December 27, 2020 - "Admirabile Signum (Enchanting Image)"

On December 1, 2019, Pope Francis issued an Apostolic Letter entitled Admirabile Signum (“Enchanting Image”) on the meaning and importance of the Nativity Scene.  As you read this it is now two days after Christmas.  Happily we are still within the Christmas season which will last until January 10 when we celebrate the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord.  One of the scenes that Pope Francis recalls in his Apostolic Letter is the origin of the Christmas crèche and the role that St. Francis of Assisi had in its origins.  Let’s listen to the Holy Father tell this story:
 
“But let us go back to the origins of the Christmas crèche so familiar to us.  We need to imagine ourselves in the little Italian town of Greccio, near Rieti (a city in Central Italy).  Saint Francis stopped there, most likely on his way back from Rome where on 29 November 1223 he had received the confirmation of his Rule from Pope Honorius III.  Francis had earlier visited the Holy Land, and the caves in Greccio reminded him of the countryside of Bethlehem.  It may also be that the ‘Poor Man of Assisi’ had been struck by the mosaics in the Roman Basilica of Saint Mary Major depicting the birth of Jesus, close to a place where, according to an ancient tradition, the wooden panels of the manger are preserved.
 
“The Franciscan Sources describe in detail what then took place in Greccio.  Fifteen days before Christmas, Francis asked a local man named John to help him realize his desire ‘to bring to life the memory of that babe born in Bethlehem, to see as much as possible with my own bodily eyes the discomfort of his infant needs, how he lay in the manger, and how, with an ox and an ass standing by, he was laid upon a bed of hay’ (Thomas of Celano, First Life, 84; Franciscan Sources, 469). At this, his faithful friend went immediately to prepare all that the Saint had asked.  On 25 December friars came to Greccio from various parts together with people from the farmlands in the area, who brought flowers and torches to light up that night.  When Francis arrived, he found a manger full of hay, an ox and a donkey.  All those present experienced a new and indescribable joy in the presence of the Christmas scene.  The priest then solemnly celebrated the Eucharist over the manger, showing the bond between the Incarnation of the Son of God and the Eucharist.  At Greccio there were no statues; the nativity scene was enacted and experienced by all who were present.
 
This is how our tradition began:  with everyone gathered in joy around the cave, with no distance between the original event and those sharing in its mystery.”
 
The Holy Father writes in his Apostolic Letter that St. Francis carried out a great work of evangelization with the simplicity of that sign.  His teaching touched the hearts of Christians and continues today to offer a simple yet authentic means of portraying the beauty of our faith.  He continues his reflection on the lasting significance of what St. Francis first did in Greccio in 1223:

“Setting up the Christmas crèche in our homes helps us to relive the history of what took place in Bethlehem.  Naturally the Gospels remain our source for understanding and reflecting on that event.  At the same time, its portrayal in the crèche helps us to imagine the scene.  It touches our hearts and makes us enter into salvation history as contemporaries of an event that is living and real in a broad gamut of historical and cultural contexts.
 
“In a particular way, from the time of its Franciscan origins, the nativity scene has invited us to ‘feel’ and ‘touch’ the poverty that God’s Son took upon himself in the Incarnation.  Implicitly, it summons us to follow him along the path of humility, poverty, and self-denial that leads from the manger to Bethlehem to the cross.  It asks us to meet him and serve him by showing mercy to those of our brothers and sisters in greatest need” (cf. Mt 25:31-46).
 
Happy New Year! 
 
Until next week,
Fr. John