O Root of Jesse

O Root of Jesse, standard raised for all people—kings will stand dumb in your presence, the Gentiles will pay you homage: come!  Deliver us!  No longer delay!

What do we see through the round window of O Root?

We find ourselves before an image of failure: a tree cut down; a project brought to nothing.  But there is also a small sign of life, of hope, of a future: the new shoot that impossibly springs up from a seemingly dead stump, a bud that blossoms from its roots.  This unflattering and yet hopeful image speaks of God’s chosen people Israel in the midst of the nations, the remnant reclaimed, the outcasts gathered, the dispersed reassembled.  Our forebears knew that God chose his representatives not from the strong, the beautiful, the intelligent and the numerous, but from the weak, the ones no-one would take a second look at, those seen as the dregs of society, the few standing as a sign to the many.  Their historical disasters would teach them to be content as his little ones, in whom he shows his glory.

What are we asking for?  What is our need, our desire, our hope?

We need to be set free.
We need deliverance from the illusion that might makes right, from our aspiration to greatness in the eyes of the world, from our tendency to compare and judge situations based on criteria that are not of God.  In every generation, we are tempted to feather our nest, to seek comfort and success, power and prestige, a reputation for holiness.  These become millstones around the neck, they drag down the ones who should stand for God’s goodness and love, the care of a father for his little ones.  We need to be freed from the fear that makes failure to live up to our mission in the world a thing to be concealed, rather than held out for healing by the One who can bring life even out of death.

We stand in the name of the Church and for the people of the world we pray: Come to us, O Root of Jesse, set us free from the lure of appearances.  Show us the victory of the small, the weak, the few, the ones God chooses to silence the mighty.  Make us worthy to stand as such a sign before all people, that they may kneel speechless before the poor and humble Christ.

Image: Linda Witte Henke, The Great O Antiphons