December 9, 2023 / 08:28 AM
When receiving the delegation of donors of the Christmas tree and the nativity scene that will be in St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican, Pope Francis encouraged silence and prayer before the nativity scene, also the one in each home, to listen to Jesus.
In the Paul VI Hall, the Pontiff greeted “the delegation of Rieti, in whose territory the representations of the Nativity have been carried out, and that of the municipality of Macra, in the province of Cúneo, where, precisely from the Maira Valley, it comes the white fir chosen as a Christmas tree.”
“The nativity scene installed in St. Peter’s Square wants to evoke, after eight hundred years, the Christmas atmosphere of the year 1223 in the Rieti Valley, where Saint Francis was. His journey to the Holy Land was still alive in his mind and the Greccio grottoes reminded him of the landscape of Bethlehem,” the Holy Father continued.