Prayer to St. Nicholas

Almighty God, who in thy love didst give to thy servant Nicholas of Myra a perpetual name for deeds of kindness on land and sea: Grant, we pray thee, that thy Church may never cease to work for the happiness of children, the safety of sailors, the relief of the poor, and the help of those tossed by tempests of doubt or grief; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Saint Nicholas of Myra (The Real Santa Claus)

From: EWTN.com

The veneration with which this saint has been honored in both East and West, the number of altars and churches erected in his memory, and the countless stories associated with his name all bear witness to something extraordinary about him. Yet the one fact concerning the life of Nicholas of which we can be absolutely certain is that he was bishop of Myra in the fourth century. According to tradition, he was born at Patara, Lycia, a province of southern Asia Minor where St. Paul had planted the faith. Myra, the capital, was the seat of a bishopric founded by St. Nicander. The accounts of Nicholas given us by the Greek Church all say that he was imprisoned in the reign of Diocletian, whose persecutions, while they lasted, were waged with great severity. Some twenty years after this he appeared at the Council of Nicaea,[1] to join in the condemnation of Arianism. We are also informed that he died at Myra and was buried in his cathedral. Such a wealth of literature has accumulated around Nicholas that we are justified in giving a brief account of some of the popular traditions, which in the main date from medieval times. St. Methodius, patriarch of Constantinople towards the middle of the ninth century, wrote a life of the saint in which he declares that "up to the present the life of the distinguished shepherd has been unknown to the majority of the faithful." Nearly five hundred years had passed since the death of the good St. Nicholas, and Methodius' account, therefore, had to be based more on legend than actual fact.

He was very well brought up, we are told, by pious and virtuous parents, who set him to studying the sacred books at the age of five. His parents died while he was still young, leaving him with a comfortable fortune, which he resolved to use for works of charity. Soon an opportunity came. A citizen of Patara had lost all his money and his three daughters could not find husbands because of their poverty. In despair their wretched father was about to commit them to a life of shame. When Nicholas heard of this, he took a bag of gold and at night tossed it through an open window of the man's house. Here was a dowry for the eldest girl, and she was quickly married. Nicholas did the same for the second and then for the third daughter. On the last occasion the father was watching by the window, and overwhelmed his young benefactor with gratitude.

It happened that Nicholas was in the city of Myra when the clergy and people were meeting together to elect a new bishop, and God directed them to choose him. This was at the time of Diocletian's persecutions at the beginning of the fourth century. The Greek writers go on to say that now, as leader, "the divine Nicholas was seized by the magistrates, tortured, then chained and thrown into prison with other Christians. But when the great and religious Constantine, chosen by God, assumed the imperial diadem of the Romans, the prisoners were released from their bonds and with them the illustrious Nicholas." St. Methodius adds that "thanks to the teaching of St. Nicholas, the metropolis of Myra alone was untouched by the filth of the Arian heresy, which it firmly rejected as a death-dealing poison." He does not speak of Nicholas' presence at the Council of Nicaea, but according to other traditions he was not only there but went so far in his indignation as to slap the arch-heretic Arius in the face! At this, they say, he was deprived of his episcopal insignia and imprisoned, but Our Lord and His Mother appeared and restored to him both his liberty and his office. Nicholas also took strong measures against paganism. He tore down many temples, among them one to the Greek goddess Artemis, which was the chief pagan shrine of the district.

Nicholas was also the guardian of his people in temporal affairs. The governor had been bribed to condemn three innocent men to death. On the day fixed for their execution Nicholas stayed the hand of the executioner and released them. Then he turned to the governor and reproved him so sternly that he repented. There happened to be present that day three imperial officers, Nepotian, Ursus, and Herpylion, on their way to duty in Phrygia. Later, after their return, they were imprisoned on false charges of treason by the prefect and an order was procured from the Emperor Constantine for their death. In their extremity they remembered the bishop of Myra's passion for justice and prayed to God for his intercession. That night Nicholas appeared to Constantine in a dream, ordering him to release the three innocent officers. The prefect had the same dream, and in the morning the two men compared their dreams, then questioned the accused officers. On learning that they had prayed for the intervention of Nicholas, Constantine freed them and sent them to the bishop with a letter asking him to pray for the peace of the world. In the West the story took on more and more fantastic forms; in one version the three officers eventually became three boys murdered by an innkeeper and put into a brine tub from which Nicholas rescued them and restored them to life.

The traditions all agree that Nicholas was buried in his episcopal city of Myra. By the time of Justinian, some two centuries later, his feast was celebrated and there was a church built over his tomb. The ruins of this domed basilica, which stood in the plain where the city was built, were excavated in the nineteenth century. The tremendous popularity of the saint is indicated by an anonymous writer of the tenth century who declares: "The West as well as the East acclaims and glorifies him. Wherever there are people, in the country and the town, in the villages, in the isles, in the farthest parts of the earth, his name is revered and churches are erected in his honor." In 1034 Myra was taken by the Saracens. Several Italian cities made plans to get possession of the relics of the famous Nicholas. The citizens of Bari finally in 1087 carried them off from the lawful Greek custodians and their Moslem masters. A new church was quickly built at Bari and Pope Urban II was present at the enshrining of the relics. Devotion to St. Nicholas now increased and many miracles were attributed to his intercession.

The image of St. Nicholas appeared often on Byzantine seals. Artists painted him usually with the three boys in a tub or else tossing a bag of gold through a window. In the West he has often been invoked by prisoners, and in the East by sailors. One legend has it that during his life-time he appeared off the coast of Lycia to some storm-tossed mariners who invoked his aid, and he brought them safely to port. Sailors in the Aegean and Ionian seas had their "star of St. Nicholas" and wished one another safe voyages with the words, "May St. Nicholas hold the tiller."

From the legend of the three boys may have come the tradition of his love for children, celebrated in both secular and religious observances. In many places there was once a year a ceremonious installation of a "boy bishop." In Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands gifts were bestowed on children at Christmas time in St. Nicholas' name. The Dutch Protestant settlers of New Amsterdam made the custom popular on this side of the Atlantic. The Eastern saint was converted into a Nordic magician (Saint Nicholas—Sint Klaes—Santa Claus). His popularity was greatest of all in Russia, where he and St. Andrew were joint national patrons. There was not a church that did not have some sort of shrine in honor of St. Nicholas and the Russian Orthodox Church observes even the feast of the translation of his relics. So many Russian pilgrims came to Bari in Czarist times that the Russian government maintained a church, a hospital, and a hospice there. St. Nicholas is also patron of Greece, Apulia, Sicily, and Lorraine, of many cities and dioceses. At Rome the basilica of St. Nicholas was founded as early as the end of the sixth or the beginning of the seventh century. In the later Middle Ages four hundred churches were dedicated to him in England alone. St. Nicholas' emblems are children, a mitre, a vessel.

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Notes:

1 Nicaea was a city in Bithynia, now northwestern Turkey, a short distance south of Constantinople. The Council of Nicaea, in 325, was the first ecumenical church council, and was called by the Emperor Constantine to bring about agreement on matters of creed. For more on Arianism, see below, St. Athanasius, n. 6.

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This was taken from "Lives of Saints", Published by John J. Crawley & Co., Inc.

Prayer to Saint Andrew

O Christ, our Lord, 
Who didst beautify the most blessed Andrew 
with the grace of apostleship, 
and the crown of martyrdom, 
by granting to him this special gift, 
that by preaching the mystery of the cross, 
he should merit death on the cross; 
grant us to become most true lovers of Thy holy cross, 
and denying ourselves, 
to take up our cross 
and follow Thee; 
that by sharing Thy sufferings in this life, 
we may deserve the happiness 
of obtaining life everlasting.

Amen.

Feast of Saint Andrew, the first called

From: www.saintvincentarchabbey.org

Rm 10:9-18; Ps 19:8-11; Mt 4:18-22

"Giving wisdom to the simple."

The laws, the decree, the precepts, the command, the fear, the ordinances of the LORD are all together the Word of the Lord, and that Word became flesh and dwells among us. It is that Incarnate Word, who encountered Saint Andrew and his brother Saint Peter, and Saint John and his brother Saint James, on the shore working at their fishing jobs. It is the Lord Jesus who summoned them to come after him so that he could make them fishers of men. Such a word refreshed their souls, rejoiced their hearts, and enlightened their eyes. The Eternal Word become flesh spoke to Saint Andrew and he could not resist the summons. The Word of the Lord, speaking the words of the Lord, was more precious than gold, than a heap of purest gold. This Word was like a sweet song in the hearts of those who heard and responded; it was sweeter than syrup or honey from the comb. Indeed the word of summons came through the breath of the Spirit and gave new life to Saint Andrew. New life deep within that could not stay put; Saint Andrew could not contain the new life. He had to spread the good news of the new life available from the One Who Calls. In the words of the letter to the Romans, Saint Paul would have called Saint Andrew and all the Apostles men with beautiful feet because they brought good news from Christ's own lips to the ends of the earth. It continues to happen in our day as it did on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Men and women, young and old, rich and poor, intelligent and simple, all people are summoned to hear with the ear of the heart and to respond with life-long faithfulness. Indeed, the Incarnate Word still speaks to the human heart and he still gives wisdom to the simple.

Such is the faith that comes through hearing, hearing the word that is Christ. This Christ speaks personally and intensely to the heart of everyone he encounters. He seeks to bring all the children of God back to their home with the Father and in the Holy Spirit. It is the beautiful faith of Saint Andrew and his fellow Apostles that still shines bright with the Light of Christ into the world of darkness and pain. These first called followers of Christ were sent as preachers like the great preacher, Isaiah. Not measuring or monitoring the success of the mission by the size of the crowds who came to hear or the number of people baptized. Indeed like Isaiah the Apostles proclaimed a message that was not easy to hear or easy to respond to. Few among Jews or Gentiles wanted to hear that the Father loves us all, and He wants us all to share in his life, eternal life. Such a radical call to holiness can only be delivered by someone who has himself heard it, believed it, and lives it. Perhaps that's why some two thousand years later there are still so many who have not heard the good news, because they have not heard it preached in deed as well as word. The apostolic zeal has yet to permeate the entire church. Everyone baptized in Christ and confirmed by the Holy Spirit is consumed by the Father’s desire to have all his children come home. That's why Saint Andrew is so appropriately celebrated at the end of a liturgical year or in the beginning of a liturgical year. If this Advent Season is to give birth to Christ in our world, it must first give birth to Christ in our hearts. For those who believe in the heart and profess with their lips that Jesus is Lord come to life in the New Born Savior. Filled with the zeal of the first called, Advent 09 will make us fishers of men.

Saint Peter and Saint John are the only two Apostles who are well-developed personalities in the Gospels. Saint Andrew and the others are seldom mentioned. In the synoptic tradition, the brothers four were called on the same day. The most specific aspect of their lives mentioned in the text is that all shared a common profession. The fact that they were fishermen was used by the Lord Jesus to entice them to follow him so that he could make them fishers of men. If they followed the Lord Jesus they would be catching the attention, hearts, lives of all who by the Holy Spirit came to believe in Christ and in those whom he sent forth with his power and his teaching. The Gospel of Saint John presents Saint Andrew as a disciple of The Baptist. It was Saint John the Baptist who pointed to the Lord Jesus and proclaimed, "Behold the Lamb of God." It was Saint Andrew and Saint John who then came up to the Lord to ask, "Rabbi, where do you live?" The Lord Jesus then gave his invitation, "Come and see!" Both gospel accounts emphasize the power of the call and the immediacy of the response. The Lord Jesus may say, "Follow me!" or he may say "Come and see!" or he may use other words, or no words at all. Whatever the summons in our lives, it still has the power of Christ himself, and we have great delight in responding whole-heartedly and immediately. Indeed, the First Called, Saint Andrew is patron of all who hear and respond.

Advent 2009

From the Vatican's youtube channel: Click here