Trucking along in his typically hagiographic style, Thomas asserts that “the humility of the incarnation and the love of the passion so occupied” Francis’s memory that “he scarcely wished to think of anything else. Hence what he did in the third year before the day of his glorious death, in the town called Greccio, on the birthday of our Lord Jesus Christ, should be reverently remembered.”

What Francis did that year, it turns out, was to organize the first nativity scene. After years of plastic stable scenes, which sadly litter the landscape of my memory, it is almost breathtaking to read Thomas’s description of the event. Clearly this is one part of the biography that he witnessed in person. He writes:

With glad hearts, the men and women of that place prepared, according to their means, candles and torches to light up that night which has illuminated all the days and years with its glittering star. Finally the holy man of God arrived and, finding everything prepared, saw it and rejoiced.

Then Thomas switches into present tense—I believe it’s the only place in the biography he does so—which is why I believe that he witnessed this event himself, and offers the following marvelous description of the first nativity scene:

The manger is ready, hay is brought, the ox and ass are led in. Simplicity is honored there, poverty is exalted, humility is commended and a new Bethlehem, as it were, is made from Greccio. Night is illuminated like the day, delighting men and beasts. The people come and joyfully celebrate the new mystery. The forest resounds with voices and the rocks respond to their rejoicing. The brothers sing, discharging their debt of praise to the Lord, and the whole night echoes with jubilation.

That’s what I want to be able to say of my Christmas celebrations in future: “simplicity is honored there, poverty is exalted, humility is commended and a new Bethlehem, as it were, is made.”