Greccio

Naked in the town square

What an oddity you were

Pietro was red and livid to suffer such an disobedient son

But Mama Pia still wanted to bake you cookies

To her, you were NOT the news or the gossip

Or the ingrate

Or the disappointment

Or the shame to the Bernardone name

To her, you were

Her baby boy

Not Il Bambino

But

Her Bambino

And she always would

Yearn to care for you

To embrace and sooth you

And to pull you close

Forever

It did not matter how filthy you became

Or how poor

Or how infamous

The ridicule of all your neighbors could not shelter you from her love,

Her adoration

…. Francis, did you think of her, when you arranged the living Kresh?

When you drew people and a baby and lambs and donkeys together to make history:

Il Precepe di Greccio

The first living nativity

And did you think of her when you bade these actors to pretend they were the holy family

To re-enact the first noel

Buon Natale! in the hay

In a cave at Greccio,

But

Did you think of your mother at all?

When the baby,

The stand in for the infant Christ

Cried against the wind and some Maria bent to shield him

And when your heart burst for Joy, at the sight of life imitating miracle,

Did you know where your mother was?

Did she know where you were?

Did she know whether you were safe?

Or did she worry that you had starved

Or frozen

Or steeped yourself in full blown leprosy

And what of your father?

When you renounced him

When you disowned him,

And when you spurned all he had hoped to give you,

Why did you keep that nickname?

The one he’d bestowed with such love?

When you led the crowd in prayers and sang to Our Father in Heaven,

And

When your followers called you “Padre Francesco”

…. did you ever spare a thought for Pietro,

For your father on earth?

Did you remember being his little Frenchman?

Or was his joy and adoration so far forgotten that this name

Francesco

Became an empty relic with no meaning to you?

And when the living nativity,

re-enacted at Greccio shone in your loving eyes

Did you imagine the actors as Maria and Giuseppe and Jesu

Or

did you

Perhaps even for a second

Imagine them as mama, papa, and you?

Then when the stand in for Maria bent low to kiss the beaming child,

And the stand in for Giuseppe looked on and smiled

Did you

Perhaps even for a second

Miss your mother’s arms

And

Did you

Perhaps even for a second

Miss your father’s smile?

And when you prayed

And meditated

And ruminated on the Holy Family

And when you celebrated Christmas with crowds of strangers

Did you— Francesco, the little brother to all of Creation—

Did you ever

Even for a second

Miss the family you walked away from?

***

The song I was thinking of while writing this: