I've seen it. It's stone. Plus I have in front of me a holy card of the
Child the Franciscans place in it, with what the card solemnly informs me
are 'Flowers from the Holy Land Placed on the Holy Manager' (sic!). In
Italian the Manger is called the 'Mangiatoio'. A wooden one would not have
survived 2,000 years.
We have the Empress Helena to thank for the still-standing Basilica and its
Grotto beneath the Basilica at Bethlehem. Jerome's Grotto is next door with
a monument to all the saintly ladies who assisted his labours with the Vulgate.
At 09.56 03/03/98 GMT, you wrote:
>A
>>Regarding the link between the Passion and the manger
>
>An earlier post mentioned that the manger is stone. The stable is of
>course stone - a cave - but I can't recall ever seeing a stone manger.
>
>Oriens.
>>
>
>
>
____
Julia Bolton Holloway, [log in to unmask]
Hermit of the Holy Family
via del Partigiano 16, Montebeni, 50014 FIESOLE, ITALY
http://members.aol.com/juliansite/Juliansite.htm
For he does not despise anything that he has made, nor does he disdain to
serve us at the humblest office that belongs to our body, for love of the
soul that he has made to his own likeness. Wisdom 11.23-26
Julian of Norwich, _Showings_, Westminster Manuscript, fol. 78 verso
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