Rosary walk; Angels Unawares, a powerful sculpture of immigrants joined by the Holy Family (“the archetype of every refugee family,” as Pope Ven. Pius XII said in Exsul Familia Nazarethena) by Timothy Schmalz, the same sculptor who made Eden Hill’s life-sized Stations of the Cross; a dedicated confessional area; colorful Christmas lights; and much more. But outstanding among the spiritual treasures of the La Salette Shrine is the artistic treasure of the crèche collection, featuring some 2,000 Nativity scenes from more than 100 countries worldwide. The Gospel in art The collection is overwhelming; beautiful; peaceful; luminous. Shelf after shelf of glassed-in Nativities of great artistic complexity or lovely simplicity, of all ethnicities, reflecting an array of artistic traditions, drawn from all nations, going on for rooms. It is a stunning display of the true unity and universality of our Catholic faith. Every people on earth seems to have been touched by the Gospel story and moved to incarnate it in their own works of art. Indeed, all nations gather at the crib of Christ every year, as Nativity scenes go up around the world in public, in our churches, and in our homes — or in secret. There are very few devotions that cross the Protestant/ Catholic divide, and fewer that bridge the Eastern and Western divide, across the schism of 1054. Yet there the Nativity scene is. The Secular Franciscan Order shares with us the belief that St. Francis of Assisi created the very first crib scene in the year 1223, featuring live animals and even a miraculous appearance of the Infant Jesus. It’s said that miracles happened when the sick were touched with the straw from the manger on which the Child lay. Of course one of the best beloved of all the saints (and a patron of the Marian Family!) would have given us this widely beloved devotion! Cultural heritage According to the Shrine website, the museum was founded by the late Fr. Manuel Pereira, MS (1939–2022), a Missionary of Our Lady of La Salette and a native of the Azores islands (an autonomous region of Portugal). “While stationed at La Salette Shrine in Attleboro, Fr. Manuel started the museum to share his passion for Christmas and Azores’ traditions,” the site explains. “Visitors can witness all of this in the presépio that Fr. Manuel created, which evokes his native hamlet and Christmas traditions in the Azores. Soon after, people began donating crèches to add to his collection, and the museum continued to develop thanks to donations from individuals and organizations all over the world, preserving, in this way, cultural heritage and creative legacy.” The collection bears silent witness that Christmas has now reached the entire world. The Gospel has been preached to all nations, and if anyone has escaped that preaching, it’s not been for lack of missionaries trying. That means that Christmas unites the human race as few other things can, a fact witnessed to by the crèche museum. The figures come from all over the world, in all styles of art, depicting the Holy Family, the shepherds, the Magi as being from every race and ethnicity under the sun — an artistic witness to the truth of the Biblical prophecies (see Ps 117:1; Rom 15:11). Importance The fundamental moments of our faith, the roots — these are as plain as plain can be. A baby, the child of a woman whose husband could not get them rooms at an inn, is laid in a manger, a feed trough for animals, because, well, they were short a crib. They endured being strangers in the city where you would have thought members of the royal family of Israel would have been welcomed, would have even been enthroned. And though they are marked by a star, visited by shepherds and wise kings, Magi, alike, the most important part of the story is the most prosaic, the most familiar, the most common: Mary gave birth to a Son. That’s why the Nativity scene stands in for Christmas in our minds, stands in for the Incarnation, for light in the darkness, for grace overcoming sin, for hope. That’s why the Jubilee Year of Hope begins on Christmas Eve. That’s why we need both Nativity scene and Jubilee right now, in the midst of dark times, difficult tragedies, and much suffering in our own country and around the world. Visit LaSaletteAttleboroShrine.org for more information on the National Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette. Marian Helper • Winter 2024-25 • Marian.org 21
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