A Nativity Scene Is a Multipurpose Instrument of Faith

National Catholic Register, 04 December 2019

Pope Francis’ latest apostolic letter treats the crèche as a particularly effective means of making the Gospel come alive, especially for children, but not only for them.

Advent means preparing the Christmas Nativity scene, which the Holy Father encourages every family to include in their homes. And not just that.

Pope Francis, in his recent apostolic letter, Admirabile Signum, on the “meaning and importance of the Nativity scene” also encourages “the custom of setting it up in the workplace, in schools, hospitals, prisons and town squares.”

The apostolic letter treats the Nativity scene, “which encapsulates a wealth of popular piety,” as a particularly effective means of making the Gospel come alive, especially for children, but not only for them.

Admirabile Signum (“Enchanting Sign” in the official Vatican translation), holds up the Nativity scene as an example of effective inculturation, biblical literacy, sacramental piety and liturgical culture.

 Inculturation

The recent confusions and controversies at the Pan-Amazon synod might make one think that the Church is a bit lost when it comes to inculturating the Gospel without falling into idolatry or relativism. The contrary is the case.

The Church’s tradition is full of examples of planting the Gospel in various cultures, and the Nativity scene is an example of inculturation par excellence.

“Children — but adults too! — often love to add to the Nativity scene other figures that have no apparent connection with the Gospel accounts,” writes the Holy Father. “Yet, each in its own way, these fanciful additions show that in the new world inaugurated by Jesus there is room for whatever is truly human and for all God’s creatures. From the shepherd to the blacksmith, from the baker to the musicians, from the women carrying jugs of water to the children at play: All this speaks of the everyday holiness, the joy of doing ordinary things in an extraordinary way, born whenever Jesus shares his divine life with us.”

And one might also add: the little drummer boy.

It is not mere folklore tradition that dresses the Holy Family and their visitors in the local costumes of the place, or even goes so far as to make the figures appear ethnically Korean or African or Inuit. It is a theological point, that in becoming incarnate of the Blessed Virgin, God has united himself to every human person, every nation, every culture.

Thus the Catholic imagination has no trouble portraying the Holy Family in the guise of cultures never seen in first-century Bethlehem. It makes a biblical point — after all, were not Joseph and Mary in Bethlehem because a census of the whole world was decreed? The variety of inculturated Nativity scenes show that the whole world was, in fact, present.

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