Waiting with Our Lady for the coming of Our Saviour, we will meditate each day of Advent on a different aspect of the circumstances of His birth, the moment of The Incarnation amongst us.
Reflection: THE OX
Lead the strong ox to the crib. Today, use your strength and your talents to help someone else.
Prayer: Lord Jesus, teach me to serve others for the love of You.
Scripture: Babylonian Exile JEREMIAH 9:1—11
O that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people! O that I had in the desert a wayfarers’ lodging place, that I might leave my people and go away from them! For they are all adulterers, a company of treacherous men. They bend their tongue like a bow; falsehood and not truth has grown strong in the land; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not know me, says the Lord. Let every one beware of his neighbour, and put no trust in any brother; for every brother is a supplanter, and every neighbour goes about as a slanderer.
Every one deceives his neighbour, and no one speaks the truth; they have taught their tongue to speak lies; they commit iniquity and are too weary to Repent. Heaping oppression upon oppression, and deceit upon deceit, they refuse to know me, says the Lord.
Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts: “Behold, I will refine them and test them, for what else can I do, because of my People? Their tongue is a deadly arrow; it speaks deceitfully; with his mouth each speaks peaceably to his Neighbour, but in his heart he plans an ambush for Him. Shall I not punish them for these things? Says the Lord; and shall I not avenge myself on a nation such as this?
“Take up weeping and wailing for the Mountains, and a lamentation for the pastures of the Wilderness, because they are laid waste so that no one passes through, and the lowing of cattle is not heard; both the birds of the air and the beasts have fled and are gone. I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins, a lair of jackals; and I will make the cities of Judah a Desolation, without inhabitant.”
O Antiphon: O Radix
O stock of Jesse, you stand as a signal for the nations; kings fall silent before you whom the peoples acclaim. O come to deliver us, and do not delay.
The first letter of the title of each of the ‘O’ antiphons, when listed from last to first, will spell a mystery message in Latin! Let’s see if we can work it out as we go along…
Poem: George MacDonald – “Christmas Carol for 1862”
(There had been strikes and troubles in Lancashire that year. Somehow the atmosphere hedescribes reflects our own experience this year!)
The skies are pale, the trees are stiff,
The earth is dull and old;
The frost is glittering as if
The very sun were cold.
And hunger fell is joined with frost,
To make men thin and wan:
Come, babe, from heaven, or we are lost;
Be born, O child of man.
The children cry, the women shake,
The strong men stare about;
They sleep when they should be awake,
They wake ‘ere night is out.
For they have lost their heritage—
No sweat is on their brow:
Come, babe, and bring them work and wage;
Be born, and save us now.
Across the sea, beyond our sight,
Roars on the fierce debate;
The men go down in bloody fight,
The women weep and hate;
And in the right be which that may,
Surely the strife is long!
Come, son of man, thy righteous way,
And right will have no wrong.
Good men speak lies against thine own—
Tongue quick, and hearing slow;
They will not let thee walk alone,
And think to serve thee so:
If they the children’s freedom saw
In thee, the children’s king,
They would be still with holy awe,
Or only speak to sing.
Some neither lie nor starve nor fight,
Nor yet the poor deny;
But in their hearts all is not right,—
They often sit and sigh.
We need thee every day and hour,
In sunshine and in snow:
Child-king, we pray with all our power—
Be born, and save us so.
We are but men and women, Lord;
Thou art a gracious child!
O fill our hearts, and heap our board,
Pray thee—the winter’s wild!
The sky is sad, the trees are bare,
Hunger and hate about:
Come, child, and ill deeds and ill fare
Will soon be driven out.
__________
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The featured image is “The Annunciation” (between 1415 and 1425), by Robert Campin, and is in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
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