This year the task of preparing the Christmas crib in the Cathedral of Damascus was given to the young who had started meeting together after 8 years of violence and dispersion, Fides News Agency reported December 21, 2018. They prepared the crib on the left of the altar. In the representation of the Nativity, the figures of the Virgin Mary, St. Joseph and Child Jesus in the manger are exposed outdoors, and are not covered by the roof of a stable or a hut. And if the faithful and the pilgrims ask the young Christians of Damascus the reason for this choice, the young people reply: a crib without a roof represents the 13,000,000 Syrian refugees who are homeless and have no roof of their own. The child Jesus is one of them. We wanted to show our solidarity with them, our homeless compatriots who we have remembered by making this crib, poor and bare like their own housing and who find their hope and deliverance in heaven.
