Like the events it symbolises, the story of the nativity scene itself is one steeped in history.

Nativity scenes showing the birth of baby Jesus first originated in the small Italian town of Greccio.

Fra Angelico The Nativity story continued to expand within Christian devotional culture well after Francis’ death. In 1291, Pope Nicholas IV, the first Franciscan pope, ordered that a permanent ...

In the Bible, these details come from different sources. The shepherds are mentioned in Luke, but nowhere else. The "magi" are mentioned in Matthew, but nowhere else. The number of magi, their ...

The Nativity, a Christmas tradition started by St. Francis, may help us keep our focus more on the coming miracle than the latest sales.

A Lawrence church has been collecting Christmas Nativities from around the globe for over 30 years and is inviting the public, as it does every year, to view its latest depictions of the night of ...

A Lawrence church has been collecting Christmas Nativities from around the globe for over 30 years and is inviting the public, as it does every year, to view its latest depictions of the night of ...

Many families have a nativity scene, or creche, that sits on the mantel, the sideboard or out on the lawn. The history of this representation of Jesus’ birth has its origins, unsurprisingly, in ...

Reflecting on how the Living Nativity was taking place on the 800 th anniversary of when St. Francis is believed to have set up the first nativity scene, Franciscan Father John Heffernan, a parochial ...

Each year we lose or break a figure in our Nativity scene, but the beauty of this family tradition lies in its brokenness.