Holy Night

Published Dec 23rd 2008, 16:00

Author: Jennifer Mifsud

Christmas and the crucifix, a contradiction?

If Christmas is about the birth of Jesus Christ, would it make sense to set baby Jesus in front of a huge crucifix that serves as the backdrop of a crib?

The majority of us would definitely find it contradictory.

Not so, says Sr Agnese Zammit, a cloister nun at St Ursola’s monastery in Valletta, who explains the reasoning behind the set-up that the nuns have at the monastery.

She also shows timesofmalta.com another crib, the grotto of which is made of walnut shells, and explains a sweet custom that they have when placing the pasturi (nativity figurines).

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    • Comments

    Sandro Debono (on 23/12/08)
    Crucifixes feature in nativity scenes particularly early Renaissance works from central and northern europe. The birth of Christ is also the begining of man's salvation culminating in the sacrifice on the cross. There are also images of the infant christ holding the cross or even sleeping on a cross also dating to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
    L Aquilina (on 23/12/08)
    Interesting. I have a 'Ganutell' scene made by the Sisters of St Ursula around 1920 and given as a present to my great uncle who was at that time the Provincial of the Saint Augustine order.Presumably he was well liked and probably ,their confessor at the time.

    It features the two great happenings of the Christian religion, the birth and death of Jesus Christ and is illustrated with The Cross as a backdrop to Jesus in the manger.