O Adonai

O Adonai, ruler of the house of Israel, who appeared to Moses in the burning bush, and gave him the law on Sinai, come!  Stretch forth your arm to redeem us!

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

We find ourselves at the mountain of God beyond the wilderness, standing barefoot where fire flames out of a bush that is not consumed.  Covering our faces in fear, we hear a voice that claims us as his own.  He has seen our affliction, heard our cries, knows our suffering, and comes down to rescue us, to bring us out of Egypt, to take us as his treasured possession.  This God of fire and thunder answers to the name Adonai: The Lord, the Lord, a God gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in love and fidelity.  Our forebears knew him as compassionate enough to see, hear, and feel their suffering, strong enough to save them with outstretched arm, just enough to distinguish good and evil with mighty acts of judgment, merciful enough never to give up bringing good out of evil, but most of all, committed to a covenantal relationship of faithful love: you will be my people, and I will be your God.

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

We need to be redeemed.
We have as much need as ever to be led out from places of slavery – slavery to forces outside ourselves as well as inside us.  Places where the freedom of people to seek happiness, make choices, grow, learn, discover, express their own opinions, or even think their own thoughts is stunted.  Places where women are forced to live their lives as second-class citizens, without education, opportunity, self-determination.  Places where those whom desperation drives to seek a better place, a living wage, safety from the imminent threat of death, are deceived into yet more danger and deprivation.  Seemingly free societies that camouflage in a multiplicity of choices the manipulation of one’s appetites, the narrowing of one’s possibilities, and the binding of one’s dreams.

We stand in the name of the Church and for the people of the world we pray: Come to us, O Adonai, you who see our affliction, hear our cries, feel the weight of our burden, and with your strong arm redeem us from all forms of slavery and from dependence on anything that is not Christ, our only Lord.

Image: Linda Witte Henke, The Great O Antiphons