By Jo Wardhaugh Doyle                          Ireland                              06.12.2025

I once celebrated Christmas on the 7th of July 1990. The sun was blazing, and it was an unexpected moment of surprised joy. I was on a pilgrimage travelling from Rome to Assisi, moving towards Umbria. We had stopped at the Rieti valley for a few days. It was a key area in Franciscan history. One spot we were going to visit was called a village named Greccio. This was where Saint Francis, with the Pope’s blessing, set up the first ever living crib. Francis had travelled from Rome to Greccio and asked for one of the brothers to help him find an ox and ass to be part of the wondrous event of the birth of Christ. Greccio is a beautiful place of pilgrimage and deep spirituality.

A miracle was supposed to have happened there at the Manger, where it was seen that Francis walked up to the lifeless body of the child in the crib and roused the child as from a deep sleep. They said this vision was not unfitting, for the child Jesus had been forgotten in the hearts of many.

We travelled to that place of pilgrimage. It was a cave, up upon a hill. The atmosphere was like a Tardis. It felt lost to time. It felt a sacred place. The atmosphere in that cave bypassed all logic and hit the soul. No one went untouched after entering the cave. It was like a womb, carrying life in it, it was full of vibration in its physicality. It was alive, touching the unawaken child within me. Many of us who were on the pilgrimage had left our lives behind and were tired, hardened to life’s circumstances. But there in Greccio, the vulnerability of the cold dark cave, met the reflection within us.

What new life was I seeking?

What desires and passions lay dormant within me?

We sat there, barely breathing. There was a presence, a presence saying to all, and sundry,
“I will come into your stall no matter how messy it is.”

Christmas is just that, it is a presence that will come into our need with a message saying, God has pitched his tent within us, He is with us.
We experienced mass in The Cave.

It was about a journey.
It was the journey from darkness to light, despair to hope, death to life.

I listened to the sermon expressing that our perception of reality must be changed if we are to surrender to that incarnation, to find a new joy in our despair.

In our poverty, what is it that we hoped for?

We were all visibly moved, our brains and logic were left outside that cave entrance. Yes, it was as though we had time travelled on this pilgrimage and we were left with what Saint Bonaventure said about Incarnation.

“Embrace that Divine Manger, press and kiss the boys’ feet. And in your mind’s eye, keep the Shepherds watch.”
Yes, Incarnation can happen every day if we believe that. That was one of the many lessons I learned in July 1990