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Bret Thoman, OFS-published on 12/16/20

Pilgrims flock to Greccio, Italy, where the saint recreated the first creche.

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While they were [in Bethlehem], the time came for her to have her child, and she gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. (Luke 2:1-7)

The history of the creche, or Nativity scene, is connected to a small town in the Rieti Valley in Greccio, Italy, where St. Francis of Assisi reenacted the first live Nativity scene.

St. Francis had a deep devotion to the Feast of Christmas.Thomas of Celano, his first biographer, said he referred to it as “the feast of feasts” and he celebrated it with “unutterable devotion.”

The first Nativity scene in Greccio, Italy

So passionate…