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The ornaments to print out for the Jesse Tree
Understanding the  Jesse Tree

Tuesday of the Second Week of Advent
Exodus 12:1-11

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you. Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household. If a household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbor in obtaining one; the lamb shall be divided in proportion to the number of people who eat of it. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a year-old male; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight. They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner organs.  You shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the passover of the Lord.

The experience of the Exodus and all that surrounded it is the event that formed the consciousness of the Israelite people.  It is memorialized in the Passover meal, which is not just a nice remembrance but the work of God who continues his saving action in the act of remembering.  This work of God, which happened in time, exists in eternity as He continues the work of freeing His people from slavery and offering them a way to live in this world with the gift of the Law and the Prophets.  It is from this backdrop that we understand the coming of Christ and the new Passover.  God fulfilled the requirements of the Law and the Prophets in the sending of His Son through the new Passover of the Son of God from suffering and death to life. He continues to offer freedom from the slavery to sin and a new life of union with Him through grace.  Jesus, who is God, is now the Lamb who is sacrificed, not only who was sacrificed in time, but is sacrificed in eternity to continue His work of freeing his people from separation from God, which is sin and death.  The people of Israel are our fathers in the faith and from them came the Savior we celebrate at Christmas and receive at each Mass.  Emmanuel is God with us and the Eucharist is the Sacramental presence with us and still freeing us today.

When God freed the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, He brought them into the desert and taught them how to thank God and to celebrate all that God did for them.  They celebrated the Passover and would eat lamb, which is an important Jewish meal at Passover.  They remember all that God did for them, and even Jesus celebrated the Passover the night before He died on the Cross but he changed the meaning to relate to his sacrifice on the cross.  When we go to Mass, we do the same thing Jesus did at his Passover meal.  We remember that Jesus died on the cross for our sins and we thank Him at Mass.  We do not eat lamb because Jesus is the new Lamb of God and so we eat the Sacramental Body and Blood of Jesus as a way to help us remain close to Him.

At Christmas, we celebrate the coming of Christ in time and his coming again at the end of time.  We also believe that God comes to us each time we go to Mass in the Holy Eucharist and each time we pray.  Discuss the importance of attending Mass and being present at the Lord’s Sacrifice.  Share its meaning in the life of the family and in each one’s personal life.  Talk about this Catholic belief: “The Eucharist is not only something we do as Catholic when we go to Mass, The Eucharist is who we are.  We are a Eucharistic people.”  We celebrate the coming of Jesus at Christmas but also at each Mass.  Jesus, Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, comes to us in the Most Holy Eucharist when we attend the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and receive Holy Communion.