For the month of December Franciscan Sister of Christian Charity Sister Mary Ann Spanjers continues the series on discernment in the light of Franciscan Spirituality focusing on St. Francis and the development of the Christmas crib in Greccio. “Francis had a profound and tender love for the Feast of Christmas…. To show the difficult conditions of Jesus’ birth.”
Franciscan Discernment December 2024
We are in the Advent season a time of waiting and preparing for the celebration of the Birth of Jesus and for when Jesus comes again at the end of time!
This is a busy time for so many of us. My Franciscan Sisters, in our Craft room, have been preparing for Christmas for many months. They found some forgotten fabric in the back of the cupboard for cloth Christmas Cribs. Once discovered the orders just keep coming in. So the Sisters have been sewing and stuffing the cloth figures of Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the animals, shepherds and kings along with the camels, the angel and the stable itself.
Where did this tradition of having a Christmas crib come from? It is a wonderful gift from our patron St. Francis of Assisi.
St Francis was on his way back from Rome, meeting with the Pope to approve his rule of life, following Jesus in the Gospel, he went to stay with the Friars in a town called Greccio. It was 2 weeks before Christmas in 1223 that according to Brother Thomas Celano, a contemporary and biographer of St Francis, Francis met with a friend of the town, Giovanni and asked him to help in preparing a special celebration for the celebration of Christmas. To understand this it is important to know that Francis, like many Christians, but perhaps more than most, had a special love and tender devotion for the feast of Christmas. His heart melted with love at the thought of the little Child born in a stable. Francis asked Giovanni to bring animals and hay to a cave outside the town and to have a couple take the place of Mary and Joseph. He wanted to show the people of the town and his own brothers the physical conditions of the birth of Jesus.
He wanted people to be able to experience what it was like for the Son of God to be born in a stable, surrounded by the ox, donkey, straw and cold.
Francis and his brothers and the people of Greccio gathered in the cave on Christmas Eve, lighting up the night with torches, singing hymns, with a priest celebrating Mass on tan altar arranged over the manger. Francis himself, a deacon, sang the Gospel in a beautiful voice, and preached full of emotion. Thomas wrote that it seemed as if the infant Jesus, long forgotten in the hearts of the people, came to life that night. And all of creation, the trees, stones and surrounding mountainside echoed the praises sung by the people. Greccio became a new Bethlehem! (“Early Franciscan Classics”)
This simple kind of nativity scene was destined to be spread by Franciscans throughout the world as they moved out from Assisi in the following centuries. It is now a familiar feature of Christmas celebrations throughout the world.
Though it has suffered its share of commercialization, and its significance has sometimes become purely sentimental, at its origins the nativity scene was a striking affirmation of God’s entry into the mundane, everyday life of poor people, the world of creatures, the world of straw and rocks. (from the book by William Short OFM, “Poverty and Joy”)
What impressed Francis so deeply about the feast of Christ’s birth was its simplicity, humility and poverty. In many ways Christmas helped form Francis’ notion of who God is. Christmas Eve depicts a choice; the Divine Word chooses poverty voluntarily as a form of life together with Mary and Joseph. Our God is a physical God, in the real world who honored simplicity, exalted poverty and commended humility. This triad of simplicity, poverty and humility were for Francis, hallmarks of the whole life of Jesus, a life he wished to follow. It is the same triad that characterizes the celebration of every Eucharist. It is as if every time the Mass is celebrated we see the choice of the incarnation reaffirmed. As St. Francis wrote.” The Lord of the universe, God and the Son of God so humbles Himself that for our salvation he comes to us under the little form of bread! Humble yourselves, as well that you may be exalted by Him.”
It is my prayer that each of us enter into this Christmas time of celebrating the vulnerability of Jesus birth and the simplicity and poverty of his presence with us in the Eucharist and in those among us in desperate need, with a renewed heart. May we recognize the free gift of Jesus living with us in the challenges, sufferings and joys of this time and be lights in the darkness of the world for God is with us! Happy Advent and Merry Christmas!
