This week is filled with those great saints who preached the True Faith, and kept it going in the early years. Divine wisdom has willed that on the way which leads to the Messias, our great High Priest, there should be many pontiffs to pay Him the honour due to Him alone. Two Popes, St. Melchiades and St. Damasus; two holy doctors, St. Peter Chrysologus and St. Ambrose; two holy bishops, St. Nicholas and St. Eusebius; these are the glorious pontiffs who have been entrusted with the charge of preparing, by their prayers, the way of the Christian people towards Him, who is the sovereign Priest according to the order of Melchisedech. As each of their feasts comes we will show their right to have been thus admitted into the court of Jesus. Today the Church celebrates with joy the feast of the great thaumaturgus(miracle worker), Nicholas. Notice that this is NOT Santa Clause!
SAINT NICHOLAS
Archbishop of Myra in Lycia
(†342)
Saint Nicholas, the patron Saint of Russia, has won the warmest of praises from other Saints such as Saint John Chrysostom and Saint Peter Damian, who called him the glory of young men, the honor of the elderly, the splendor of priests and the light of Pontiffs. All the world was filled with his praises, Saint Peter added. The universal Church, in the Collect of his office, claims that God made known his nobility by an infinite number of miracles.
He was born during the third century, nephew of the Archbishop of Myra. He had lost his parents while still very young, and he desired not to conserve his rich heritage. Gradually he gave away everything of which he could dispose, establishing dowries for poor maidens and seeking out the needy wherever they could be found. The Archbishop, his uncle, already aware of his vocation to sanctity, ordained Saint Nicholas priest and appointed him Abbot of the monastery of Holy Sion near Myra. He undertook a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, resurrecting a sailor who fell from a mast during the voyage; he prayed for the frightened passengers in a near-fatal tempest and calmed it. He visited Saint Anthony of the Desert and healed many sick persons in Alexandria during a stopover in Egypt.
On the death of the Archbishop of Myra, he was elected to the vacant see. Immediately after the pontifical Mass, he resurrected an infant who had fallen into a fire. During his episcopate, he never got tired retaining the virtues looked for a in a bishop; chastity, which indeed he had always preserved, gravity, assiduity in prayer, watchings, abstinence, generosity, and hospitality, meekness in exhortations, severity in reproving those who needed it. He befriended widows and orphans by money, by advice, and by every service in his power. He was a zealous defender of all who suffered oppression.
Throughout his life he retained the bright and simple manners of his early years; no one could converse with him without finding himself spiritually renewed. Saint Nicholas was the special protector of the innocent and the wronged. He is usually represented at the side of a container in which a cruel butcher had concealed the bodies of three young persons, whom he had killed and was intending to use in his commerce, but who were restored to life by the Saint. This miracle was reported by St. Bonaventure in a sermon.
The many and great miracles that he performed and the fame of his holiness gave him great consideration. Eustathius, an avaricious officer, had condemned to death three innocent citizens, living not far from Myra, in order that he might take possession of their property. No sooner had St. Nicholas been informed of this than he hastened to the place, where he found the three men already in the hands of the executioner. The Saint ran towards him and took the sword from him; he then reproved the wicked judge with severe words, and thus freed the innocent persons, amid the great rejoicings of the people.
Still more remarkable is the following: Constantine, the emperor, had condemned three of his most renowned generals to death, on false accusations. These, having heard much of the holiness of the Bishop of Myra, called on God to come to their aid for the sake of His servant. In the night before the day on which the sentence on the three prisoners was to be executed, Constantine saw St. Nicholas standing before him, threatening him with divine vengeance if he did not immediately recall the sentence against the innocent men. In the same manner the Saint appeared to the unjust accuser. Both, greatly frightened, set the prisoners free, and sent them with many rich gifts to St. Nicholas, to thank him for having thus protected them.
Almost at the same time the Saint appeared to some sailors who were in great danger of being wrecked, and had invoked him. They saw him at the helm, guiding the ship safely to land. When they expressed their gratitude to him, he said: "My children, give honor to God; I am but a poor sinner." Taking them aside, he said that their sins, which he named to them, had been the cause of the danger they experienced, admonished them to repent, and then dismissed them. On account of this and numberless other miracles, the holy bishop was called the Thaumaturgus, or Wonder-worker of his age. All his biographers unite in saying that he raised many dead to life. Among these were three children who had been-cruelly murdered and cast into a tub; and this miracle is frequently represented by artists in their pictures of the Saint.
Although St. Nicholas was gifted with such high graces, and administered his episcopal functions so well, he yet feared that he did not do enough, and frequently prayed to God to release him from this burden. A voice from heaven, however, encouraged him, saying: "Fear not, Nicholas, I will recompense thy faithful services." God also revealed to him the day and hour of his death, and the Saint, rejoicing soon to see the Lord, received with great devotion, the holy Sacraments, and after a short sickness ended his holy life.
Saint Nicholas rejoiced when God made known to him that the end of his pilgrimage was near. He retired to his Monastery of Holy Sion, and after a short but intense episode of fever. When he knew his time was at an end, he looked up to heaven, and seeing angels coming to meet him, he began the psalm: 'In Thee. O Lord, have I hoped'; and having come to those words, 'Into thy hands I commend my spirit', and his soul took its flight to the heavenly country. He died in the year 342. He is the patron of schoolchildren, sailors, travelers and pilgrims, prisoners and many others. His relics were translated in 1087 to Bari, Italy, where a church was built in their honor. And there, after fifteen centuries, the manna of Saint Nicholas still flows from his bones and heals all kinds of illnesses.
Reflection: Those who would enter heaven must become like little children, whose greatest glory is their innocence. Two duties impose themselves on Christians: first, either to preserve our innocence by sage precautions or regain it by penance; secondly, to love and shield it in others.
Prayer to St. Nicholas by Dom Gueranger (our Beloved Abbot)
Holy pontiff Nicholas, how great is thy glory in God's Church! Thou didst confess the name of Jesus before the proconsuls of the world's empire and suffer persecution for His name's sake; afterwards thou wast witness to the wonderful workings of God, when He restored peace to His Church; and a short time after this again, thou didst open thy lips, in the assembly of the three hundred and eighteen fathers, to confess with supreme authority the Divinity of our Saviour Jesus Christ, for whose sake so many millions of martyrs had already shed their blood. Receive the devout felicitations of the Christian people throughout the universe, who thrill with joy when they think of thy glorious merits. Help us by thy prayers during these days when we are preparing for the coming of Him, whom thou didst proclaim to be consubstantial with the Father. Vouchsafe to assist our faith and to obtain fresh fervour to our love. Thou now beholdest face to face that Word by whom all things were made and redeemed; beseech Him to permit our unworthiness to approach Him. Be thou our intercessor with Him. Thou hast taught us to know Him as the sovereign and eternal God; teach us also to love Him as the supreme benefactor of the children of Adam. It was from Him, O charitable pontiff, that thou didst learn that tender compassion for the sufferings of thy fellow-men, which made all thy miracles to be so many acts of kindness: cease not, now that thou art in the company of the angels, to have pity on us and to succour our miseries.
Stir up and increase the faith of mankind in the Saviour whom the Lord hath sent them. May this be one of the fruits of thy prayer, that the divine Word may be no longer unknown and forgotten in this world, which He has redeemed with His Blood. Ask for the pastors of the Church that spirit of charity, which shone so brilliantly in thee; that spirit which makes them like their divine Master, and wins them the hearts of their people.
Let us end with the Sequence for today:
The sick are restored to health by the miraculous oil.
They who are in danger of shipwreck are delivered by Nicholas' prayers.
He raised from amongst the dead a corpse which lay on the road.
A Jew asks for Baptism, on witnessing the miraculous recovery of his money.
A vase that had sunk in the deep sea, and a child that was lost to his father, are both recovered.
Oh how great a saint did he appear by multiplying corn in a famine!
Let, then, this congregation sing the hymns of Nicholas' praise;
For all who pray to him with earnest hearts, will go back cured of their spiritual ailments.
Amen.
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