For no
saint, perhaps, has the earthly life of Christ been the object of such
passionate devotion as for St. Francis; the Stigmata were the awful, yet,
to his contemporaries, glorious fruit of his meditations on the Passion;
and of the ecstasy with which he kept his Christmas at Greccio we shall
read when we come to consider the _Presepio_. He had a peculiar affection
for the festival of the Holy Child; "the Child Jesus," says Thomas of
Celano, "had been given over to forgetfulness in the hearts of many in
whom, by the working of His grace, He was raised up again through His
servant Francis."{10}
To the Early Middle Ages Christ was the awful Judge, the _Rex tremendae
majestatis_, though also the divine bringer of salvation from sin and
eternal punishment, and, to the mystic, the Bridegroom of the Soul. To
Francis He was the little brother of all mankind as well. It was a new
human joy that came into religion with him. His essentially artistic
nature was the first to realize the full poetry of Christmas--the coming
of infinity into extremest limitation, the Highest made the lowliest, the
King of all kings a poor infant. He had, in a supreme degree, the mingled
reverence and tenderness that inspire the best carols.
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