Nativity Scene
In the opening days of the Battle of the Bulge the advancing German forces overran the 106th
Infantry Division and took more than seven thousand prisoners. Chaplain Paul Cavanaugh was among this group of unfortunate men who found themselves herded onto trains without heat or food in bitter winter conditions. For days they suffered from extreme cold and hunger as they traveled farther and farther east. They were finally discharged from the train to a prison camp at a place called Bad Orb, Germany. Forced into makeshift barracks, they found little improvement in their living conditions. Food was scarce, heat nonexistent, and the guards brutal.
In this desolate situation Chaplain Cavanaugh and the men of the 106th observed Christmas Eve 1944. Under these conditions they came closer to the actual poverty of the Nativity scene than could possibly be experienced in an actual church. As the men huddled together to fight the cold, the chaplain spoke a few words that he later thought might have been the “best Christmas sermon he would ever give.” He talked to them about the blessed night in another faraway place long before, when God demonstrated for all time his love for mankind. He assured his fellow soldiers that this love continued for each one of them individually, in spite of their misery and isolation. He told them that God’s love was present even there in the frozen barracks of a prisoner-of-war camp.478
The chaplain prayed, “Lord, grant peace to the world… Grant that the peace which Christ, who is called the Prince of Peace, came to bring us may be established all over the world.” In the deep silence lasting through the night after this impromptu service, Paul Cavanaugh felt at long last that all was “still and calm and peaceful” over this modern nativity scene.479
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
—John 14:27