The Christmas Creche: St. Francis' Nativity Scene

'Tis the season of the Nativity scene.

Inside and outside of many homes and churches everywhere Christmas creches are being assembled, lit, and displayed. This tradition is attributed to St Francis of Assisi who created the "second" live Nativity, the first being the original.

Visiting the small mountain town of Crecio, Italy during Christmas of 1223, St Francis ran into a logistical problem. The small Franciscan hermitage in the town was too small to Midnight Mass. So he set up an altar in a niche in a rock at the town square. But this would be no ordinary Midnight Mass...

St. Bonaventure (d. 1274) tells the story in his "Life of St. Francis of Assisi":