When studying the origins of some Christmas symbols, we refer to Francis of Assisi as the creator of the nativity scene.

Before him, the nativity scene was part of the habit of the Christmas holiday season on the roman cathedrals and other locations.

However, the little poor Assisi has done something very special in that December of 1223.

He went to a place of retreat, 31 miles distant of Assisi, near Greccio and stayed there with some friars.

Asking help to a nobleman, he prepared a significant Christmas memorial.

Referring to the Gospel of Luke, in the New Testament, which narrates the birth of Jesus of Nazareth in a manger and, to a verse of the Old Testament that refers to the bull meets its owner, and the donkey meets its boss'manger, he envisioned the scene.

Solicited that were brought animals and tied them near a local couple and their little son. They represented Joseph, Mary and baby Jesus.

As the Gospels refer to magi and shepherds, Francis asked some friars to act for them.

And, so, on that Christmas Eve in the year of 1223, Greccio became a new Bethlehem.

The preaching of Francis, in the night lit by candles and torches, was about the humbleness and poverty of Jesus.

Unlike the severe tonic of the medieval sermons, he spoke about the sweetness of Jesus.

It was a message which He offered Himself to be born in the heart of every man, every day.

It was the great evocation to the birth of the most perfect Being the Earth has ever met.

Jesus was not the remote founder of a huge religion. He has come to teach love, loving His brothers, living with them, hurting them and helping them.

Francis has brought, with that dramatization, the message of a new way of prayer that was focused on the birth of Jesus, His life and His death.

Ended the worship of that night, Francis helped the nobleman serve a banquet to all guests. To the animals, a double portion of hay and oats. To the birds, outside, grains were thrown.

The loves of Jesus, personified by His herald Assisi, wouldn´t forget any creature. Everyone was brother. All of them were creatures of God, modeled by the Father´s love.

That celebration, to Francis, was not just a sentimental play, but the symbolic depiction of something that may and must occur every day: the birth of Jesus in the hearts of those who wish.

He brought the event from past to present. He has used ordinary people in ordinary places, with their own clothes, to the dramatization.

He has done all that to say that Jesus was not only a distant celebrity, born in a faraway place. He was the real love, present in the life of every one of the beings to whom He has come.

It was from this night that the tradition of the Christmas crib, the manger, became one of the most popular religious images around the world, being reproduced in paintings, sculptures, printed or recorded, always with flair and emotion.

Let´s think about it and offer our heart to Jesus as the sweetest and most tender manger to his birth in us.

Because... it is Christmas again!

Spiritist Moment Team, based on the chapter Catorze(1223-1224), from the book Francisco de Assis, o santo relutante, of Donald Spoto, ed. Objetiva.
February 07.2011.