Br. Charles Marie Rooney, O.P., on the Subversive Shoot

"Christmas is subversive. The eternal, immutable, transcendent, and all-good and powerful Son of God deigned to descend from the heavens and take on our very flesh. He was conceived in the womb of a virgin. Mary's womb became a tabernacle wherein the Lord's assumed humanity would gestate into an embryo, and then a fetus, and finally a newborn. On Christmas, the God-babe lay in, of all things, a feeding trough in a back stable on the outskirts of the little town, Bethlehem, beheld by the loving gaze of his parents and adored by choirs of angels and other visitors. It was in the quiet of this rustic locale that occurred the most significant event in the history of the cosmos since God's act of creation in the beginning (Gen 1:1). No other religious tradition teaches anything remotely like it.

"But the peace on earth (Lk 2:14) of that night divine would be short-lived - indeed, forestalled until an age still yet to come - for with radical events come radical consequences. On the shoulders of the humble and helpless Christ-child rests the government of eternal peace, the kingdom not of this world, the increase of which will have no end (Jn 18:36; Is 9:6-7). By contrast, in the zero-sum game of this-worldly power plays, one king’s sovereignty interferes with that of another. . . .

"Christmas, like everything about Christ, points straight to Calvary, for it is there that the Root of Jesse fully shot forth into the Cross, the new Tree of Life on which Christ uprooted us from sin, striking the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips slaying the wicked (Is 11:4)."

In a recent commentary, Brother Charles Marie Rooney, O.P., reflected on the mystery of the relationship between Jesus in the manger and Jesus on the cross.

To access Br. Maximilian Maria's complete post, please visit:

Dominicana: The Subversive Shoot (28 DEC 18)