800th Anniversary of St. Francis’ Nativity Scene

St. Francis of Assisi is perhaps the most revered of the saints of the pre-Reformation church. Born in 1182 into the family of a wealthy cloth merchant, he enjoyed a privileged and secure life. He served in the army and was taken prisoner for a time. It was through an encounter with a leper and some mystical experiences associated with a crucifix that Francis had a radical conversion that transformed his life. He felt called to rebuild God’s church.

At the heart of Francis’ understanding of the gospel were the evangelical counsels of simplicity, humility and freely chosen poverty. From being a soldier, he became committed to peace: from being proud he became humble and from being affluent he embraced poverty. Francis gathered around him a group of brothers who committed themselves to live close to the teaching of Jesus. He was affectionately called Il Poverello, the poor little one, which speaks of his humility and poverty. He cultivated a joyful spirit.

The rule that Francis developed for his community was so radical that Pope Innocent III hesitated to endorse it, suspecting that it was unrealistic. After revision, the rule was approved, and the community began its life of identifying with the poor and preaching the gospel. The brothers rejected material comfort and sought simplicity close to nature. Francis saw birds and animals as kin.

Central to Francis’ spirituality was his wonder at the humility of God in the incarnation. He marvelled at God becoming vulnerable in sharing the divine life with humanity. His first biographer, Thomas of Celano, comments on what Francis saw in Christ: “Jesus embraced both the humility of the Incarnation and the clarity of the Passion because he came to love us by becoming one of us. Love was the reason for the Incarnation.” This was a different emphasis from seeing the incarnation ‘as a remedy for sin.’

Francis saw the birth of Jesus depicting the humility of God. We are told that Francis reflected upon these two realities almost to the exclusion of all others. He meditated on the text from St. Paul: “Though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, so that through his poverty, you might become rich.” (2 Cor. 8:9) Through their poverty, having nothing to defend, his brothers could truly become peacemakers in the spirit of the gospel.

We believe that Francis spent the years 1219 – 1220 in the Holy Land visiting places associated with Jesus’ life and ministry. He was especially impressed with a cave which was held to be the place where the Christ child was born. This was probably the inspiration for Francis wanting to recreate the scene when he returned to Italy.

In 1223 Francis sought permission from Pope Honorius III to set the scene for “the kindling of devotion” to the birth of Christ. With his special reverence for the incarnation, Francis wanted to show the poverty into which Christ was born, and the humanity of Christ who shared our often-precarious lives. Thomas of Celano observed: “toward the mother of Jesus he was filled with inexpressible love, because it was she who made the Lord of Majesty our brother.”

Francis contacted a noble, John Vellita, whom he had befriended in the rural town of Greccio. He sent a message saying: “Giovanni, if you want to help me, this year we can celebrate the most wonderful Christmas ever … In one of your woods, in Greccio, there is a cave similar to that in Bethlehem. I would like to represent the Christmas scene and see with the eyes of poverty in which the child Jesus came into the world. I want to see how he was placed in a crib and lay between an ox and a donkey.”

Giovanni arranged for the scene to be recreated in the cave at Greccio. A manger was built, hay gathered, and an ox and ass brought to the cave. Francis and his brothers assembled with local people. Lights shone in the darkness and a priest presided at the celebration of the eucharist, with the manger as an altar. Francis, being a deacon read the gospel, sang and preached. He regarded Christmas as the Feast of Feasts. Deeply moved, he spoke with simplicity of the babe of Bethlehem who was born into poverty – a sign of the humility of God. Those worshipping experienced great joy.

The recreation of the scene of the birth of the Christ child made a deep impact on all who were present, fulfilling Francis’ desire for it to inspire devotion. Thomas of Celano tells us: “There simplicity was honoured, poverty was exalted, humility was commended and Greccio was made, as it were, a new Bethlehem.”

In 1291 the first Franciscan bishop of Rome, Pope Nicholas IV, decided that a permanent nativity scene be constructed in St. Maria Maggiore, a prominent church in Rome dedicated to Mary, the mother of Jesus. Francis knew that tangible, material reminders of events in our Christian story have power to evoke, nurture and confirm faith.

Along with St. Catherine of Siena, Francis is the patron saint of Italy. In 1979 Pope John Paul II declared Francis, patron saint of ecologists.