen. Rather than the high-tech fabrics and styles that had been the norm, this man was wearing traditional Egyptian clothing. He wore a tattered, rust-colored 6)galabia and obviously old and thick-soled 7)sandals that were covered in dust. What made his appearance so odd, though, was that the man didn’t even appear to be Egyptian! He was a small-framed Asian man, had very little hair, and was wearing round, 8)wire-rimmed glasses.

As we neared one another, I was the first to speak. “Hello,” I said, stopping on the trail for a moment to catch my breath. Not a sound came from the man as he walked closer. I thought that maybe he hadn’t heard me or the wind had carried my voice away from him in another direction. Suddenly he stopped directly in front of me on the high side of the trail, looked up from the ground, and spoke a single sentence to me in English:“Sometimes you don’t know what you have lost until you’ve lost it.” As I took in what I had just heard, he simply stepped around me and continued on his descent down the trail.

我人生中的那一刻是个小小的奇迹。原因并不是因为那个男人说了什么,更多的是因为那个时机和情境。那年是1989年,冷战时代已经接近终结。那个山径上的男人不会知道的是在我的埃及朝圣之行中,特别是在我徒步登上摩西山顶的途中,我将预留出时间来做决定,那些决定将会影响我在国防业的职业生涯、我的朋友、我的家人,还有,最后是,我的人生。

我不得不问自己这是何种机缘,看起来不知打哪儿冒出来的一位身着埃及长袍的亚洲人在我上山的同时也正从这座名山上走下来,停在我面前,并分享他的智慧。我对自己的问题给出的答案很简单:这几率小到没有!在一场持续了两分钟不到的偶遇中,离家以外,地球的另一端,在这山上,一个陌生人带来了清晰并蕴含着暗示的警言,提醒着我在数日之内将会做出巨大的改变。在我看来,那是一个奇迹。

我猜想我们在生命里的每一天都经历着小奇迹。有时候我们有智慧和勇气去识出它们的本来面目。当我们识不出的时候,也没什么关系。我们的奇迹似乎总有反复回到我们身边的办法。并且每次当它们归来,都变得少了一丝微妙,直到它们将我们不可能错失的消息带进我们的生活。

关键是,它们无处不在,并且每天因为不同的原由发生着,呼应着我们在当下可能怀有的不同需求。我们要做的不是过分质疑发生在我们日常生活中的非凡事件,而是更多地接受它们带来的恩赐。

葡萄牙里斯本东北部的一个山中小镇――法蒂玛,如今成为了全世界天主教徒朝圣祈祷的圣地,其中的缘由还必须从1917年讲起……

1917年5月13日,三个小牧童――路济亚、雅琴达、方济各,在一棵小橡树上看到了一位光耀、温柔、美丽的夫人,她身着金边白色长衣,头巾直直垂到脚跟,她说:“我从天上来。”孩子们认出了她就是圣母玛利亚。圣母要求三个孩子奉献自己,做刻苦补赎,并为了世界和平常念玫瑰经。当时正值第一次世界大战,西班牙也卷入欧陆战争,葡萄牙仰仗圣母庇佑,并未燃起战火。

玫瑰圣母先后在法蒂玛显身六次,第六次显身是在1917年10月13日,当时有几万人在场。圣母告诉他们:“我是玫瑰之后,我希望在这里盖一座圣堂,让罪人在这里痛悔罪过。” 接着天空出现异象,人们看到太阳跳动,又似火轮般自行旋转,众人纷纷跪下呼喊:“求天主垂怜!”而后,天空出现圣家三圣,耶稣婴孩祝福了他们。

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