A Vision of St. Francis

Reading stories like this one reminds me of some interesting trivia. Many people know that it was St. Francis who is credited with creating the first nativity scene to commemorate the birth of the Infant Jesus with great devotion in the town of Grecio. What most people don’t know is the rest of the story and what fostered this idea. The night before St. Francis had a vision. Now this was not a vision like when he received the stigmata, but something more terrifying than a Seraph with six wings. What he saw was the future where groups of lawyers with nothing better to do around Christmas time. Bored lawyers sooner or later become very scary indeed! He finally understood by this vision that by creating a crèche he would provide activity for many lawyers for years to come. Teams of lawyers would descend upon nativity scenes throughout the world and remove them and then other teams of lawyers would force city councils and neighborhood associations to put them back. Now this might seem pretty disrespectful to the Baby Jesus, but once again Christ offers a sacrifice to in this case save us from idle lawyers who would have focused their attention on something else to annoy us.

* article via In Veritate Ambulare and by the way the name of the library manager who ordered the nativity scene to be removed from the library was "Gay Cain." This wins the "Truth is stranger than fiction" award today.