Nativity, Bernardi 16″ Series, Resting Sheep

Product Description

The Resting Sheep is part of a 16-piece set in the Nativity, Bernardi 16″ Series. You can acquire this piece and the 15 other pieces for your Bernardi Nativity all at once or one at a time, year after year, whether as a gift for your own family, or as a most generous gift for your church or chapel. One day your Bernardi Nativity will be complete at last and on full display during the Advent and Christmas seasons in your home, office, church, chapel, or workplace. Fashioned with faith, the Bernardi Nativity is one of the world’s finest and most exquisite ever to be carved by hand from wood.

The Nativity, Bernardi 16″ Series, Resting Sheep – A Labor of Love, Hope and Faith

All sixteen pieces of the Bernardi Nativity 16″ Series are carved from wood, hand-painted, and hand-finished in northern Italy in an artisanal workshop. The “Nativity scene” (known in Italy as a presepe or presepio, and as a crèche in France) is a venerable tradition in Italy dating back over 800 years old. After all, the first “nativity scene” ever (and a “living” one at that!) was gathered together in 1223 by an Italian (and now patron saint of Italy) – Saint Francis of Assisi (go to History/Story tab). While in the Holy Land on pilgrimage, St. Francis touched with his own hands and saw with his own eyes the very spot in the cave below the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem where over 1,200 years ago Mary, according to tradition, gave birth to Jesus. Saint Francis relived the original holy night of Jesus’ birth with his “nativity scene” of living persons and animals. Through his living nativity, he invited the faithful onlookers to use their senses of sight, touch, smell, and hearing to deepen their encounter with the Mystery of the Incarnation. The Bernardi Nativity is a spectacular expression of this noble and storied tradition in Italy. As such, this nativity is a “culturally authentic” masterpiece par excellence and a stunning labor of love, faith and hope!

The Bernardi Nativity – An Exquisite Heirloom Gift for Generation after Generation to Come

Every Christmas season, the 16-inch Bernardi Nativity will radiate serenity, depth, and beauty whever it is to be encountered. In Europe, crèches – small and large and in every depiction – are display seemingly everywhere in many public places. May your own home, chapel, church, office, workplace, or school display a crèche of true heirloom-quality – a crèche that celebrates with artistic and theological profundity the one true “reason for the season”! The Resting Sheep with the other 15 pieces makes the entire Bernardi Nativity an heirloom of uncompromising quality which will be displayed prominently for generation after generation 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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