PHOTO: Mary van Balen
Strengthen all weary hands,
steady all trembling knees
and say to all faint hearts,
Courage! Do not be afraid…’
from Is 35
Today is the feast of Saint Nicholas, the “ancestor’ of sorts to our Santa Claus.The readings from today’s Mass reflect the divine generosity and compassion that are common attributes of Saint Nicholas found in stories about him. Though much we hear about Nicholas is legend, legend often has its beginning in historical people and events.
The earliest written record of Nicholas, bishop of Myra (now in Turkey), is a Greek document from around 400 AD. Nicholas appears on some lists of those who attended the Council of Nicaea, and the tale of his rescue of a poor man’s daughters who would likely have been sold into a life of prostitution without Nicholas’s generous intervention appears in no other saintly hagiographies. Stories about his saintliness were circulating during his lifetime.
What remains constant in all the stories is the bishop’s intervention on behalf of the poor, the unjustly accused, the ones with little hope or recourse. legends are grisly (children butchered and put in a salty brine from which they were rescued years later by Nicholas); some gentle (his sharing his fortune even before becoming bishop with the distraught impoverished father of three daughters); some gutsy(coming to the rescue of three innocent men by rushing in and grabbing the sword from the executioner poised to behead the men.).
Nicholas is credited with miraculous deeds. Once, when the people of Myra were starving, he convinced the captain of three ships harbored by the city and loaded with grain on their way to Egypt to sell some of the grain to the citizens of Myra. Nicholas convinced the captain that no shortage of grain would appear when he arrived in Egypt with his cargo. And so it was.
Today’s readings include the story of Jesus healing the paralytic who had been lowered through the roof to the floor in front of him by friends who believed that Jesus could heal the man. He did, but only after first healing the man’s soul, to the consternation of the Pharisees witnessing the miracle.
Nicholas was filled with Jesus’ compassionate love and generous spirit. He had a sense of justice and came to the aid of the poor. Jesus calls us to do the same, but not without his healing touch on our hearts and souls. Like Nicholas, we do not work alone, but with the gift of the Spirit dwelling within.
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