Christmas: A Special Feast for Franciscans

Christmas was such a special feast for Saint Francis because it reveals so vividly the deepest mystery of God: that our God totally empties self in the person of Jesus to share our frail humanity.

The Incarnation occupied Francis’s memory

That was the Jesus whose teaching and footsteps Francis wished to follow. As his first biographer, Thomas of Celano, recalls, “Indeed, so thoroughly did the humility of the Incarnation and the charity of the Passion occupy his memory that he scarcely wanted to think of anything else.”

Similarly, other early biographers of St. Francis all note the very special place Christmas held for him. An anonymous author several decades after his death explains: ”Blessed Francis had greater reverence for the Lord’s Nativity than for any other solemnity of the Lord because, as Blessed Francis said, although in all his other festivities the Lord brought about our salvation, nevertheless, from the very fact that he was born for us, it follows that we would be saved. For that reason he wanted that on such a day every Christian should rejoice in the Lord, and, for love of him who gave himself to us, everyone should joyfully be generous, not only to the poor, but also to the animals and birds'" (Assisi Compilation, 110). 

Francis shared his wonder at the humility of the Incarnation

Francis shared his wonder at the “humility of the incarnation” that we celebrate at Christmas in his Letter to All the Faithful: “The Word of the Father—so worthy, so holy and glorious—came down into the womb of the Virgin Mary, from which he received the flesh of our humanity and our frailty. Though he was rich beyond all other things, in this world he, together with the most blessed Virgin, his mother, willed to choose poverty.”

Francis created the first Nativity scene

Francis wanted ordinary people to appreciate the dramatic reality of God’s self-emptying, and so in 1223 at Greccio he recreated the first Nativity scene: “to bring to life the memory of that babe born in Bethlehem, to see as much as possible with my own bodily eyes the discomfort of his infant needs, how he lay in a manger, and how, with an ox and an ass standing by, he was laid upon a bed of hay.” Hear Murray Bodo, OFM, tell the story of Francis at Greccio. 

Saint Bonaventure reflects on the same mystery

The One who is so great and rich became for us small and wanting: he chose to be born not in a house but in a stable, to be wrapped in swaddling clothes, to be nourished by virginal milk, to lie in a manger between an ox and an ass. It was then that “there shone upon us a day of new redemption, restoration of the past, and happiness forever”. . . . So now, my soul, embrace that sacred manger; press your lips upon the child’s feet in a devout kiss: then in your mind keep the shepherds’ watch; marvel at the assembling host of angels; join in the heavenly melody, singing with your voice and heart: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to people of good will.” (“Tree of Life,” 1.4)

Pope Francis says God is in the littleness

That is where God is, in littleness. This is the message: God does not rise up in grandeur, but lowers himself into littleness. Littleness is the path that he chose to draw near to us, to touch our hearts, to save us and to bring us back to what really matters. (Christmas, 2021).

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Main image: This image of the Nativity is from the lower basilica of San Francesco in Assisi. It dates from c. 1320 and is attributed to Giotto di Bondone or his workshop. Read the nice appreciation of this fresco published in 2020 by Fr. Warner D’Souza.