Midway between Rome and Assisi, a Franciscan hermitage clings to the side of a cliff just outside the village of Greccio. You may not know of this place, but if you have a Nativity scene in your home, it has its roots there.
St. Francis of Assisi, in 1223, recreated the Nativity scene of Bethlehem using live animals, and humans. He wanted to show how close God is to us, no matter where we are. As Pope Francis says in his book, Christmas at the Nativity, “With the simplicity of that sign, Saint Francis carried out a great work of evangelization. His teaching touched the hearts of Christians and continues today to offer a simple yes authentic means of portraying the beauty of our faith.”
To mark this centenary, last year we invited people to make their own crib and put it on display in the Franciscan Abbey in Galway from the feast of the Immaculate Conception to the feast of the Epiphany
This year we have expanded the exhibition and have opened up another room to house all these wonderful creations. Check out the video of the construction processes and the finished products for this year’s exhibition.
We decided to design the cribs in the Neapolitan stye. All Nativity scenes have the stable, Mary, Joseph, the crib, and the Baby Jesus.
But in these scenes the shepherds, who represented the common people in the first Bethlehem scene has been expanded to embrace other common people such as bakers, butchers, fishermen, women selling fruit etc.
The message is that Christ is born in the midst of all our situations and the common shepherds can be represented by anyone.
Instead of showing these people in a static, standing position, these characters “pose” as they would in everyday life. The setting can be simple, or more elaborate, with many comprising whole villages that reflect daily life. They can be large or small, traditional or modern. Many contain special features—fountains, mills, ovens, fires (tiny red lights that resemble burning logs), moving characters.
At that time, he asked a local man, John, to help him realise his desire “to bring to life the memory of that baby born in Bethlehem, to see as much as possible with my own bodily eyes the discomfort of his infant needs, how he lay in a manger, and how, with an ox and a nurse standing by, he was laid upon a bit of heat".
So on the 25th of December 1223, friars and people from a wide area came to Greccio bringing flowers and torches to light up the night.
When Francis arrived he found a manger full of hay, an ox and a donkey. The priest then solemnly celebrated the Eucharist over the manger, showing the bond between the incarnation of the son of God and the Eucharist.
At Greccio there were no statues at all; instead the nativity scene was enacted and experienced by all the people who were present. And this is how our tradition begun: with everyone gathered enjoy around the cave in which it took place with no distinction between the original event and those sharing in it’s mystery.
Furthermore, Thomas of Celano, Saint Francis’ first biographer, notes that this simple and moving scene was accompanied by the gift of a marvellous vision: one of those present saw the baby Jesus himself lying in the manger.
After that, in 1291, Pope Nicholas IV ordered the installation of a permanent Nativity display in the Roman Basilica, Santa Maria Maggiore. Nativity scenes went on to occupy an important place in Renaissance art.
At the same time, sculptors began crafting nativity figures of wood and clay. By the mid-1500s, the scenes were becoming popular throughout the Italian peninsula but particularly in Naples and southern Italy. From the 18th century on, creating the Nativity scenes has been a focal point for Neapolitan artisans. Each work is a fruit of the imagination and creativity of the artisan and still is today with our exhibition in 2024.
We are continuing a tradition that happens in many Franciscan places. Every year there have historically been exhibitions of cribs in these places, most famously in Greccio, which is a perennial exhibition, and in Assisi which represents cribs from all over the world. They can be a simple set of figurines set in racially diverse places or more elaborate and creative ones, some with entire townscapes, some highlighting wonderfully diverse settings, some representing places of warfare or dire need, stressing our solidarity with these people.
More recently, there has been a display of 100 cribs every year in Rome following from the Franciscan tradition (see this link: https://www.saturdaysinrome.com/blog/vatican-christmas-nativity).
