13 A Child Enthroned even now. Even from the manger does Christ preach, saying, “If you would enter the kingdom of heaven, you must become as I am, you must become as little children.”The child has nothing; the Son does nothing but what he sees the Father do. And therefore the Father has robed him in splendor. “See the swaddling bands that wind him about,” says the master. “Whose hands wove the cloth? It was Mary, in the quiet house in Nazareth, who wove those bands for the child she was going to bear, along with her dearest friend and my beloved, the Lady Poverty, and she and Mary spoke of many things as they worked, and no one but God beheld them.” So for an hour and more did Saint Francis preach, and the people there at the second crèche in the history of the world—for the first was at the stable-cave in Bethlehem—listened, as they always did, as if his clear and boyish voice swept them from that hillside into the land where the boy Christ looks upon his own, and makes the lion lie down with the lamb, and, more remarkable than that, the rich man to bow in homage to the poor, and leads them to streams of living water. The whole world a grotto And in the rushing of Francis’ words, the people for a time forget themselves. They forget to lift the chin and throw back the shoulders and strut like foolish
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