Reflections on the Christmas Crèche

An invitation to observe with enthusiasm the custom begun by Francis of Assisi.

Bishop Javier Echevarria | Dec 14 2016 | comment

Ever since Saint Francis of Assisi created the first Nativity scene centuries ago, the Christmas crib has been a treasured custom in the Christian world. In 2015 the Santa Clara Royal Monastery in Carrion de Los Condes, Spain, organised an exposition of many such scenes, which are now collected in a book, The Christmas Creche, its Figures and Symbols.

In a prologue to the book, Bishop Javier Echevarria, Prelate of Opus Dei, who died on December 12, reflected on this beautiful tradition and encouraged people to continue it. We reproduce here an excerpt from these reflections, published a few days ago on the Opus Dei website. Bishop Javier began by referring to “the enthusiasm that led St. Francis of Assisi to express this holy event in a dramatic scene for the first time, marking out a before and after in the history of humanity.” He continued:

This took place in a forest near Greccio, a town in Umbria, Italy, in the 13th century. Francis had just made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, which likely led to his devotion to the Most Holy Humanity of Christ becoming even more ardent. In Rome, he asked Pope Honorius III for permission to set up a living Nativity scene, which would remind people of the night of the first Christmas. With the help of a loyal friend, he was able to carry out his desire: “To vividly evoke the memory of the heavenly Child who had been born in Bethlehem, and to bring to the attention of the people and to my heart the discomfort of his needs as a baby, seeing him lying on a bit of hay, reclining in a manger, warmed by the breath of an ox and a mule.”

On that Christmas night in 1223, the “poor man” of Assisi crowned his dream, experiencing visually the greatness and novelty of the mystery of the Incarnation and enabling the people from the surrounding towns to share in his joy. According to Thomas of Celano, St. Francis’ first biographer, the local people gathered in the forest of Greccio, carrying lighted torches and candles to illuminate the night. Francis, dressed in the vestments of a deacon, sang the Gospel of the Nativity in the Mass celebrated by a priest who was also deeply moved. Francis gave a sermon in which he called Jesus the “Child of Bethlehem.” He stood alongside the Nativity scene, and— according to his biographer—was filled with piety and an ineffable joy “whenever he named the Child of Bethlehem or simply said ‘Jesus,’ and seemed to be tasting the sweetness of that name.”

Pope Benedict XVI referred to this event a few years ago in a general audience on the meaning of Christmas. “Celano narrates that, on that Christmas night, Francis was given a marvelous vision. He saw a little child lying still in a manger; the child woke up because Francis approached. And he adds: ‘This vision was not different than real life, since through the work of his grace acting by way of his holy servant Francis, the Child Jesus was resurrected in the hearts of many people who had forgotten him, and this was deeply impressed on his loving memory’ (Vita prima no. 86).” The Pope added that that first representation of the Nativity was, for the life of the faithful, “the discovery that God reveals himself in the tender limbs of the Child Jesus. Thanks to St. Francis, the Christian people have been able to perceive that, at Christmas, God truly has become ‘Emmanuel,’ God-with-us, from whom no barrier or distance can separate us.”

Also in our day it is very necessary to “resurrect” in the hearts of believers the conviction that the eternal Son of God, moved by his mercy (by his condescension, as the early Fathers of the Church said), truly became one of us. He has taken upon himself our weaknesses, except for sin, to redeem us from our faults. The holy and eternal God, who cannot die, became man in order to suffer death like us, and thus free us from the devil’s tyranny and make us children of God.

The liturgical celebration of Jesus’ birth, with all the many manifestations of popular piety that accompany it, is a moment of great importance for enabling this truth to shine forth before the eyes and in the hearts of the Christian people, and also for so many men and women who, throughout the world, celebrate Christmas in some way even without realizing its full meaning. Therefore setting up the Nativity scene in homes and in cities is a strong sign of faith, capable of awakening a world that is running the risk of forgetting the eternal realities and focusing only on what is passing.

Let us try to revive in ourselves the same wonder and enthusiasm that St. Francis had on that Christmas night in Umbria. The Greek root of the word “enthusiasm” contains a reference to the divine inspiration stirred up in those who receive it: passion, joy, wonder, rapture, fervor of spirit... And this really happens when we consider the meaning of the birth of the Child in Bethlehem. His lessons of humility, poverty, abandonment, are always timely, and perhaps more so in our day and age, marred by tensions that lead to forgetting about God and rejecting our neighbor.

In the Child Jesus the God who is Love is made manifest: a defenseless God, who renounces the use of force, because he wants to be accepted freely by mankind. His birth amid the poverty of Bethlehem, unnoticed by anyone, except Mary and Joseph, speaks to us of the urgent need to get out of ourselves in order to place ourselves joyfully at the service of others, especially those in most need. “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven,” our Lord said (Mt 18:3). In order to truly understand the mystery of the Nativity, we need to foster the attitude of a small child, who puts his trust entirely in his father and mother, and strive to become like the eternal Son of God, made the son of man.

Read the full article here.

For decades now, IVF clinicians and researchers have agreed that it would be quite wrong to grow human embryos in a Petri dish for longer than 14 days. This was a bright line which they would never cross, cross my heart and hope to die.

Until this year when a British scientist discovered how to grow embryos for longer than 14 days. It was almost comic to hear scientists asserting in newspaper after newspaper that the 14-day limit should be replaced with a 28-day limit. Which, of course, it would be quite wrong to cross, cross my heart and hope to die.

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