Quote of the Day (G.K. Chesterton, on St. Francis and the Nativity)

“For that is the full and final spirit in which we should turn to Saint Francis; in the spirit of thanks for what he has done. He was above all things a great giver; and he cared chiefly for the best kind of giving which is called thanksgiving….He knew that we can best measure the towering miracle of the mere fact of existence if we realise that but for some strange mercy we should not even exist…. From him came a whole awakening of the world and a dawn in which all shapes and colours could be seen anew…. It is said that when Saint Francis staged in his own simple fashion a Nativity Play of Bethlehem, with kings and angels in the stiff and gay mediaeval garments and the golden wigs that stood for haloes, a miracle was wrought full of the Franciscan glory. The Holy Child was a wooden doll or bambino, and it was said that he embraced it and that the image came to life in his arms.” – English man of letters G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936), St. Francis of Assisi (1923)

On this date in 1223, in the town of Greccio, St. Francis of Assisi displayed the first known three-dimensional presepio or crèche. It wasn’t the type of elaborate Nativity scene found in some suburb. No, he worked through Christmas Eve on a simpler but more fascinating recreation of Christ's birth. 

And, Francis being Francis, he used one of the things he loved the most—Nature—to bring it to life in a visceral way, using merely a straw-filled manger set between a real ox and donkey.

According to this post I found from the “Atonement Parish” blog, people from the vicinity of Greccio began arriving with torches and candles once they got wind of this. 

They were greeted by something perhaps equally extraordinary: Francis reading from the Gospel about the birth of Jesus, then elaborating, in his sermon, how Christ assumed the reality of poverty so that those who believed would find wealth in the love of God.

I find this account powerfully moving, not just as a Roman Catholic but as someone who believes in the power of creativity. 

St. Francis not only commemorated the creation of a redeemed world, but also, through the visual arts and spoken word, reminded people of the extraordinary miracles present in their own world when they took joy in nature and extended love to one another. May we all do the same.

(The image accompanying this post shows a nativity scene with mangers and angels. It’s on the door of the “Duomo,” or cathedral, in Milan, Italy.)