King of nations He has always been, for He created them; in Him they live and move and are. (Acts xvii. 2). He has been in His earth ever since He created it, governing it, sustaining and preserving the life which He gave, co-operating always with His creatures. We must not think of Him as creating the world and then leaving it to do the best it could till the time came for Him to be incarnate. That is a false idea. His delights were always to be with the children of men and though the Orient did not begin to dawn till the time of the Incarnation, the Light had been in the world all along; the Sun of Justice had existed from all eternity. "He was in the world and the world was made by Him and the world knew Him not." (St. John i. 10). But though it knew Him not, the world had enough light to desire Him. Ever since God at the time of man's fall had made His great promise concerning the Woman and her Seed, He that was to come had been to the nations "their desired One." That promise had been carefully cherished, handed on from father to son till Moses came and recorded it in the book of Genesis; and though of necessity one nation had to be selected to which the Woman and her Seed were to belong, yet the promise was given to all nations and all claimed their share in it. The chosen nation through whom all the others were to be blessed was Abraham's. Through him and his seed the great promise was to be fulfilled (Gen. xii. 3). The time was hinted at in the patriarch Jacob's blessing to Juda: "The sceptre shall not be taken away from Juda, nor a ruler from his thigh, till He come that is to be sent and He shall be the expectation of nations" (Gen. xlix. 10). The house or family which was to have the joy of realizing the promise was David's; the place where the Woman was to bring forth her Seed was Bethlehem. Here "she that travaileth shall bring forth" and here "shall He come ... that is to be the Ruler in Israel" (Mich. v. 2-3). Each subsequent prophecy or promise developed and enlarged the original one given in Eden, but in that one the nations had all that they needed upon which to build up their hopes and nourish their desires—the Woman and her Seed, the "Child with His Mother"—and though the promise belonged to the chosen nation (Rom. ix. 4), the first great promise had been handed down through the other nations and they knew enough to make them desire, enough to find the Light if they sought it as did the Wise Kings of the East.

O King of nations, as I look back through the ages and see the Child and His Mother so clearly set forth in promise and prophecy, in type and example, when I think of Thy plans for the redemption of the world, made from all eternity and gradually unfolding as the fulness of time approached, when I think of the nations all desiring Thy coming, when I think of the intense desire of Thy loving Heart, there is one thing that seems to jar and to be out of harmony with the rest, and that is the lamentable want of desire in my own heart! The time is very short now, the Child with His Mother are already on the way to Bethlehem. Oh! Let me multiply my Acts of Desire that my little King when He comes may be indeed my "desired One" too. "I sat down under His shadow, Whom I desired." (Cant. ii. 3).

"Behold I will lay a stone in the foundations of Sion, a tried stone, a corner-stone, a precious stone, founded in the foundations" (Isaias xxviii. 16), "the stone which the builders rejected" (Ps. cxvii. 22).

This is one of the promises confided to the chosen nation. Our Blessed Lord claims it as applying to Himself (St. Matt. xxi. 42, St. Luke xx. 17), and St. Peter and St. Paul both speak of it as if it were well known. (Acts iv. 11, 1 Peter ii. 6-8, Rom. ix. 33, Eph. ii. 20).

He is the Corner-stone Who is coming to make both one (Eph. ii. 14), both the Jews to whom belongs the promise (Rom. ix. 4) and the Gentiles who are "co-partners of His promise" (Eph. iii. 6). He is coming to preach peace to them that are far off as well as to them that are nigh, coming to make "the strangers and foreigners" feel that they are "fellow-citizens with the saints and the domestics of God," coming to weld all together into one great building of which He Himself is to be the chief Corner-stone, binding together the two walls (Jews and Gentiles), supporting each stone and keeping each in its place, a holy temple in the Lord, "a habitation of God in the spirit." Such is the picture St. Paul draws for us (Eph. ii), and such is the picture which the antiphon for to-day brings before our minds. "All one in Christ Jesus." He is the King of all nations, the Desired of all nations, the Corner-stone of the whole building; with Him there is neither Jew nor Gentile (Gal. iii. 28).

Let me tell Him even now before He comes how I long to share in the great work so dear to His Sacred Heart, let me offer myself to co-operate with Him in His designs for the human race which He loves so well.

Let me be ready to labour, to suffer, to pray, to spend and be spent, if only I may thus bring Him a few stones for His Holy Temple. I was "sometime afar off" but now have been "made nigh by the Blood of Christ" (Eph. ii. 13). "What shall I render?" (Ps. cxv. 12).

"Their desired One" Who has never been far from the hearts of His children, knows the need of the nations. He Who formed man out of the dust knows his need of a Saviour. What are the desires of the nations compared with His desire? From all eternity He has desired the time to come when by taking the nature of man He could fulfil their desires and be to them both a King and a Saviour. Very soon now will the Angels be telling the glad tidings to man: To you is born the Saviour. Very soon will the heavenly choirs be singing the praises of the new-born King, and the question will be asked even by distant nations: "Where is He that is born King?"

Oh! come, little King, come and fulfil the desires of all hearts. Thou hast given them and Thou also must satisfy them. Art Thou really the one desire of my heart, around which all my hopes centre? If Thou wert not there, I know that life would be nothing but a blank. Come and create a greater desire than ever after the perfection Thou wouldst have, and then show me how to follow after it. "In what place soever Thou shalt be, my Lord King ... there will Thy servant be" (2 Kings xv. 21). To-day then I will journey with Thy blessed Mother, for surely the closer I keep to her, the greater must be my desires.

Colloquy with "the desired One."

Resolution. Grace to desire Him more ardently.

Spiritual Bouquet. O Rex Gentium!