"O Flower of Jesse’s Stem, you have been raised up as a sign for all peoples; kings stand silent in your presence; the nations bow down in worship before you. Come, let nothing keep you from coming to our aid." (Isaiah 11:1-4; 45:23; 52:13; Luke 1:32-33)
When I was a child, I remember being told a legend of the poinsettia by an Italian neighbor that she had learned in her home country as a young girl. Legend has it that a girl named Sophia was sad because she was too poor to buy any flowers to present to baby Jesus on Christmas Eve. But as she walked sadly to the church that night, an angel appeared and told her to pick some of the weeds by the side of the road. When Sophia brought her weeds into the church and placed them by the manger, they were changed into beautiful scarlet flowers—poinsettias, to be exact.
She said that a poinsettia was a symbol of The Root of Jesse and the way God blesses our simple acts of generosity - to do whatever we can do to praise God - from generation to generation. And, that's why there are always lots of poinsettias around the Nativity Scene at Christmas.
I'm sure she made that up - or someone in her family did - but I can't look at a poinsettia without thinking of Sophia and Jesse.
That's not a bad thing, actually. But I was thinking about that as I considered Sr. Joan Chittister's meditation for today:
"It takes generations to build the Christ vision in the world, just as it took generations after Jesse to prepare for the coming of the Christ. It is our task to root ideas now that will bring the next generation to wholeness."
And then, this story from my own "family tree" came back to haunt me:
I was driving our youngest daughter home from Jr. high school. I was tired and crabby and the last thing I wanted was to go home and cook supper. So, I tried to get some ideas from her, a fool’s errand if there ever was one.
“So, I’ve had a really tough day, sweetheart. I’m really exhausted. What would you like for supper? Chinese? Italian? McDonalds? Wendy’s? KFC?”
“I don’t know, Mom,” she said in her bored teen way, “Whatever.”
“So, there’s a KFC up ahead. We could do fried chicken and mashed potatoes, and . .. “
“Ewwww,” she said, “it’s so greasy.”
“Okaaaay . . . how about McDonalds?”
“No, I had McDonalds last Tuesday.”
“Wendy’s, then?”
“Same stuff, different package.”
If any of you have had a teen you know where this conversation is headed.
Trying not to show my exasperation, and aware that I was going to have to downshift my VW Bug because a stoplight was coming up pretty fast, I said, “So, just tell me.”
At that point, I was in a long line at the stoplight. I could see a panhandler weaving his way from car to car, asking for spare change. He was filthy and disheveled and clearly in an altered state of conscience.
I could feel my grip on the steering wheel tightening as he got closer to my car. He tried to make eye contact with me but I stared straight ahead. Mercifully, he walked right by.
After I had taken my foot off the brake and slowly shifted my foot to the gas pedal and shifted my car into gear, our youngest daughter said, “So, Mom, why didn’t you give that many some spare change?”
“Well, because I don’t have any,” I said.
She reached into the shelf under my radio and dug out four quarters. “Here’s a dollar right here that you didn’t even know you had. So, if you gave it to him, you wouldn’t even have noticed that it was gone.”
Now, I was annoyed. “Did you see him? The man was drunk. Clearly. Intoxicated. If I gave him that money, he’d just spend it on booze.”
“Oh,” she said, “so I guess it turns out that the real difference between us and them is that we get to choose how to spend our money. We can choose to spend it on good, home-cooked food or we can spend it on junk fast food.”
“But,” she continued her sermon, feeding me words she had heard me preach, “If the poor want to spend their money on something we don’t think they should, they don’t get out money, but they do get our judgment.”
What was it Sr. Joan said? Something about: "It takes generations to build the Christ vision in the world."
From one generation to the next, by story and symbol, by word and deed, one act of random generosity at a time.
I hope something good happens to you today.
Bom dia
You can hear the sisters chant the O Antiphon of the day here https://www.eriebenedictines.org/...
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