NeuroDivine

Today the ancient prayer leans close and whispers of roots.

Not the tidy kind we place in vases or the decorative branches we hang with lights, but the deep, hidden, stubborn roots that hold a people together when everything else feels fragile.

“O Root of Jesse, standing as a sign among the peoples…” A reminder that before there were kings or kingdoms, before exile or return, before disappointment or renewal, there was a promise quietly taking hold beneath the surface.

This antiphon invites us to look again at the places where hope begins—not in spectacle, but in soil. Not in triumph, but in tenderness. Not in the noise of power, but in the quiet persistence of God’s faithfulness.

In these final days before Christmas, when the world feels hurried and hearts feel stretched, O Radix Jesse calls us to trust the slow work of grace. The roots are already growing. The story is already unfolding. The One who comes does not appear out of nowhere—He rises from the long memory of God’s people, from the lineage of longing, from the promise that refuses to die.

May we find ourselves rooted again—
in mercy that outlasts our weariness,
in hope that grows even in winter,
in the God who brings life from stumps and shoots from forgotten ground.