It is wonderful to know that during this Christmas 2023, we commemorate the 800 years of the First Crib, made by St. Francis of Assisi, at Greccio in the year 1223 in Italy. The mind of St Francis was to portray the birth of Christ so vividly that it would leave an impact on our senses. Greccio, a little town in Italy is a little nook of spirituality which is more popularly known as a “Franciscan Bethlehem”. Today, the tradition of preparing a Christmas crib is a part and parcel of our Christmas celebration.
For St Francis of Assisi, Christmas, the mystery of the Incarnation of Jesus was an astonishing act of God’s profound humility. One of the deep longings of Francis was to see the profound humility of God with his own physical eyes: “I want to do something that will recall the memory of that Child who was born in Bethlehem, to see with bodily eyes the inconveniences of His infancy, how He lay in the manger, and how the ox and ass stood by.” In the year 1223, on the birthday of our Lord Jesus Christ, with his creative imagination Francis reenacted the nativity scene in the context of the Eucharist to revere, adore, contemplate and to celebrate the mystery of Incarnation. In the first crib, a manger was prepared and there were no statues. There was only an ox, an ass and some hay. During the solemn night celebration, a virtuous man saw a wonderful vision. A little child was lying in the manger and the holy man of God St Francis held that Child in his arms and that child was the Child Jesus. Greccio was transformed into a new Bethlehem.
Scenes like this soon became popular throughout Christendom. Within a hundred years every church in Italy was expected to have a nativity scene at Christmas, with statues eventually replacing live participants. Nativity scenes then spread from churches into homes, where they are still very popular. In an Angelus message in Advent 2005 Pope Benedict XVI spoke of their value: “To set up the crib at home can be a simple but effective way of presenting the faith and transmitting it to one’s children. The manger helps us to contemplate the mystery of God’s love who revealed himself in the poverty and simplicity of the Bethlehem cave.”
Francis of Assisi calls Christmas the “Feast of Feasts” and this is still the case today regarding popular piety and tradition. However, it cannot not be overlooked that in many places nowadays, the Christmas celebration has turned into a sentimental and non-committal affair to escape into a perfect world for a few days at least, having nothing in common with real life. That is why Francis celebrated the presence of God in this world. For him, God was the humble one, the one who met him in the smallest things: in a child that was born in a stable, in the midst of homelessness and vulnerability of human beings, in their poverty and misery. All of us are invited to seek God among the poor, the suffering, all human beings, hungry creatures, the animals. This is the reason why Francis wanted to ask the emperor and all those who exercise political responsibility, to pass laws that took care of the needs of all. Christmas was for him a challenge to overcome poverty, hunger - it was the basis for the humanization of the human being. If we get touched by it, Christmas will be an opportunity for us to contribute to the “humanization of humankind”. At Christmastide Jesus arms still stretch out for our love.
This Christmas we need to gaze at the ‘Babe in the Manger’ who is the face of the Father’s Mercy and experience the miracle of the Babe in our own hearts. For, ‘Christmas is no Christmas unless Christ is born in our hearts’.
On the occasion of the 800th anniversary of the “Christmas at Greccio,” as experienced by St Francis of Assisi, the Holy Father Pope Francis has granted the privilege that “the faithful receive a plenary indulgence under the usual conditions from 8 December 2023, to 2 February 2024, “by visiting the churches run by Franciscan families throughout the world and stopping in prayer in front of the nativity scenes set up there”.