Priest, Deacon and Layman, from St Peter Damian to St Francis

Few incidents in thirteenth-century history have been more often described than the story of the Christmas crib at Greccio. Not long before his death St Francis arranged with a noble layman called John of Greccio to prepare a crib for midnight mass at Christmas, with plenty of hay and real animals, ox and ass, in attendance. Crowds flocked to the place and ‘the whole night resounded with jubilation’. Mass was celebrated over the crib. But not by Francis, for he was not a priest but a deacon; and he put on the deacon’s vestments, sang the gospel and preached. Strange as it may seem, it is only from this story in the First Life by Thomas of Celano, confirmed by some shreds of other evidence, that we know that Francis was in deacon’s orders. No explanation is given, no contemporary commentary expounds the fact. Yet it is abundantly clear that his deacon’s orders had some profound significance related to his conception of his Order and its members, and their relations one to another. It is a curious puzzle to discover what it was.