As I’m narrating a Christmas story on the mentioned Telegram channel, I vividly realise what importance the story of Nativity had for the people of the past. Their world was indeed reborn and had a new chance. So moved were they by the story of God coming to this world that they tried to reimagine it in detail. St Birgitta envisioned Our Lady miraculously giving birth, and St Francis of Assisi reproduced the manger which he saw in Bethlehem during his voyage with the Crusaders, giving the start to the tradition of presepe, or crib. The “Golden Legend” and various other literary works wanted to break through the time and space – and indeed the legendary ambiguities – to reconstruct the life of the most important characters of the New Testament beyond what was known about them.
And whereas the centuries since the 18th did much to deconstruct the above in order to demonstrate the “truth” and to denounce the past affection for “romance” and “lies”, what they have generally failed to do is to discover another source of inspiration that would be just as potent as this Christian legend. These critics mocked the story of the Good coming on Earth but they couldn’t invent another Good.
And so please accept my greetings on the Day of Our Saviour coming to this life. God bless us all.
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