The heart of the city of Enna is the Piazza San Francesco. It was built to serve people; to be a meeting place.

In the sixties, it was turned into a large parking lot, but in the eighties, it was given back to the citizens, and is now lit up for the Christmas holidays.

Here and there in Enna, you can come across a nativity scene. I recently visited one made by the boys and girls of the Catholic Action of Enna. They are very smart. Inside a small three-story building, they have created workshops for various cultural activities: to learn music, to learn painting, to do theater, to teach Italian to foreigners, and so on.

While I am talking about the crib, my thoughts go to Saint Francis of Assisi. He was number one in many fields. He was the first to make a nativity scene and the first to compose a poem in Italian. We can say that the Italian language was born with St. Francis of Assisi. His superb poem Canticle of the Creatures predates both Dante and the Sicilian school of poetry.

Reading Canticle of the Creatures in front of a nativity scene elevates the spirit!

Ettore Grillo author of these books:

– November 2: The Day of the Dead in Sicily

– A Hidden Sicilian History

– The Vibrations of Words

– Travels of the Mind

http://www.amazon.com/author/ettoregrillo