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Francesco, nativity and La Verna

23 Dicembre 2020
Francesco, nativity and La Verna Foto: Sara Trapani Sara Trapani
Francesco received the Stigmata at the sanctuary of La Verna, which became the destination of an ever increasing pilgrimage.

Translated by Pietro Patrizi

We have always been used to seeing the Nativity scene in our homes and churches, for many of us it is linked to intimate childhood memories. It helped us to relive, a little bit by playing, what happened in Bethlehem, to imagine the scenes and to imagine ourselves involved in history.

But who was the creator of all this? It was the year 1223, Francesco had returned from his trip to Bethlehem and after obtaining the authorization of Pope Honorius III, he chose the humble mountain village of Greccio to commemorate the mysterious event of the birth of Jesus.
The similarity of the places with what Francesco had seen in Palestine led him to create an event that still marks our history today. Arriving in Greccio, Francis summons the entire village and organizes a "living nativity scene" by building a manger in a cave in the woods, where he brought a donkey and an ox, in a framework of poverty and simplicity. Right inside the cave he held his famous Christmas sermon, taking advantage of the opportunity to describe the Nativity to all those who could not read.

Francesco's intent was to show everyone, especially the poorest, the pure and simple reproduction of the birth of the son of God. The atmosphere of the Holy Night, thus recreated, enchanted and moved everyone. From that moment on, the custom of representing the birth of Jesus, live or with statues, spread in Italy and around the world, becoming a well-established tradition today.

For his numerous and long periods of prayer and penance, Francesco went to the sanctuary of La Verna, the place where, on September 17, 1224, he received the Stigmata. Following this miraculous event, La Verna became the destination of an increasingly growing pilgrimage, thus becoming a strongly established reality in the field of religious tourism.

Even before Greccio's Christmas, Francesco, in La Verna, had expressed the desire to recall the nativity scene. In fact, at the sanctuary, above the entrance to the Corridor of the Stigmata, painted with some episodes from the life of the friar, there is a representation of the crib made by Baccio Maria Bacci.

The village of Chiusi della Verna is part of the municipalities belonging to the Emma Perodi's Literary Park and Le Foreste Casentinesi, dedicated to the writer, who set two short stories from her masterpiece "The grandmother's stories" in these places: The human candle and the skull of Amalziabene.

"When blessed St. Francis died, he left among his friars a certain Amalziabene, a half-saint himself, who, if he did not speak to fish and birds and did not tame the beasts like the poor man of Assisi, had a heart of 'gold and felt dying when he met the needy and could not help them." (from "The skull of Amalziabene")


Cover Photo by Alberta Piroci

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