St. Nicholas - Dec. 6th

 

Today, we celebrate the memorial of St. Nicholas, who lived 300 years after Jesus.

As a young man, his parents died. Very much saddened by their death, he decided to wisely use the money he had inherited. He used the money to perform works of charity.

For example, St. Nicholas, heard about a man who lost all his money. Not knowing what to do, the man made a bad decision and decided to sell his three daughters for money. When St. Nicholas heard about this, he was shocked and saddened that a man would sell his own daughters. In order to prevent this from happening, on three different occasions, St. Nicholas went out in the dark night, and threw bags of gold threw the window to help the poor man and his three daughters. The gold happened to land in shoes.

The last time he threw a bag of gold in the window, the father of the three girls, saw Nicholas, and thanked him for his generosity and came to understand how wrong it was to try to sell his daughters.

Later in his life, St. Nicholas was unjustly put into prison for proclaiming the Catholic faith. While in prison he was chained and tortured along with the other Christians. However, once the emperor Constantine permitted Christians to freely practice their faith, St. Nicholas was freed from prison.

He later became a monk and then became an abbot at a monastery. When there was a vacancy in the diocese of Myra, he was chosen bishop.

At the Church council of Nicea, St. Nicholas spoke against the Bishop Arius. Arius denied that Jesus was God. Nicholas lost control of himself, and slapped Arius in the face. Due to this event, the other bishops decided to take away his office as bishop. They forced him to wear ordinary clothes, rather than the clothes of a bishop. Some bishops decided to put Nicholas into prison-- for his bad example.

However, Jesus wanted everyone to know that He was pleased with St. Nicholas, so Our Divine Lord and His Blessed Mother appeared to him while he was in prison, restored his freedom, and reinstated his office as bishop.

Once freed from prison, he heard about three innocent men, who were to be executed. St. Nicholas spoke up against their innocent accuser, until the accuser confessed that he knew the three men were really innocent, and so they were set free.

After his death, some sailors were going through a very rough storm at sea, and prayed to St. Nicholas for help, and miraculously reached the harbor safely.

Today, Germany and Dutch populations places shoes out and at night leave gifts or money in the shoes saying it was St. Nicholas who put them there.

Today, let us pray to St. Nicholas, that through his intercession, we will try to be holy and do acts of charity for others. And may the Blessed Virgin Mary, prepare us for the celebration of the birth of Her Son!