Left: the Incarnation; right: the bush and the Redemption
Life is stronger than death. The bush blossoms.
Philippe de Rosen, cicm
Missionary in Belgium
"When God reveals himself to Moses (Exodus 3), He is standing in a thorny bush. What does this mean? A Jewish text by Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai explains this: "Just as this thorny bush is the hardest of all the shrubs in the world, so that any bird that enters it cannot get out safely without tearing its wings on the thorns, so Israel's slavery in Egypt was harder than all the slavery in the world".
Why did God speak to Moses from that bush? "I have seen and heard the cry of my people.I have come down to deliver them... Go, I have sent you! (Ex. 3, 7-8)
Just as that bush was the humblest of all the shrubs in the world, so the Israelites had descended to the lowest depths and God came down with them to save them".
"The Bible is a pedagogical work that reveals little by little who this God is, who is capable of lowering himself and imprisoning himself out of love. It also reveals who man is: man is great in God's eyes, despite his weaknesses and faults.
- Jacques Duquesne: the God of Jesus Christ p.91
"A puny bush in the desert that bursts into flames, and becomes "budded"; the destructive power is unable to eliminate the life-giving power of the sap! This is the image of the people of God: within the people of God there is someone Moses does not yet know.”
"On that day, a branch will grow out of the stump of Jesse, father of David, an " offspring " (SCHEUT in Dutch) will sprout from his roots. On him will rest the Spirit of the Lord: the spirit of wisdom and discernment, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord". Isaiah 11, 1-3.
"What's left when you've lost everything, when suffering crushes you? What's left is God. But what can he do if we don't welcome him? Like Moses, we too often prefer to take a diversion to "understand" without getting too involved! How can God get through our unbelief? He is the Presence.... externally, nothing changes: the suffering and misfortune are still there, but he joins us there. It is in the experience of my total powerlessness that God himself can be freed from his powerlessness to act, if we let him into our hearts".
- Notes taken in Besançon: Retraite 2001
CHRISTMAS and EASTER are the same reality: It is Christ humbly lying in a manger, in solidarity with innocent children massacred, in solidarity with immigrants by being forced to flee protected by his parents to Egypt, ready to do the Father's will by staying in the Temple for 3 days without his parents knowing.....from the very beginning a "sword pierces Mary's heart"...
How do we face up to this mystery? Let us dare to take this leap of faith: whatever suffering we face, the LIFE offered by Jesus (God-Save, - Emmanuel, God with us) will have the last word. The LIGHT will be stronger than our darkness.
In a painting by Jan Van Coninxloo in the church of St. Denis in Forest-Brussels, we see the angel Gabriel announcing to Mary that she had been chosen to be the Mother of Jesus, the Son of God.
Mary is kneeling on a “prie-Dieu”, meditating with the Bible open on the passage from the Burning Bush in Exodus 3. This meditation on God's humility enabled her to say YES, I am the Handmaid of the Lord.
Our Lady of Scheut appeared at Pentecost 1450, surrounded by Light, on the site where our Institute was founded by Father Théophile Verbist. Mary surrounded by "buds" in a tree in full bloom. Is this a reminder of the revelation of the Burning Bush? A call to become, in our turn, missionaries called to announce that God is coming to make a New World and that this world is already "budding".
Our Lady of Scheut, Our Lady surrounded by buds, help us to believe that life is stronger than death.