Children of all ages can readily identify the saint we honor
today. The man with the twinkling eyes,
the smiling face, the ample body and the pillowed red suit. Historically, we know that Nicholas was a
bishop of Myra a city in what is now Turkey in the fourth century.
Perhaps one of the best-known stories about Nicholas
concerns his generosity towards a poor man whose daughters were about to be
forced into lives of prostitution.
Bishop Nicholas threw bags of gold through the poor man’s windows so he
could pay for his daughter’s dowries enabling them to be married.
Bishop Nicholas is also known for a miracle in which he
would restore to life three young men who had been killed. There was a food shortage in Myra, and the
local butcher abducted and killed three young men, and put them in brine to
cure them before making them into a ham.
Bishop Nicholas became aware of this through the Holy Spirit, found the
boys, restored them to life, and converted the butcher.
Bishop Nicholas was also a great lover and defender of
truth. Nicholas stood up for the truth at the council of Nicaea. When the
heretic priest Arius claimed that Jesus was not of the same substance with the
Father, Nicholas corrected Arius….physically. There are pictures of Nicholas
slapping Arius in the mouth for the foul errors spewing from it.
Here was a bishop, aware and responsive to the needs of the
poor in his diocese, whose holiness was evident due to the miraculous stories
which began to arise around him, and a bishop who was a great defender of the
Apostolic Faith. He is certainly a model for all bishops today.
Nicholas is no doubt a model for all of us especially during
advent. For doing Advent we are called to love what loved: we are called to
love and perform great and frequent acts of charity, we are called to love and
pray for miracles, and we are called to love and deepen our understanding and
preach Apostolic Truth about Christ.
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