"To see" and "make another see" the Most High God's coming into the world with humility and poverty in a dwelling place of animals was important in a society of merchants where money mattered more than the gratuity of God.
JOY PRAKASH OFM
It was Saint Francis of Assisi who popularized the custom of Christmas cribs. So before we start with the setting up of our crib-sets this year, be it at home or in some parish or religious house, it is important to recall the background and origin of crib-making. We will try to understand the emotional reasons that went into building the first crib in the 13th century, by Saint Francis and the people of Greccio, Italy. Perhaps then, our crib- making may have some semblance to the spirit with which Saint Francis originated it.
Francis had a visual temperament. We are told in the biographies that he was not a deaf hearer of the Gospel, but whatever he heard in the Gospel he diligently committed to memory and then carried it out to the letter. The Gospel account that fired Francis’ imagination was this: “....the time came for her (Mary) to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn” (Lk 2:7).
The Gospel account only speaks about a manger and nothing about the animals in it. Francis was a poet with an active imagination. He told his friend, a certain John, “I wish to
do something that will recall to memory the little Child who was born in Bethlehem and set before our bodily eyes in some way the inconveniences of his infant needs, how he lay in a manger, how, with an ox and ass standing by, he lay upon the hay where he had been placed” (1Cel 84). The circumstances of this
conversation had its roots at the beginning of his conversion, namely in his restless years when he sought to know God’s will regarding what he should do with his life.
To gain some clarity about his vocation, Francis went into a dilapidated church named San Damiano. When praying there, gazing
at the Cross in San Damiano, Francis’ eyes must have rested on the inscription, “Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews” (Jn 19:19). This leads us to the Gospel of John which alone uses ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ while the other gospels have only ‘Jesus King of the Jews’. What memories this brought to Francis – memories of the Lord’s
life at Nazareth, poor, hidden, hard-working... Together with the name Nazareth, Francis recalled the many forms of debasement of the Son of God. Nazareth probably conjured up in him the first century hymn, “...who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:6-8).
Nazareth brought before him the image
of the One who “came from the royal throne
into the womb of the Virgin” (Adm 1, 16). It reminded Francis of Him who descended with Mary and Joseph “and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them” (Lk 2:51), who joined the sinners in the Jordan to be baptized by John (Lk 3:21); “And He was a poor man and a transient and lived on alms, He and the Blessed Virgin, and His disciples” (ER IX,5), becoming “obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:8).
We know his manner of life after his conversion. Francis preferred living among the poor and the simple, among humble peasants and shepherds. It was therefore not surprising that in 1224, at the hermitage of Greccio where simplicity and humility reigned supreme,
he decided to celebrate Christmas, asking a priest to celebrate mass outdoors, in front of a manager filled with hay and in the presence of an ox and an ass.
For his part, Francis preached with great sweetness about the birth of the “Infant of Bethlehem”. The first biographer, Thomas of Celano says, “...when he wished to call Christ Jesus, he would call him simply the Child of Bethlehem, aglow with overflowing love for him; and speaking the word Bethlehem, his voice was more like the bleating of a sheep. His mouth was filled more with sweet affection than with words. Besides, when he spoke the name Child of Bethlehem or Jesus, his tongue licked his lips, as if it were relishing and savouring with pleased palate the sweetness of the words” (1Cel. 8). He wished to make the discomforts which the child Jesus had encountered in the grotto that cold night visible to all, being without all that was needed for a new born baby.
The ox and the ass do not appear in the Gospel story, but rather in the apocryphal gospels, which are the gospel accounts that the Church never acknowledged as having been written by the four evangelists. Francis considered the presence of these two animals essential due to their very symbolism. According to the Fathers of the Church, such as Saint Augustine, the ox represents the Jews and the ass represents all those people outside Judaism and the hay represents the host of salvation. Francis saw in the ox and the ass Jews and Muslims who in time would know Christ, fulfilling the providential design of the Saviour.
This was the time of the Crusades. The Saint had been in Egypt for the fifth Crusade, which had ended in disaster both for him and for the Crusade itself in 1221. Himself an eyewitness
to massacre and violence, the heart of Francis’ message was peace, peace as a social condition, especially peace as an interior condition. Francis exhorted his companions, “Do not envy your neighbour, do not desire his goods, and
do not overpower him, but listen to him with understanding and meekness of heart.” Francis followed Christ, who on the night of Christmas had come to bring peace: the Angels proclaimed in song: “Glory to God in the highest and peace on Earth to people of goodwill.”
The first biographer of Saint Francis says, “The Child Jesus had been forgotten in the hearts of many; but, by the working of His grace, He was brought to life again through His servant Saint Francis and stamped upon their fervent memory.”
“To see” and “make another see” the Most High God’s coming into the world with humility and poverty in a dwelling place of animals was important in a society of merchants where money mattered more than the gratuity of God; as it was a world of clerics who were desirous
of honour and power more than anything else, what would the humility of God mean to them? At such a time of violence, crusades and holy wars, there was nothing they needed to see more urgently than the tenderness of God made manifest in the babe of Bethlehem, a challenge to every believer to let the child within manifest itself as a herald of the great King!
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