A short apostolic letter on the meaning and importance of the nativity scene, signed at Greccio, where Saint Francis of Assisi made the first crib in 1223. It recounts that night as Thomas of Celano describes it, and then walks through the figures of the presepe one by one — the starry sky and the night, the ruins and the landscape, the shepherds and the poor, the angels and the star, the figures of daily work, Mary and Joseph, and finally the Child laid in the manger — explaining what each says about the Incarnation, and encouraging the custom in homes, workplaces and public places.