St. Francis and Christmas
The picture is St. Francis of Assisi Preparing the Christmas Crib at Grecchio. I've long been a St. Francis fan (who isn't?), but I never realized he is largely to thank for the intense warmness and fellowship felt at the holiday season. He had special devotion to Jesus' birth and his devotion contributed greatly to our current Christmas cheer. That, anyway, according to BXVI in this nifty little book:
Nice article about St. Francis' Christmas legacy here. Excerpt:
Francis was drawn to meditate on the humble, self-emptying love of Christ, who left the glories of heaven to become the weakest of human beings. One Christmas in Grecchio, Francis arranged for a manger to be filled with hay and an ox and donkey to be led in: “For I would make memorial of that Child who was born in Bethlehem, and in some sort behold with bodily eyes His infant hardships.”
He gathered the local men and women around the manger and preached a sermon about a poor king born in Bethlehem. One Francis biographer tells us that, “he would name Christ Jesus, aglow with exceeding love, he would call Him the Child of Bethlehem, and, uttering the word 'Bethlehem' in the manner of a sheep bleating, he filled his mouth with the sound ... he would lick his lips, relishing with happy palate, and swallowing the sweetness of that word.”
TDE Admin Stuff
Many thanks for your Amazon patronage this season. I can't tell who bought, but I can tell what people bought. Based on the titles of books, I'm guessing they're TDE readers, not just people from my large pool of brothers and sisters-in-law, most of whom aren't apt to buy books about the saints, papal commentaries, and the like.
The older kids return from college on Wednesday, at which point the holiday celebration will kick into high gear. Expect sporadic blogging through the end of the year. Something will be posted every day, but of uneven quality (nothing new there, I guess . . . self-deprecating chuckle).
