marymajor's Advent Calendar: December 3

[Background: Jesse was King David’s father, he had 8 sons, lived at Bethlehem, took refuge at one point in Moab when David and the family fled Saul, and is listed in the genealogy of Jesus through Joseph (Matthew 1:6), Jesus being descended from Jesse through both Joseph and Mary.]


December 3


A Rod shall rise out of Jesse. Up to the beginning of the vision, which Isaias [Isaiah] the son of Amos saw, and which was of the burden of Babylon, all this prophecy relates to Christ…The Jews interpret the Shoot and the Flower of Jesse as the Lord Himself; namely, that by the Rod is signified His Royal Power, and by the Flower His Beauty.

We however believe that the Holy Virgin Mary is the Rod from the Root of Jesse, to which no enriching plant hath cleaved, and of whom we earlier read: Behold a Virgin shall conceive, and bear a son. And the Flower is the Lord Our Savior, Who says in the Canticle of Canticles: I am the Flower of the field, and the lily of the valleys.

Upon this Flower then which of a sudden will rise up from the stock and the root of Jesse, through the Virgin Mary, the Spirit of the Lord will rest: because in Him it hath pleased all the fullness of the Godhead to dwell corporeally: and not in part, as in others who were sanctified; but as the Nazarenes read in their Gospel, written in the Hebrew tongue: The whole fountain of the Holy Spirit shall come down upon Him. Now the Lord is a spirit. And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Liberty.

-St. Jerome