Exhibiting the meaning of Christmas Displaying God's handiwork God's handiwork on display

THE INFANT JESUS appeared in church cr & egrave;ches this week as a figurine in a miniature manger, his limbs reaching to the sky, his sweet eyes gazing up at his mother.
As Christians around the world lean in to stare at him, they're reminded of what the scene represents: That before this child, the world lay "in sin and error pining," and that after him, it was forever changed.
At St. Columba Cathedral in Youngstown, a special cr & egrave;che has been erected this year, with Jesus in the manger, Mary and Joseph looking down at him and the sheep and oxen standing by.
But there is much, much more. The holy family is surrounded by a replica of Palestine in the time of Christ -- including 200-250 hand-painted figurines from Fontanini, Italian maker of nativity scenes for almost 100 years.
Collector
Thomas Bagola, who serves as the assistant director of the Newman Center at Youngstown State University, collected the figurines over the last 12 years. In the past few years, he's assembled the cr & egrave;che and his version of Palestine on campus. This year, Father John Keehner, the vice rector of St. Columba, asked him to bring it there so that the parishioners would be able to see it on Christmas.
Cr & egrave;ches have a special place in the Catholic faith and are thought to have originated with Francis of Assisi, who organized a live nativity in 1223. Cr & egrave;ches, says Father Keehner, speak to the issue of incarnation. "We believe that God became flesh," he says, "that God became one of us so that we could become more like him."
Its meaning
The cr & egrave;che helps us to feel closer to God, he says, because it helps with the imagination. "It helps make it present for us."
Bagola says he's spent a lot of time with the Franciscans and that this may be the reason for his interest in cr & egrave;ches. But he's liked them since he was a child. "I've set up a nativity set probably since I was 5 or 6," he says.
And he's always been a collector -- of comic books and GI Joes. He began collecting the Fontanini figurines in the early '90s, and made a major investment in them when he won $900 in a slot machine in Atlantic City one year.
Lively version
Bagola's version of Palestine is a little livelier than we might picture from reading the gospels. There are facades of Roman temples next to candy-striped Persian tents with kings seated inside.
There are kings everywhere, in fact, giving the panorama a good measure of color. And everywhere are palm trees. Keehner says that yes, it's an interpretation, but that "Palestine would have been a mish-mash of Greco-Roman and native architecture" in those days.
What parishioners will see
When the parishioners of St. Columba come to mass this Christmas they'll see the cr & egrave;che as they come into the church, and marvel at the Christmas story made more present by Bagola's panorama.
And later, after the Gospel reading, they'll listen to Father Keehner talk about how Christians can feel close to God although we live in a broken world: "We're tarnished, cracked around the edges," he says softly, "God's love makes us whole."