17 December 2025

We attended a Christmas service in which a poem by UA Fanthorpe was read. It is called, ‘Cat in the Manger’. It begins, ‘In the story, I’m not there.’ And continues to ask the question and insist that a cat was an obvious occupant of any stable.

The cat who is the narrator of the poem, blames ‘Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, /who got it wrong, /Who left out the cat’. Certainly there is no mention of a cat in the Infancy Narratives. But, come to that, there is also no mention of a donkey, an ox or a cow!

There is a legend about a cat in the manger. It is said that the baby Jesus was crying because he was cold. Mary for all her saintliness couldn’t quieten him. The cat in the stable jumped into the manger and snuggled into the baby giving him warmth and a constant purr which soothed him to sleep.

Sounds plausible but, of course, there is no record of such an event in the Gospels as the poet acknowledges. Does it matter? There are two ways of looking at this. Because it is not mentioned in the Bible, it could have happened!

But then all sorts of other things which are not mentioned in the text could have happened too. Lots of people have used their imagination in this way to pad out or reframe nativity plays. Does it distort the text? Does it redirect  our attention away  from the mystery of the Incarnation?

Because it is not mentioned in the Bible, should it be added to the text? Tradition  has added much to the Infancy narratives – three kings, specific names, gifts with meaning etc. What are the allowable parameters? Simplicity keeps us attentive to what is given and what is given has the potential to reveal the mystery.