Greccio: Francis gives the first Christmas Creche for the Nativity

Cave of the First Christmas Creche

On Christmas Eve, 1223, at his high mountain hermitage at Greccio, Francis did something remarkable that Christians have been doing ever since.  His intense desire to be one with God in Christ through the incarnation led him to recreate the scene of Jesus’ nativity, the very first crèche.   At midnight in a candlelit cave high in this mountain retreat, Francis gathered sheep and cattle and goats and a donkey. The local stray cats, still hanging around Greccio today, sauntered onto the set.  He invited the local shepherds to come, too, bringing their flocks by night to see the sight.  A young woman in the nearby village had just given birth a few days before and so she and her husband would bring their newborn son and lay him in a manger, just as the holy family had done that first Christmas.   Can you imagine the surprised joy on the villagers’ faces when they came to Midnight Mass!  Francis wrote a new setting for the Nativity Gradual, Psalm 96, Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the whole earth.  Declare his glory among the nations and his wonders among all peoples…Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; let the sea thunder and all that is in it; let the field be joyful and all that is therein, all creatures of the earth, man and beast rejoice together this day before the Lord when he comes… 

This scene has been recreated every Christmas at Greccio since and has inspired the creation of crèche scenes, live and modeled, at Christmas everywhere, reflecting the local culture of Christians from all across the globe.  In the church built at Greccio, there is a huge life-size recreation of the crèche, and upstairs surrounding the church are hundreds of crèche scenes, from native American models to South Pacific and every land in between in Europe and Africa. 

The rector of the Church of the Nativity could not miss this thin place for Francis, and so Tippy and I drove the two hours down to Greccio in Lazio from Perugia in Umbria.  I realize that Francis is teaching us, inviting us into the mystery of the incarnation through Jesus’ nativity.  I am reminded that our own nativity is meant to recall that because of Christ’s birth in Bethlehem (that becomes so much more real when we visually experience it), God wants to be born in us in our own time and day.  I quietly sang the words of the beloved hymn O Little Town of Bethlehem, crafted by the great Episcopal bishop Phillips Brooks (the “Doctor of the Incarnation”).  O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie.  Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by.  Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light.  The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight. …How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given!  So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His heaven.  No ear may hear His coming, but in this world of sin, where meek souls will receive Him still, the dear Christ enters in…O Holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us we pray.  Cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today… Be born in us, today.  The cave is silent and still. 

The words of the English poet Richard Crashaw are powerful here:   Welcome all wonders in one sight.  Eternity shut in a span!  Summer in winter, day in night, Heaven in earth, and God in man.  Great little one!  Whose lowly birth lifts earth to heav’n, stoops heav’n to earth.    

Greccio Monastery and Hermitage

Pax

View from Greccio