<The ground> will produce thorns and thistles for you.
Genesis 3:18
~Luci Shaw “Flower head”
We continue to reel under the thorns our choices produce — indeed every day there is more bloodletting.
So a rose was sent to adorn the thorns and even then we chose thorns to make Him bleed and still do to this day.
Yes, a fragrant rose blooms beautiful, bleeding amid the thorns, and will to the endless day.
Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming from tender stem hath sprung!
Of Jesse’s lineage coming, as men of old have sung.
It came, a floweret bright, amid the cold of winter,
When half spent was the night.
Isaiah ’twas foretold it, the Rose I have in mind;
With Mary we behold it, the virgin mother kind.
To show God’s love aright, she bore to men a Savior,
When half spent was the night.
The shepherds heard the story proclaimed by angels bright,
How Christ, the Lord of glory was born on earth this night.
To Bethlehem they sped and in the manger found Him,
As angel heralds said.
This Flower, whose fragrance tender with sweetness fills the air,
Dispels with glorious splendor the darkness everywhere;
True Man, yet very God, from sin and death He saves us,
And lightens every load.
O Savior, Child of Mary, who felt our human woe,
O Savior, King of glory, who dost our weakness know;
Bring us at length we pray, to the bright courts of Heaven,
And to the endless day!
1. Maria walks amid the thorn,
Kyrie eleison.
Maria walks amid the thorn,
Which seven years no leaf has born.
Jesus and Maria.
2. What ‘neath her heart doth Mary bear?
Kyrie eleison.
A little child doth Mary bear,
Beneath her heart He nestles there.
Jesus and Maria.
3. And as the two are passing near,
Kyrie eleison,
Lo! roses on the thorns appear,
Lo! roses on the thorns appear.
Jesus and Maria.
When Jesus Christ was yet a child
He had a garden small and wild
Where-in he cherished roses fair
And wove them into garlands there
Now as the summertime drew nigh
There came a troop of children by
And seeing roses on the tree
With shouts they plucked them merrily
“Do you bind roses in your hair?”
They cried in scorn to Jesus there
The boy said humbly “Take I pray
All but the naked thorns away”
Then of the thorns they made a crown
And with rough fingers pressed it down
Till on his forehead fair and young
Red drops of blood like roses sprung
~Plechtcheev, melody by Tchaikovsky
Barnstorming 
I love your posts. They awaken my spirit every morning. Thank you.
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Thank you for these advent posts. As I sit in the early morning darkness they give me joy for the start of each new day.
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Perfect juxtaposition of the Genesis story and how far we continue to regress in response to
what we once were freely given through our Creator’s love and where we are now as we continue in our sinfulness, arrogance, greed, destruction of His beautiful Creation, and
inhumanity to our fellow souls.
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This was beautiful both in pictures and words…. blessed to read this today. Thank you.
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