A Brand new Nativity Set

With Christmas just around the corner, it was decided that it was timely for Trinity College to have its own nativity set.

This week a beautiful six piece nativity set was delivered to the College. And it wasn’t a small table-top set, but rather a large (unbreakable!) set manufactured in Italy, suitable for Trinity Chapel. The upright figure of Joseph stands taller than a metre!

In Australia, we break for the long summer holidays right in the middle of the Advent season. Many senior classes have long since left the school before there is a chance to spend some time thinking about the significance of Christmas.

We are hopeful now that with the crib set up infront of the Altar on the Sanctuary, boys and their families will think more about the true meaning of Christmas – God coming and dwelling amongst us!

Do you know the origin of the Christmas Crib?

The origin of the Christmas Crib (or Manger or Nativity scene - or French, crêche; Italian presepio; German krippe; Spanish, nacimiento) is often first ascribed to Saint Francis of Assisi, who in 1223 celebrated the Feast of the Nativity in a new way that led to a new devotional practice. Saint Francis sent for his friend, Giovanni Vellita, a landowner in Greccio where Francis had a favorite hermitage. "If now it seems good to thee that we should celebrate this feast together, go before me to Greccio and prepare everything as I tell thee. I desire to represent the birth of that Child in Bethlehem in such a way that with our bodily eyes we may see what He Suffered for lack of the necessities of a newborn babe and how He lay in a manger between the ox and ass."