Nativity, 3″ RA Series, Sheep with Lamb

Product Description

The Sheep with Lamb is one of seventy-two pieces in the Nativity, 3″ RA Series which together depict the mystery of the Incarnation. Fashioned with faith, this is one of the very finest wooden Nativities ever carved by hand. You can keep adding to your RA Nativity year by year, whether as a gift for your own or another family, or as a donation for your church. Eventually you will be able to display your marvelous RA Nativity in its entirety during the Advent and Christmas seasons in your home, church, office, or workplace!

The Nativity, 3″ RA Series, Sheep with Lamb – A Labor of Love, Hope and Faith

All seventy-two pieces of the 3-inch RA Nativity are carved and painted by hand in a workshop in Northern Italy. The Nativity scene – known as a presepe or presepio in Italy (and a crèche in France) – is truly an original Italian tradition. After all, the first nativity scene (a “living” one) was created in 1223 by an Italian who is now the patron saint of Italy, Saint Francis of Assisi (go to History/Story tab). Saint Francis had visited the Holy Land where he saw with his own eyes and touched with his own hands Jesus’ traditional birthplace in the cave below the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, Saint Francis recreated the scene of Christ’s birth with living persons and animals for others to further and intensify their worship of Christ by engaging their senses of sight, smell, touch, and hearing. The RA Nativity is then a continuation of a long and esteemed Italian tradition and is, then, as “culturally authentic” as it gets – truly a genuine labor of love, faith and hope!

The RA Nativity – A True Heirloom Nativity for Generations to Come

Every Christmas season the 3-inch RA Nativity will radiate beauty, serenity, and depth everywhere where families, friends, and persons of faith gather. In Europe during every Christmas season, crèches of every size are on display in many public places. May your own home, office, workplace, school and church be gifted with an heirloom-quality crèche such as this, a crèche which bespeaks with theological and artistic profundity the one and only “reason for the season”! This Sheep with Lamb with the entire RA Nativity is a gift of lasting heirloom quality that will cherished and displayed prominently for generations to come!

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The Life of Saint Francis of Assisi by Saint Bonaventure, Chapter X, 7.:

Now three years before his death it befell that he was minded, at the town of Greccio, to celebrate the memory of the Birth of the Child Jesus, with all the added solemnity that he might, for the kindling of devotion. That this might not seem an innovation, he sought and obtained license from the Supreme Pontiff, and then made ready a manger, and bade hay, together with an ox and an ass, be brought unto the spot. The Brethren were called together, the folk assembled, the wood echoed with their voices, and that august night was made radiant and solemn with many bright lights, and with tuneful and sonorous praises. The man of God, filled with tender love, stood before the manger, bathed in tears, and overflowing with joy. Solemn Masses were celebrated over the manger, Francis, the Levite of Christ, chanting the Holy Gospel. Then he preached unto the folk standing round of the Birth of the King in poverty, calling Him, when he wished to name Him, the Child of Bethlehem, by reason of his tender love for Him. A certain knight, valorous and true, Messer John of Greccio, who for the love of Christ had left the secular army, and was bound by closest friendship unto the man of God, declared that he beheld a little Child right fair to see sleeping in that manger. Who seemed to be awakened from sleep when the blessed Father Francis embraced Him in both arms. This vision of the devout knight is rendered worthy of belief, not alone through the holiness of him that beheld it, but is also confirmed by the truth that it set forth, and withal proven by the miracles that followed it. For the example of Francis, if meditated upon by the world, must needs stir up sluggish hearts unto the faith of Christ, and the hay that was kept back from the manger by the folk proved a marvelous remedy for sick beasts, and a prophylactic against divers other plagues, God magnifying by all means His servant, and making manifest by clear and miraculous portents the efficacy of his holy prayers.

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