On one side of the manger, Mary kneels, flanked by Joseph, while on the other side, St. Francis of Assisi stands in a pose of wonder.
The scene was unveiled Saturday.
From CNA:
The scene in St. Peter’s Square depicts not only Mary and Joseph standing beside the manger but also St. Francis of Assisi, who organized the first Nativity scene in a cave in the Italian village of Greccio on Christmas Eve in 1223.
Cardinal Fernando Vérgez Alzaga, the president of the Governorate of Vatican City State, presided over the Dec. 9 inauguration ceremony. Over a thousand people gathered in the square for the event, which included moments of catechesis, an explanation of how the scene was put together, and the singing of seasonal hymns.
The Vatican’s Greccio-inspired Nativity scene does not include live animals and people as St. Francis’ original did, but it does feature life-sized terracotta figures, crafted by renowned Neapolitan sculptor Antonio Cantone.
At the center of the scene is the now-empty manger, where a figure of the newborn savior will be placed on Christmas Eve. On one side of the manger, Mary kneels, flanked by Joseph, while on the other side, St. Francis of Assisi stands in a pose of wonder.
n addition to Mary, Joseph, St. Francis, and the traditional ox and donkey, the 13th-century mayor of Greccio who helped organize the first Nativity scene, Giovanni Velita, is featured in statue form, along with his wife, Alticama.
Pope Francis welcomed the donors of the Nativity scene on Saturday and offered these remarks:
The Nativity display set up in Saint Peter’s Square aims to evoke, after eight hundred years, the Christmas atmosphere of the year 1223 in the Rieti Valley, where Saint Francis stopped. His journey to the Holy Land was still vivid in his mind and the caves of Greccio reminded him of the landscape of Bethlehem. Therefore, he asked to depict the Christmas scene in that small village: many friars arrived from various parts and men and women also came from the cottages in the area, creating a living nativity scene. Thus, the tradition of the nativity scene as we understand it was born.
This year, then, from Saint Peter’s Square we will think of Greccio, which in turn takes us back to Bethlehem. And as we contemplate Jesus, God made man, small, poor, defenceless, we cannot but think of the tragedy that the inhabitants of the Holy Land are living, expressing to those brothers and sisters of ours, especially the children and their parents, our closeness and our spiritual support. They are the ones who pay the true price of war.
Before any Nativity display, even those we make in our own homes, we relive what happened in Bethlehem more than two thousand years ago; and this should reawaken in us a longing for silence and prayer, in our often so hectic daily lives. Silence, so as to be able to listen to what Jesus tells us from the unique “cathedra” of the manger. Prayer, to express grateful wonder, tenderness, perhaps the tears that the Nativity scene stirs in us. And in all this, there is the model of Mary: she says nothing, but contemplates and adores.
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