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Happy Second Week of Advent!

Today, as many of you know, is the Feast of Saint Nicholas. This saint has been venerated for quite a long time, and associated with the Christmas season and gifts for children since long before his current incarnation as Santa Claus. Let's talk about him, and the customs associated with his feast day.

The Life of Saint Nicholas

The historical Saint Nicholas was a 4th century Christian bishop, and the truth is that we know very little about his life.

That isn't really the truth, though. If you start paying attention, you will find that the phrase "we know" is, like its cousin "is known," used constantly in modern life to talk about historical and scientific topics. What these words really mean is "This is the current consensus among college professors and those members of the ruling elite who look to college professors to define the world for them." And so, the current consensus among college professors and their sycophants is that Nicholas was a bishop from the Greek town of Myra who may or may not have attended the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D., and may or may not have punched the heretic Arius in the face over the latter's denial of the full divinity of Jesus Christ.

In the Esoteric tradition, our perspective is that Myth is more important than History. History happens once, and is over; Myth never happens, but occurs again and again and again. Myth unfolds the reality of spiritual things at a level the human mind can grasp, and it describes patterns the patterns that underlie our reality.

It can be said that Myth exists at one of the levels of being in between the world of Time that we experience and the Eternal Reality of God. They are outside of the Time that we know-- and yet they are not purely eternal. They come into being being at a particular moment in history. They change and evolve, their characters and the relationships between them shifting between geographic regions and eras of the world like the characters in a dream. And yet, they continually impact the the world we experience-- in this case, by impacting the behavior of human beings.

The Saints are human beings who, through their spiritual practices, have ascended beyond the realms of Time and Matter to the higher worlds. As such, their biography, even when it is known, matters far, far less than the legends that gather around them.

Here are some of the legends of Saint Nicholas.

The Real Life of Saint Nicholas

Once there was a man who had lost his money through the machinations of the devil. Now, this man had three daughters, and, with no dowry to provide for their marriages, he would be forced to sell them into prostitution. Hearing about hte girls' plight, Nicholas resolved to help, but his mdoesty was such that he would not do so openly. And so, under the cover of darkness, he snuck up to the family's house and tossed a gold purse through the window. Upon discovering it the next day, the girls' father was overjoyed. He immediately provided his oldest daughter with a dowry, and she was able to marry.

Upon hearing of the success of his first outing, Nicholas repeated the action a second time, and so the second daughter was able to marry. But the third time, the father resolved to resolved to stay awake and catch his secret patron in the act. Upon discovering that it was the bishop Nicholas, the man fell to his knees and kissed the saint's feet. Nicholas admonished him to keep his charity a secret. Of course, the admonishment was ignored, otherwise I would not be able to tell you about it.

Another time, three children were playing in the field, and forgot to keep an eye on the Sun. As there were no street lights then to tell the kids to get home before dark or to light their way back home, the children found themselves quite lost. Fortunately, they came across a lighted butcher's shop on the road. Unfortunately, no one had told them that, in fairy tales, little children should be all means avoid lonely houses while lost in the woods, especially if they are lit up and welcoming, and especially if the nature of the house has anything at all to do with food. The butcher who kept the shop welcomed the children, fed them dinner, and provided them with a place to sleep for the night. Then he crept into their room, chopped them into pieces, and stored their salted bodies in a barrel.

Seven years later, the good bishop Nicholas happened to be wandering through the land. He came to the butcher shop and demanded to be let in. When he spied the barrel, in which the children's salted bodies were still aging, he demanded the butcher open it. Then he made the sign of the cross over it and said "Arise, oh children!" And the children got out of the barrel just as alive and well as the day before they'd got into it.

Another time, Saint Nicholas heard about a tree which was possessed by a demon. Resolving to do something about it, he took an axe and cut the tree down. Now, ordinarily, such a thing is not sufficient to drive a demon off, but when the axe is swung by a saint, it does the job. Word of the saint's miracle spread throughout the region, so that several other villages suffering from demonic trees called upon Saint Nicholas, and he cut those down, too. And that's all that anyone really has to say about that.

Someone reading this is upset that Nicholas cut trees down, and even more upset about the idea that a tree spirit could be evil. Let me tell you, as one who has experienced many tree spirits who were not evil, that there are some tree spirits out there who are very evil indeed, and others who simply hate human beings. If you happen to run into one of these latter trees, you can be sure that your Greenpeace membrship will not impress them-- but an invocation of Saint Nicholas just might!

The Practices of Saint Nicholas Day

In earlier times, many of Saint Nicholas's Christmas Eve duties were performed on the eve of his Feast Day. It was only later, with the spread of Protestantism, that his cult was rolled into Christmas itself.

I have in my collection a fine old volume entitled Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, by Clement A. Miles. Writing over a century ago, Miles is quick to interpret everything interesting in Christianity as a "pagan survival," but if you can ignore that, he presents an enormous wealth of information on the subject of Christmas traditions. Regarding St. Nicholas Day, Miles writes:

St. Nicholas's Eve is a time of festive stir in Holland and Belgium; the shops are full of pleasant little gifts: many-shaped biscuits, gilt gingerbreads, sometimes representing the saint, sugar images, toys, and other trifles. In many places, when evening comes on, people dress up as St. Nicholas, with mitre and pastoral staff, enquire about the behaviour of the children, and if it has been good pronounce a benediction and promise them a reward next morning. Before they go to bed the children put out their shoes, with hay, straw, or a carrot in them for the saint's white horse or ass. When they wake in the morning, if they have been “good” the fodder is gone and sweet things or toys are in its place; if they have misbehaved themselves the provender is untouched and no gift but a rod is there.

In various parts of Germany, Switzerland, and Austria St. Nicholas is mimed by a man dressed up as a bishop. In Tyrol children pray to the saint on his Eve and leave out hay for his white horse and a glass of schnaps for his servant. And he comes in all the splendour of a church-image, a reverend grey-haired figure with flowing beard, gold-broidered cope, glittering mitre, and pastoral staff. Children who know their catechism are rewarded with sweet things out of the basket carried by his servant; those who cannot answer are reproved, and St. Nicholas points to a terrible form that stands behind him with a rod—the hideous Klaubauf, a shaggy monster with horns, black face, fiery eyes, long red tongue, and chains that clank as he moves.

In Lower Austria the saint is followed by a similar figure called Krampus or Grampus; in Styria this horrible attendant is named Bartel; all are no doubt related to such monsters as the Klapperbock. Their heathen origin is evident though it is difficult to trace their exact pedigree. Sometimes St. Nicholas himself appears in a non-churchly form like Pelzmärte, with a bell, or with a sack of ashes which gains him the name of Aschenklas.

Notice the two features of Saint Nicholas: He only brings presents and candies to good children, leaving a rod for the bad ones; and he is accompanied by a goblin or monster who carries off the worst.

Never doubt, by the way, that St. Nicholas actually did these things. He is no longer a man in a body, but a spirit and a saint. Unlike us sojourners here in the world of Matter and Time, spirits are not limited to a single body, and will happily make use of whatever body is provided for them. Of course, they often require that certain conditions are met before they'll descend into a human body-- such as dressing up as a bishop, or donning a red coat and a red fur-trimmed cap.

Practices for Saint Nicholas Day

Most children in America and, I suspect, the rest of the Anglophone world, are unacquainted with St. Nicholas Day. At a Catholic school near where I live, the children leave stockings outside the hall during their last period of the day, at which time they are filled with candy by the principle. And I know that converts to the Eastern Orthodox Church (often via the Antiochian archdiocese) often celebrate after the traditional manner. It probably isn't going to be possible to shift the entire tradition of St. Nicholas back to his feast day, and it may not even be desirable to do so.

That said, we can still take steps toward reincorporating the old practices into our family Christmas celebrations. Last night was the appropriate night to leave out stockings or shoes for candy, but it can be done today as well. I'll confess that the only reason that I didn't have my kids do it last night is that I was so tired I forgot-- we spent the weekend preparing the house for Christmas, which meant deep cleaning, rearranging the living room, cutting down the tree and stringing the lights for it. By the end of the day yesterday I could barely see straight. So, on the drive to school this morning, I casually mentioned to my son that it was the custom in earlier times to leave shoes out for St. Nicholas, but that I didn't know if it worked because I'd never done it. "I wonder what would happen if we tried it?" I said. "Maybe we should leave the biggest shoe we have outside and see what happens?" he said. That was several hours ago and the shoe has yet to be filled with candy-- but, on the other hand, I have yet to finish writing this blog post and go to the grocery store.

Meditations for Saint Nicholas Day

Set up your prayer space or altar with a Saint Nicholas icon or prayer card, if you have one. Enter into meditation the usual way, opening with the sign of the cross and additional prayers. Then either concentrate on the icon or simply bring the saint to mind. If you like, you can visualize one of the stories from the life of Saint Nicholas. Then, imagine him coming to your home-- perhaps as he used to in the olden days, on his white horse in his bishop's robe, rather than his new guise, in order to invoke older meaning. Imagine him blessing the house and bringing gifts to all-- but understand that the gift that he brings is not a material thing, but the spirit of giving freely of oneself.

And there is another gift he brings, too. St. Nicholas is the patron, especially, of children, and is well-loved by them. Recall that Our Lord himself teaches us that we will only enter into the kingdom of Heaven if we do so as little children.

Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

This is a deep, mystical teaching, and it would take time to unpack it here; we're getting to it in the Gospel of Matthew discussion, and so the full meaning will have to wait until then. For now, though, consider that children arrive on this Earth directly from the presence of God, and the work of learning to function in ordinary human society is also the work of obscuring the light of Heaven from our eyes. Imagine that the gifts of St. Nicholas are not merely given to children, but given to all of us, to awaken the part that is child-like in all of us. This is the part that the Taoist tradition calls the yuan shen, or "original spirit"-- the part of our being that stands beyond all the conditioning of our culture and the experiences and traumas that shape our latter habits of thought and mind.

In meditation, imagine the experience of experience of the Christmas Season awaken us to our true being, and let this be the true meaning of the gifts of St. Nicholas. If your St Nicholas icon or holy card has a specific prayer, you can close with that, or with your own prayer, such as:

Oh God, we thank you for Saint Nicholas, and we pray that he may visit our homes this year, and awaken us to the joy of freely giving, and awaken, too, the original and child-like spirit within all of us, that we may become as the little children are, and enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Good Saint Nicholas, patron of children, sailors, and the helpless, pray for us this day. Amen.

Happy Saint Nicholas Day!