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Friday, December 19, 2008

O Radix Jesse

O RADIX Jesse, qui stas in signum populorum, super quem continebunt reges os suum, quem gentes deprecanbuntur: veni ad liberandum nos, jam noli tardare.

O Root of Jesse, which standest for an ensign of the people, before whom kings shall keep silence, whom the Gentiles shall beseech: come and deliver us, and tarry not.

Isaias 11:10
The Greater Advent Antiphon for the Magnificat in Vespers of December 19th, prays to Christ by his title 'Root of Jesse'.

According to Isaiah, there shall come a messiah: 
And there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of his root.
And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: the spirit of wisdom, and of understanding, the spirit of counsel, and of fortitude, the spirit of knowledge, and of godliness.
And he shall be filled with the spirit of the fear of the Lord, He shall not judge according to the sight of the eyes, nor reprove according to the hearing of the ears.
But he shall judge the poor with justice, and shall reprove with equity the meek of the earth: and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked.
And justice shall be the girdle of his loins: and faith the girdle of his reins.
Jesse was the father of the great King and psalmist David, and this prophesy says that the Messiah shall descend from the same Jesse. While one king had already sprung from this root of Jesse, spiritually, a greater King is promised to come.  As David established Jerusalem as his capitol, and as he brought the Ark of the Covenant to dwell there, the Messiah shall establish a new spiritual Jerusalem, which is the Church, housing a greater Ark, which is the tabernacle of the Eucharist.

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