A manger is a feeding trough for animals, the box or hollowed stone that held hay and grain for oxen and donkeys. Jesus lay in one because there was nowhere else to lay him: Luke says Mary “wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7). That is the plain reason, and Luke does not leave it there. The same night an angel appears to shepherds…

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