Above the town of Greccio, in the wooded hills of the Rieti Valley (located about halfway between Assisi and Rome), Saint Francis combined Christmas mass with a nativity scene on Christmas Eve 1223. In some depictions of this Christmas event there is a peculiarity: the baby Jesus is not lying in the manger or in his mother's lap, but is being taken in Francis's arms.
Even though Francis is often referred to as the founder of the European nativity scene tradition, there have also been nativity scenes before. But what was important to him was the vivid representation of the event - actually incomprehensible to the mind - that the great, infinite God becomes human. San Francesco connects the divine childhood of Jesus with the celebration of the Eucharist, in which the living God gives himself to us again - this time in the form of bread and wine.
“We have come to worship HIM” – that was the motto of the XX. World Youth Day, which was celebrated in Cologne in August 2005. Every Christmas picture, every nativity scene invites the viewer to follow this motto and to emulate the Three Wise Men (the first pilgrims to Christ), Francis of Assisi and all the saints.