Our Jesse tree readings

I love reading this book during Advent.It has become a regular tradition to read it each year. The characters in it, one crusty old man and a cheeky young boy ,with powerful insight, always speak freshly to us no matter how many times it is read.

And no wonder, so they should, for they speak to the very heart of the matter, where lies all truth and abundantly given grace.They show us that the history of our God is not to be kept in a dusty tome but is to be lived and witnessed to each day.

Today I think of someone we know who is dying"But aren't we all dying" says the youngest."Yes," I answer, "But for some this is going to happen much sooner than their years on earth belie".
"Why do people die when they haven't lived very long?""If I was God I would make sure that everyone got their fair share of living first!"

And I pause and stumble over what I am reading...
So many times in these chapters we read about people who came to show others the way.People who were "ahead of their times",radical thinkers.....

Yes that's it. It helps us to see in our very limited way a young life that lead her sister and her mother to come into the journey.Someone who came every Sunday to Mass (and insisted on coming)... to sit often by themselves,...not spoken to or smiled at by others, ...but still they came again and again.

They have come like John to bear witness to the truth, and like John to be a voice of one that cries in the desert: Prepare a way for the Lord, make his paths straight.None of this will take away the sorrow we will feel when they die. But that sorrow is ours, not theirs. For at their death is it not true that God, as Jesus, will stretch out His arms and envelope them in the mightiest of bear hugs while saying"welcome my beloved into the everlasting life I have prepared for you,enter thou in . And now let the true living begin!"
Yes reading this book,finding our Advent we can pause to give thanks for our friend, who has taught us well!