St. Nicholas Day

 

This morning I celebrated the Community Mass in our House Chapel for today's feast of Saint Nicholas (270-343), the Bishop of Myra in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey). According to legend, he attended the great Council of Nicea (325), the 1700th anniversary of which will be commemorated during the forthcoming Jubilee Year. He is especially remembered for his anonymous acts of charity, most famously for throwing three bags of gold into a poor household to provide dowries for three sisters. Centuries later, Saint Nicholas still comes in person in parts of Europe - notably the Netherlands, Germany, and Austria - and there are many popular traditions connected with his visit on the eve of his feast, some of which have survived in the most unexpected places. In December 1981, when I was a Paulist novice in rural northern New Jersey, December 6 fell on a Sunday. That morning, we all awoke to find a stocking outside each of our doors, with various personally appropriate items chosen for us by our devoted novice master. 

In 19th-century New York, Clement C. Moore famously re-costumed Saint Nicholas into our contemporary Santa Claus.  Santa has since spread all over the world, overshadowing his original persona as a saintly 4th-century Bishop. Sadly, today's department-store Santa serves instead the devilish demon of profit and is thus at best an imperfect intimation of the spirit of Saint Nicholas. Still, some of that spirit survives even in spite of everything. Whether acknowledged or not, Santa's amazingly generous gift-giving each Christmas still celebrates the amazing generosity of God who gave the world the gift of his Son at Christmas and continues to do so for the rest of history in the life of his Church. The real St. Nicholas responded to God's great generosity concretely in his own faithful and holy life of generous love for others in need. And, whether attired as the real bishop he was or as Clement C. Moore comically re-costumed him, he continues to exemplify God's generosity and call us to imitate it.

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Photo: my toy Santa Claus, originally given to me by a family friend for my first Christmas in 1948. At that time, it was a new model, and it sang Jingle Bells when you turned the little handle in his back. Old now (like its owner), the handle no longer works, and Santa no longer sings Jingle Bells. But, otherwise, he seems to have held up pretty well these past 76 years!