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A BLESSED CHRISTMAS AND A JOYFUL NEW YEAR TO YOU!

CWNews:

Instead of the familiar scene of the Baby Jesus laid in a manger, the Vatican’s Nativity scene this year will show the infant Jesus in a home that also includes his father’s workshop. No reason has been given for the change.

Does the it look like this Honthorst painting of St Joseph, as displayed on AmericanPapist.com (with an infant instead of a child looking up at St Joseph)?

AN INTERESTING EXPLANATION from Zenit:

Lev [an art historian] said: “This Nativity is not so much a break with tradition but is presenting a new side of the Nativity, revealing a new facet.

“It is trying to represent Joseph’s experience, his dream of what will happen knowing that Jesus will be born and Mary is with child. He had no idea the way it would all work out as he prepared to take on this task given to him by God through a message of an angel. So it is what he imagines in his home amid his work before it comes to pass.”

“This fits Joseph and the acceptance of his call into the story,” Lev continued. “Joseph is never the star of the Nativity, but his role is crucial. So this is not upsetting biblical tradition, but [giving] a different facet, looking at it in a different light.”

“In the Nativity accounts, a mother figure is always there, but this Nativity makes present the importance of the father figure and the fact that he is essential. It’s a reminder that he wasn’t born only to a mother, while providing a source of meditation during this time when we are faced with the battle against marriage and the family. It is a good way for the Church, in nonaggressive and nonpolitical way, to remind us of the basis of our understanding of family through the Holy Family.

“This is a Nativity very much of Joseph Ratzinger, a teaching Nativity. Instead of complacently laying out the characters, this year they are being laid out in a way so we have to think about what this momentous birthday means, think about the circumstance in which Jesus is born, while reminding us of Joseph’s essential role.”