“Ô Rod of Jesse, standard raised before the nations, kings are silent before You, whilst people call on You : deliver us, delay no longer, come, Lord, come to save us !”
King David is the best known of the ancestors of Jesus, and he is often invoked in the Gospels : “Jesus, son of David”. Jesse is the father of David, and in the liturgical tradition of the church, one talks of “the Rod of Jesse” as symbolising the most noteworthy of his descendants, Jesus the Messiah. Already, with regard to King David, God had said in the Old Testament, that He was “a man of his own heart”. And we know that the voice of the Father is heard on two occasions, in the New Testament, to call Jesus his “beloved Son” (at the Baptism of Jesus and at his Transfiguration). Jesus had said (see John 14) : “whoever sees Me sees the Father”. We can now say : whoever contemplate the Heart of Jesus contemplates the “Heart” of the Father.
Prayer :
Heart of Jesus, object of complacency of the Heavenly Father, have mercy on us.
