The First Christmas Crib, historically speaking, was realized, undoubtedly, by St Francis of Assisi, who in Greccio, Italy, in the year 1223 celebrated the Feast of the Nativity in a new way that led to a new devotional practice. The mind of St Francis was to portray the birth of Christ so that the scene would enter through the senses.
Thomas of Celano, in the first book of his biography of St Francis, describes the events. About two weeks before Christmas St Francis called his good friend Giovanni Vellita, a local land owner, and said to him: “If you want us to celebrate the present feast of our Lord at Greccio, go with haste and diligently prepare what I tell you. For 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 manager, how, with an ox and an ass standing by, he lay upon the hay where he had been placed.” Giovanni prepared everything as the saint had requested, with live animals and live humans, except for the child Jesus (made out of wood).
Saint Bonaventure, Francis’s biographer, said of the scene, “Many brothers and good people came at Francis’s bidding, and during the night the weather also was beautiful. Many lights were kindled, songs and hymns were sung with great solemnity so that the whole wood echoed with the sound, and the man of God stood by the manger, (dressed in his robes of a deacon) filled with the utmost joy, and shedding tears of devotion and compassion. By his order the manger had been so arranged that Mass was celebrated on it, and blessed Francis…sang the gospel and preached to the people on the Nativity of Christ our King, and whenever he pronounced His name with infinite tenderness he called Him the ‘little Babe of Bethlehem.'” The whole experience was so moving that some people even believed that they had seen the Baby Jesus in the manger.
Scenes like this soon became popular throughout Christendom. Within a hundred years every church in Italy was expected to have a nativity scene at Christmas, with statues eventually replacing live participants. The scenes were often very elaborate, with richly robed figures placed in intricate landscape settings. Nativity scenes then spread from churches into homes, where they are still very popular. In an Angelus message in Advent 2005 Pope Benedict XVI spoke of their value: “To set up the crib at home can be a simple but effective way of presenting the faith and transmitting it to one’s children. The manger helps us to contemplate the mystery of God’s love who revealed himself in the poverty and simplicity of the Bethlehem cave.” He spoke of St Francis’ living nativity scene, which made him “the initiator of a long popular tradition which still keeps its value for evangelization today. The crib can help us, in fact, to understand the secret of the true Christmas, because it speaks of humility and the merciful goodness of Christ.
