The first Christmas crib ever was made by St Francis of Assisi for Christmas 1223 in the monastery of Greccio, a small, poor village hidden in the beautiful Rieti valley north of Rome.

Francis loved the inhabitants there because of their poverty and simplicity of heart. Inspired by his visit to the Holy Land and to the crib in Santa Maria Majore in Rome, he decided to recreate the stall in Bethlehem. His biographer, Celano, tells us that, more than any other feast, Francis celebrated Christmas with an indescribable joy: “This is the feast of feasts”, he said, “since this is the day when God became a small child and drank milk like every human child. Francis embraced the images of the child and, full of emotion, stammered like a child words of tenderness. The name of Jesus was as sweet as honey on his lips.”

Thanks to Francis, Christmas caught the popular imagination and soon replaced Easter as the main Christian Feast. Celano reports that a friend of Francis, an aristocrat by the name of John, whose nobility of soul (i.e. his simplicity) drew Francis to him, had a wonderful vision on the night of the first Christmas crib. He saw lying still in a feeding trough a child, who, when Francis came close, was awakened out of his sleep.

According to Celano: “The vision corresponded to what really happened, since up to that moment the Child Jesus slumbered in many hearts in the sleep of forgetfulness. Through his servant Francis the recollection of it was revived and indestructibly impressed on the memory.” In other words, Francis discovered the meaning of Christmas anew: the revelation of God that is found in the Child Jesus. God has truly become “Emmanuel”, God-with-us. He is close to us as a child and we can approach him as one can a child.

Pope Benedict XVI, when he was still Cardinal Ratzinger, commenting on this, said: “In the Child Jesus is the defencelessness of the love of God most evident: God comes without any weapons, because he wishes to conquer us not exteriorly but to win us interiorly, to change us interiorly. If anything can conquer man, his self-glorification, his violence, his avarice, then it is the defencelessness of the child. God assumed this in order thus to conquer us and to lead us to ourselves. … Whoever has not understood the mystery of Christmas has not understood the decisive factor in being a Christian”. Only in this context, can we understand the meaning of the Lord’s words: “… unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of God” (Mt 18:3).

Francis insisted on placing an ox and an ass in the crib, something, it seems, that had already been found in medieval images of the Nativity. The stall at Bethlehem itself might suggest the presence of these two animals. But there is more at stake here than pious imagination. The faith of the Church saw in them the fulfilment of the Old Testament Book of Isaiah: “The ox knows its owner, and the ass its master’s crib; but Israel does not know, my people does not understand” (Is 1:3).

The Fathers of the Church, as Ratzinger reminds us, interpreted these words as a prophetic anticipation of the new People of God made up of Jews and pagans. Before God, all humans, Jews and pagans, are like the ox and the ass devoid of intelligence and knowledge. The Child in the manger, however, has opened our eyes so that we can now recognize the voice of our master, the voice of our Lord. In the medieval images, both animals are given almost human faces, as they knowingly and reverently stand and bow down before the mystery of the Child.

Who are those today who, like the ox and the ass, recognize their master – and who are those who do not understand? Ratzinger finds a clue in reflecting on those who at the time of his first coming did not understand and those who did. Those who did not recognize Jesus included Herod, who feared that his power would be undermined, but also the whole of Jerusalem (Mt 2:3) smug in their religious status as the Chosen People, but also the well-to-do (Mt 11:8), the learned, and the experts in theology and Scripture. Those who recognized him were the shepherds (close to nature), the Magi (those in search of the truth), Mary and Joseph (close to God).

Are we so smug with our status as Catholics or Christians that we no longer recognize Him with our hearts? Are we so secure in our comfort zone that we recoil from the crudeness of the stable? Are we so blinded by our education – even our theological learning – that we no longer can wonder at the mystery of God-made-man? Christmas is the time to ask God to grant us the grace of that simplicity of heart that can discover God Almighty in the Child Jesus, as Francis once did in Greccio.

D. Vincent Twomey, SVD, is the author of Benedict XVI: The Conscience of Our Age, (Ignatius Press 2007) and The End of Irish Catholicism? (Veritas 2003).

If you have a question you would liked answered by Theology Interface, please write to Theology Interface, The Word, Divine Word Missioanries, Maynooth, Co Kildare or email wordeditor@eircom.net