Second Sunday of Advent

The Advent Sunday Liturgy is beautiful; the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, because Sunday falls on December 8, is celebrated on Monday. The first reading from the Prophet Isaiah tells us "a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse and from his roots a bud shall blossom."  There is a poem of Jessica Powers that I love and think worth copying here - it is in The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers:

I am waiting for a green shoot
to come out of my stump some morning
in this unseasonal springtime...
December's leaf and blossom, winter's bird.
Joy waits with me and I can fell its seepage
into my day and night.
My bones sing and I hear an unknown music
from that one place where, by old reverence stirred,
the vowels drain from a word.
I think of the marvelous flower that is to come
and how the light will hover over it.
Now and again though is the message blurred
by brief uncertainties;
I fear that my rude excess of watching
the green may be deterred
or that I have miscalculated seasons
or given far too personal a meaning 
to glorious promises Isaiah heard.

Yet who am I to minimize the worth
of what a stump is likely to bring forth?

Plenty to reflect upon in this Sunday's liturgy and we have John the Baptist in the wilderness crying out "Prepare ye the way of the Lord!"