First representation of the Crib
Saint Francis is credited with the first representation of the scene of the Birth of Jesus.
Francis wanted to represent Emanuel, God with us, and for that he did more than a simple representation, or a theater with puppets, or a scene made with clay figures.
It happened at Christmas 1223. Francisco accepted the invitation of the lord of Greccio, a village located on a mountain of stones to retire there to pray. He wanted to celebrate the Nativity in the middle of the caves, on the top of the steep mountain. He asked his friend to rebuild the nativity scene of Bethlehem, as his poetic imagination inspired him. "I want to remember the boy who was born in Bethlehem and see with my own eyes the difficulties of his poor childhood, how he rested in the manger and how, between the ox and the donkey, he was lying in the hay." Those details are not from the gospel, but from the pious Christmas legends.
On Christmas night, men and women around Greccio climbed the mountain with so many candles and torches that the night was fully lit. They sang, the forest carried their voices and the rocks in their echoes made them hear far away. Mass was celebrated. Francis was near the manger, sang the Gospel, prayed with his vehement voice, his sweet voice, his clear voice, his sonorous voice. He announced the eternal rewards. A man in the crowd had a vision, suddenly he saw the boy lying in the manger and Francisco leaned toward him to wake him up.
Greccio's cave that night was Bethlehem. He did not remember only the past, but he put it on his feet, made it new. At a time when there was little attention to childhood, Francis emphasized the appreciation of the child, as someone helpless and in need of our protection, spreading the cult of the Child Jesus. At a time that marked the differences between social groups, he equaled everyone around being the most defenseless. He wanted an order of brothers, different from the monks and canons of his time, he also aspired to enhance the values of the human family, capable of protecting the weak, with that Child at its center. The singer of all life forms protected the animals' lives, placing them so close to the cradle.
Francis' nativity scene was the recreation of a different world: God more within our reach, who asks us to take care of the weakest, the most intimate closeness to the great family of life that includes us all. I wanted to: see with my own eyes the difficulties of his poor childhood... Therefore, he invites us to review, also we, with today's eyes, all the beauty and difficulty that is always to live. And how that God who is reborn permanently can help us in that task.
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