| V. Choir | 7 January |
|---|---|
| Angel of Jesse | Valentine, Reinhold |
Lord, how wonderfully You have ordered the ministries of angels and men! You have built man into the mission of the angels and have placed the mission of man under the care of Your angels!
The angels of High Power are clearly characterised by this: They are angels of God’s covenant with mankind. As angels of power they are of a great, static and sober strength and loyalty. As guardians of God’s covenant with mankind they look after God’s interests with great justice and do not shy away from using force if this covenant is not honoured.
The one whom God allows us to recognise today as an intercessor before His Throne is one of the twelve who bear God’s old and new covenants. These twelve are like great and mighty strongholds, standing with their feet on the ground of creation and carrying the tablets of the law, the books of the judges and kings, the apostles and evangelists, the Church fathers and doctors.
Saint Nicael,
is the sixth of these twelve. He bears the power of Jesse, the father of David, and of all of the saints before the Birth of the Lord. He bears the love, uprightness and fear of God of all the saints of the Old Covenant, who, above all, bear the promises of God as their most sacred legacy. He carries the covenant of God’s promise of the Messiah all the way up to Saint John the Baptist, the greatest of those ever born of a woman. As a sign of this, he has—next to the book of the words of God—a staff, at the upper end of which grows the young shoot from the stock of Jesse, the rose from the simple, strong root: Mary, the pure handmaid who brought us the Messiah.
Prayer: Lord, let us praise Your wonderful guidance of mankind. Centuries ago, in the simple man Jesse, You chose for Yourself the progenitor of the lineage of David, from whom Mary and Joseph, Mother and Foster-father of Your Only Son, would one day come forth. Amen.