POPE Francis last Sunday travelled to the town of Greccio east of Rome in Italy to visit the spot where St. Francis of Assisi began the tradition of setting up the Nativity Scene in 1223. There he signed an Apostolic Letter “Admirabile Signu” (Wonderful Sign) on the meaning and importance of the Bethlehem manger.
“With this letter,” he said, “I wish to encourage the beautiful family tradition of preparing the Nativity Scene in the days before Christmas, but also the custom of setting it up in the workplace, in schools, hospitals, prisons, and town squares.”
The Nativity Scene depicts the birth of Christ – the baby lying in a manger, his mother Mary seated beside him and his father Joseph standing by them, while humble shepherds and farm animals watch from one side, and richly garbed kings bearing gifts stand on the other side. In the sky above, a choir of angels is singing.
There was a time in United States history when some groups sought to ban government-funded Nativity Scenes in public places like town squares on the ground that it violated the constitutional principle of separation of church and state. But Supreme Court rulings, starting in 1984, permitted religious themes in Christmas displays which also included secular scenes as reindeer, snowmen, and elves, along with the traditional Holy Family, the Three Kings, shepherds, kings, and angels.
In an effort to win all groups to their holiday sales, retail giants in the US – and here in the Philippines – have taken to greeting everyone “Happy Holidays!” rather than “Merry Christmas!” and setting up giant holiday trees, with a star on top, recalling that first Christmas night when a star shone over the manger in Bethlehem.
The Filipino “parol” also depicts that star. These lanterns today light up the streets of our towns and cities all over the Philippines. The parol is at its biggest, its most colorful, and its most complicated with swirling combinations of lights in the Pampanga Lantern Festival at Christmas time.
The nativity Scene is at the very center of the Christmas tradition. And all the towns and many agencies and organizations in Tarlac province feature it in the province-wide competition “Belenismo” – for Belen, Spanish for Bethlehem, the town near Jerusalem where Jesus was born.
With our country’s rich Christian tradition and history, we have many religious holidays in our list of national holidays. Christmas Day is on this list, along with Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. Malacañang will also issue special proclamations declaring national holidays for Eid’l Fitr and Eid’l Adha after the approximate dates of these Islamic holidays are determined.
Christmas time is the country’s happiest holiday season, so much so that many of us start celebrating it as early as September. But let us never forget “the reason for the season” – which is that Christ was born on Christmas Day and that more than lights and music, more than parties and programs, more than trees and lanterns, it is the Child in the Manger that is at the center of Christmas.
