Fr Vincent Busch

For the past ten years I have been working in a livelihood project with a group of Subanen artisans. Every year we design Christmas cards that simultaneously celebrate the story of God’s Creation and the story of God’s Incarnation. This year the Subanen artisans are carefully crafting images of Jesus in the manger within five ever-expanding settings from the tiny stable in Bethlehem to the vast heart of our spiraling Galaxy. While they craft cards, I have the task of crafting a reflection – with a lot of help from St Francis – about the meaning of their cards.

St Francis is credited with instituting the Christmas custom of setting up manger scenes in our homes and churches. The story goes that shortly before Christmas 1223 Francis encouraged the people of Greccio to reconstruct a manger scene in a cave near their town. He explained to the people: ‘If you want to celebrate the Feast of the Lord at Greccio, hurry and diligently prepare what I tell you. For I wish to recall to memory the little child who was born in Bethlehem. I want to set before our bodily eyes the hardship of his infant needs’. The manger scene touched the hearts of the people of Greccio and it continues to touch our hearts today.

Francis’ words make it clear that he never intended the manger scene to be a cute and cozy recollection of Christmas. Instead, he wanted to stress the ‘hardships’ facing Jesus.

The majority of Subanens live in conditions that resemble the hardships of that stable in Bethlehem. Traditionally, the Subanens lived off their habitat by gathering food and fuel from the forest and by small scale farming. Sadly for the Subanens, our global economy is quick to take their land. Timber, and minerals, but it has no time to care for the Subanens. In the name of rapid ‘progress’ loggers and miners have plundered and continue to plunder their land. Stripped of their fruitful habitat the Subanens are left impoverished.

The irony is that the impoverished Subanens and plundered habitat can only be saved by progress. Not the rapacious kind of ‘progress’ that eats the Earth but a wholesome progress that cares for life in its integrity. Again, St Francis can guide us. The Saint trusted totally in the Providential Love of God. He called it ‘Holy Poverty’. In modern social and ecological terms, ‘Holy Poverty’ is simply ‘Wholesome Living’. It means practicing life-styles and crafting economies that trust in God’s Love by living creatively and joyfully within the limits of God’s Creation. ‘Whole Living’ is what happens when people and societies ‘live simply so that people (like the Subanens) can simply live’. Only this kind of ‘Wholesome Living’ can guide our profit–oriented economies to value people and the Earth more than it values wealth.

When Blessed Pope John Paul II proclaimed St Francis the patron of ecology he praised Francis as, ‘an example of genuine and deep respect for the integrity of creation who invited all creation – animals, plants, and natural forces, even Brother Sun and Sister Moon – to give honor and praise to the Lord’. For Francis, the manger scene – with its images of Mary, Joseph, Jesus, shepherds, magi, animals, plants, sky and natural forces – was a miniature presentation of the entire Earth Community. Our wholesome participation in that Community creates a healthier home for all, and honors the Lord of Creation.

The Subanen artisans – Inday, Edith, Tata, Marissa, Juvy, Mercy, and Lisa – continue their card crafting. They are now meticulously inlaying images of a kneeling Mary as she places her new-born son in the manger of our blue-green Earth. I’ll end this reflection with a verse to honor their work.

On wood and straw he rests his head.
The Universe, his manger bed.
All Creation enfolds the birth
Of the Word made flesh on Earth.
Her open arms said, ‘Let it be’.
God’s Love now shares Earth’s destiny.

See the crafts and cards of the Subanens on their website: www.subanencrafts.com