A bit of the reliquary of
the Holy Cradle of the Baby Jesus, currently kept in Rome's
Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore (St Mary Major), has been
donated by Pope Francis for various celebrations in Jerusalem.
The wooden fragment was donated to the Custodian of the Holy
land who got it on Friday.
After the Jerusalem celebrations the fragment will be taken
to Bethlehem, to the Church of St Catherine, alongside the
Basilica of the Nativity, for the Christmas period.
Under the high altar of the Rome basilica is the Crypt of the
Nativity or Bethlehem Crypt, with a crystal reliquary designed
by Giuseppe Valadier said to contain wood from the Holy Crib of
the nativity of Jesus Christ.
Donated by the patriarch of Jerusalem, Saint Sophronius, to
Pope Theodore I (642-649), the reliquary has been the object of
veneration by the faithful from Rome and all over the world for
nearly 1,500 years.
Every day countless pilgrims from all over the world come to
contemplate it in St Mary Major.
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