Over a hundred years ago, the New York Sun printed a letter to the editor from an 8 year old girl (Virginia) who wanted to know if there was really a Santa Claus. The famous reply is the most often reprinted editorial in the English language. It's actually a very interesting reply, and goes to the heart of believing in that which we cannot see, and how some of the most real things in life are not tangible at all.
Despite the beauty of Frank Church's famous response, when you think about it, it's not exactly what Santa Claus or Christmas is about. Christmas is not the feast in which we celebrate what we can't see, but that which we can! We celebrate the invisible made visible, Love made incarnate, God made man. Even this tradition of Santa Claus is born from tangible, real actions of generosity and charity that Nikolas of Myra (who was actually a bishop!) made anonymously and famously to those in need.
As one story goes, Bishop Nikolas (later known to us as Saint Nicholas), knew of an unfortunate man who owed a debt so large that he was facing the terrible necessity of selling his daughters into slavery. In the night, Bishop Nikolas snuck in and placed the needed amount of gold coins in their stockings as they hung to dry. How else was this man's radical charity inspired but by the profound humility and complete sacrifice of the Child who was born in Bethlehem this day.
Mr. Church noted that Santa Claus exists "as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist" and that without this "there would be no child-like faith... no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence." He is right again, and this really is the reason we must continue to lift up for our children and for ourselves revolutionary examples of love and generosity and devotion.
Because, my friends, there really was a Christ Child born in Bethlehem over 2000 years ago, there really is a Saint Theresa of Calcutta, a St. Francis of Assisi, a St. Clare, and yes, Virginia, there really is a St. Nicholas.
Merry Christmas!
Mandie DeVries
Director of Religious Education
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