This seems an appropriate way to start of the Christmas season: While we were visiting the church of S. Ambrogio in Milan, we came across this nativity scene in the church's treasury. It was made for Christmas of 1944 by Italian soldiers in a Nazi concentration camp. They worked in secret, using scraps of the men's clothing and anything else they could find. When they were liberated, they left behind the ox to commemorate those who died while in the camp. If you look closely, you'll see that the figures include a Franciscan friar, a hunter, soldiers, and a woman weaving--that is, people from all walks of life. (Sorry, my photo, taken in dim light, is a bit blurry.)
Though I haven't found anything about this story online, and I'm not sure of the circumstances that would have caused the soldiers to be imprisoned, there were certainly Italians, as there were Germans, who ran afoul of the Nazis. This scene reminds me of the complexity of human circumstances, and of the mixture that comprises men's hearts. What an appropriate place to find the Christ Child.
"The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it."
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