19 December

 

O Radix Jesse, qui stas in signum populorum, 

super quem continebunt reges os suum, 

quem gentes deprecabuntur: 

veni ad liberandum nos, iam noli tardare.

 

O Root of Jesse, that stands for an ensign of the people, 

before whom the kings keep silence 

and unto whom the Gentiles shall make supplication: 

come, to deliver us, and tarry not.

 

 

Photo: The seal and motto (Stat crux dum volvitur orbis) of the Carthusian Order.  The photo captures the sky reflected in a window of the St. Bruno Center atop Mt. Equinox in Arlington, VT.

 

Meditation: Consider the tree that grew from the root of Jesse.  The roots of that tree anchor the earth even as it revolves and hurtles through space.  The tree is a symbol of life.  It is the symbol of eternal life.  The tree in the garden of Eden represents the triumph of man's hubris and disobedience over humility.  The tree on which Jesus hung reverses the equation; humility and obedience conquered hubris once and for all.  

 

Gaze at a cross with or without a corpus hanging on it.  Imagine carrying its weight on your shoulders for the sake of someone else.  Imagine Jesus doing the same for the entire universe.  

 

Lagniappe:  Ennnio Morricone conducting orchestra and chorus in a suite from his music for "The Mission."  

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oag1Dfa1e_E

 

Prayer:  

 

Patient Trust (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ)

 

Above all, trust in the slow work of God

We are quite naturally impatient in everything

   to reach the end without delay.

We should like to skip the intermediate stages. 

We are impatient of being on the way to something

   unknown, something new. 

And yet it is the law of all progress

   that it is made by passing through

   some stages of instability—

   and that it may take a very long time. 

 

And so I think it is with you. 

   your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,

   let them shape themselves, without undue haste. 

Don't try to force them on, 

   as though you could be today what time

   (that is to say, grace and circumstances

   acting on your own good will)

   will make of you tomorrow. 

 

Only God could say what this new spirit

   gradually forming within you will be. 

Give Our Lord the benefit of believing

   that his hand is leading you, 

and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself 

   in suspense and incomplete.