What the Church Says About the Nativity Scene

Admirabile signum, the 2019 letter

On December 1, 2019, the First Sunday of Advent, Pope Francis went to the shrine at Greccio, in the Rieti valley, where Saint Francis of Assisi had brought the Nativity to life in 1223. There he signed an apostolic letter devoted entirely to the nativity scene: Admirabile signum. It’s short, just ten sections, and written for everyone, not just scholars.

It opens with an image anyone can understand: the nativity scene “is like a living Gospel rising up from the pages of sacred Scripture.” It notes that the custom isn’t just for homes, and welcomes nativity scenes in workplaces, schools, hospitals, prisons and town squares. And it describes how the tradition is handed down: we learn it as children, when parents and grandparents set it up with the little ones.

It doesn’t set any rules. The last section says so plainly: how you arrange your nativity scene isn’t what matters, and it can be the same or different every year. What counts is the story it tells.

The full text is available in English on the Vatican website.

What the letter sees in each element

At the heart of the letter, the Pope goes through the nativity scene piece by piece, as families set it up at home. Almost everything in a traditional nativity scene is there.

The starry sky

The night isn’t just a backdrop. It tells us that God comes to meet us even in our own dark times. See the Star of Bethlehem.

The ruins

Ruined houses and palaces, common in Italian nativity scenes, stand for a broken humanity that Christ comes to restore.

Mountains, streams, sheep

All of creation joins the celebration. That’s why the nativity scene has a landscape, and why it has the ox and the donkey.

The shepherds

The first to come are the humblest: the men keeping watch outdoors. See the shepherds.

The poor and the trades

The letter mentions beggars, the blacksmith, the baker and the musicians, and sees in these everyday figures the holiness of ordinary life. It speaks of a “revolution of tenderness.” That’s exactly what the village figures in a nativity are for.

Mary and Joseph

Mary gazes at her Child and shows him to everyone. Joseph watches over and protects his family.

The Child

God makes himself small. He comes to us as a baby, so that we can welcome him. See the Baby Jesus.

The Magi

They come from far away, and their gifts show who the Child is: gold for a king, frankincense for God, and myrrh for a man who will die. See the Three Wise Men.

The heart of it all: the Incarnation

What the nativity scene shows, the Church calls the Incarnation: the Son of God became man. He didn’t just appear. He was born into a family, in a real place, at a real moment in history. The Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it simply: “Jesus was born in a humble stable, into a poor family” (CCC 525).

That’s why the nativity scene is so full of real-life details: the straw, the cold, the animals, the village people. They aren’t there just to look nice. They show that God came into the world as it really is. It’s also why Mary is called “Mother of God”: the Child she holds is God himself.

The blessing of the Bambinelli

Every year during Advent, children from Roman parishes and youth groups bring the Baby Jesus figure from their nativity scene to Saint Peter’s Square. At the end of the Angelus, the Pope blesses them, and families place them in the manger on Christmas night. They’re called the Bambinelli, the “little babies.”

The tradition goes back to Pope Paul VI. It usually happens on the Third Sunday of Advent, Gaudete Sunday; in 2025, Pope Leo XIV held it on the Fourth Sunday. Many dioceses and parishes, including in the United States, now hold their own “Bambinelli Sunday,” and it’s often the easiest way to have your nativity blessed. See praying before the nativity.

The key moments of the year

The nativity scene follows the Church calendar, with a custom for each step: setting it up on the First Sunday of Advent, placing Baby Jesus on Christmas night, the Wise Men arriving at Epiphany, the end of the Christmas season at the Baptism of the Lord, and, in Provence and many other places, keeping the nativity up until Candlemas, the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord on February 2. See when to put up the nativity for details.

And the other Churches

The nativity scene began in the Catholic Church with Saint Francis, but it isn’t the only way to show the Nativity. The Eastern Churches pray before the icon instead, and many Protestants (Lutherans, Episcopalians, Methodists and others) now set up nativity scenes of their own. That story is told on Christian denominations and the nativity scene.

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