We celebrate Christmas in many splendid ways. One of the first items to appear in our homes, churches, schools and workplaces as Christmas approaches is a Christmas nativity scene, often in the form of a crib or crèche.
With great imagination and creativity, the enchanting image of the Christmas crèche, so dear to Christian and non-Christians the world over, never ceases to arouse amazement and wonder.
As you stand, sit or kneel before your nativity scene, spend a little time reflecting and praying. Contemplate the image of the “babe of Bethlehem,” the image of family, of all of creation and the love God has for all of us as you set out on a spiritual journey over the Christmas season.
Francis’ Favourite Feast
Saint Francis of Assisi is often attributed as having invented the Christmas crèche. This does not accurately reflect historical archival documents with some early nativity scenes being traced to A.D. 380 and found in the early Christian catacombs in Rome. The origin of the Christmas crèche is found above all in certain details of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, as related in the Gospels. What can be said is that Francis’ reenactment of the first Bethlehem popularised the Christmas crèche.
Christmas was Francis’ favourite feast. It was for him ‘The Feast of Feasts’ and in 1223 he wanted to celebrate it in a distinct way.
Now in Medieval times Christmas was a time for Christians to remember that Christ will be the judge. This was a time full of sentiment, anxiety and fear.
One of the greatest difficulties for Francis and the friars who preached and were renewing of the church of the day was that the people they were addressing were already Christians. They knew the basic stories and teaching, as many Christians do today.
So how would Francis reach the hearts of these people? Knowing that the traditional liturgical celebrations of the time failed to acknowledge God’s great love, revealed to all in the Incarnation (the Christian belief that God takes on human form), Francis prepares a different Christmas.
Francis and Greccio –from The Conference of the Franciscan Family Coordination Committee for the Franciscan Centenary, 2022. Image: Supplied.
What did Francis do?
The Franciscan sources reveal that it was December of 1223. Francis and some of the Brothers were staying near the little village of Greccio in the Rieti Valley, Italy. Thomas of Celano (Thomas of Celano, First Life, 84), the first biographer of Francis, provides an account:
Blessed Francis had John summoned to him some fifteen days prior to the birthday of the Lord. “If you desire to celebrate the coming feast of the Lord together at Greccio,” he said to him, “hurry before me and carefully make ready the things I tell you. For I wish to enact the memory of that babe who was born in Bethlehem: to see as much as possible with my own bodily eyes the discomfort of his infant needs, how he lay in a manger, and how, with an ox and an ass standing by, he rested in hay.” Once the good and faithful man had heard Francis’ words, he ran quickly and prepared in that place all the things the holy man had requested. (Francis of Assisi, Volume 1, The Saint, pp 254-255)
The Gift – God becomes human
In a dramatic reenactment of the events of Bethlehem, Francis celebrates God’s great love, a love made concrete in a little child wrapped in swaddling clothes.
In this first living nativity scene of Bethlehem, where usually a baby is placed, Francis placed a table around which the people celebrated Eucharist together. A tradition tells us that during the liturgy, while Francis was preaching with deep feeling about God’s love, the child Jesus appeared and rested in Francis’ arms. With simplicity, the visual picture of Bethlehem is immediate through props: an ox, an ass, a manger, a cave, singing, light and the warmth of love. Furthermore, Francis places all this before the eyes of the people, inviting them into Christ’s home and making the Incarnation real. He hoped that the people would see themselves in the Christmas scene saying, “here in your home, the Word is made flesh”.
In doing this Francis of Assisi reminded the people, and now reminds us, that Jesus, the ‘babe of Bethlehem’, comes every day bringing joy and love for us when we carry Christ within and birth him by doing ‘good’. Moreover, Pope Francis tells us, “that it does not matter how the nativity scene is arranged… What matters is that it speaks to our lives. Wherever it is, and whatever form it takes, the Christmas crèche speaks to us of the love of God, the God who became a child in order to make us know how close he is to every man, woman and child, regardless of their condition.” (Pope Francis, 2019 Admirabile Signum. 3.)
Shared in fraternity by Franciscans throughout Australia. Written by Alison Stone, Animator of Mission and Identity, Franciscan Schools Australia.
This article was originally published in the 2024 Advent & Christmas | Summer edition of the Catholic Outlook Magazine. You can read the digital version here or pick up a copy in your local parish.
