December 19, 2020
Saturday of the Third Week of Advent

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Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray, “O Root of Jesse’s Stem”, addressing, in this short prayer, the entire historic ancestry of Jesus. 

The phrase, taken from Isaiah 11, recognizes Jesus as the sign of deliverance for both Jews and Gentiles.

This Antiphon is unique in that
it not only beseeches the Savior to come.
It says, “Tarry not!” 
Do you ever ask God to hurry up
and answer your prayers? 

What is most urgent for you to place before God today?

Let us pray this prayer together today, dear friends, for our urgent needs and those of our needy world – especially all who suffer from the effects and fears associated with the pandemic

O Leader of the House of Israel,
giver of the Law to Moses on Sinai:
come quickly to rescue us with your mighty power!

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Poetry: The Coming – RS Thomas

And God held in his hand
A small globe. Look, he said.
The son looked. Far off,
As through water, he saw
A scorched land of fierce
Colour. The light burned
There; crusted buildings
Cast their shadows: a bright
Serpent, a river
Uncoiled itself, radiant
With slime.
On a bare
Hill a bare tree saddened
The sky. Many people
Held out their thin arms
To it, as though waiting
For a vanished April
To return to its crossed
Boughs. The son watched
Them. Let me go there, he said.

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Music: O Root of Jesse – Michael G. Hegeman