A fond childhood memory for me is setting up my grandmother’s huge nativity set, with dozens of figures, depicting various crafts and artisans. When I finished, I liked to put my face close to the figures and imagine being in the scene myself. Little did I know I was acting out an impulse of the saint who would also be my spiritual father later in life—St. Francis of Assisi. Every Franciscan’s heart is somehow linked to the nativity scene, in part because Francis recreated “a new Bethlehem” near the Italian hilltop village of Greccio in 1223, in a “living nativity.”
But a deeper connection for Franciscans is the truth of God-become-human. Francis understood the great act of love in the “attitude of Christ Jesus” who did not cling to divinity but emptied himself and took on our humanity (see Philippians 2:5–11). Francis strove to imitate this emptying in all he did.
He left his prosperous life in Assisi and descended to the marshes to serve the lepers. His words and deeds sought to embody the image of Christ, even to bearing the wounds of his Savior. On the eve of Christmas, one does not have to be a Franciscan in fact. In the spirit of the poor man of Assisi, we are all invited to step into the nativity scene ourselves!
—adapted from the book Advent with the Saints: Daily Reflections
by Greg Friedman, OFM
