by Father Mark Goldasich
It sits in a small plastic box as a reminder . . . and a warning.
Things started to go south for me many years ago as a graduate student at the Casa Santa Maria in Rome. It was a custom there to set our shoes outside our room the evening of Dec. 5 in anticipation of a visit from St. Nicholas. I hatched what I thought was a fantastic idea to bamboozle good ole St. Nick.
Dutifully, I set out shoes in front of my room, then put another pair outside the unoccupied room next door, and finally, I placed a pair of flip-flops outside the door to the restrooms and showers. I went to bed snickering at how much candy I’d wheedle out of the saint known for his generosity.
As dawn broke on Dec. 6, I eagerly opened the door to my room. Peering down at my shoes, they were filled with . . . coal! In the shoes I’d placed outside the empty room next door? Coal! There was even a lump of coal on each of the flip-flops down the hall.
I was outsmarted by the wily St. Nicholas! How did he know it was me?
Of course, this isn’t the end of the story. When I went down to breakfast, there was a bag of candy stuffed into my napkin nook. How kind of the saint to overlook my mischievousness.
OK, back to that plastic box I mentioned above. It was left in the church sacristy a year or so ago. Can you guess what’s inside? A big lump of coal, and it’s not the candy kind!
Oh, how I’ve fallen from innocence. As a kid, I never left shoes out for St. Nicholas. (I’m assuming this was a time before Odor Eaters?) Instead, I left a small plate on the table — both at my house and at my maternal grandparents’ home. I was never disappointed on his feast day as St. Nick always left me a tangerine, some candy canes and a couple of bucks . . . at both locations.
Though it’s an optional memorial in the church calendar, I’ll always celebrate St. Nicholas. Although we know almost nothing about his life, there are scads of legends about him. One of the more amusing is that when he was an infant and his parents brought him to church to be baptized, he “jumped eagerly into the water.”
In the “Companion to the Calendar,” author Mary Ellen Hynes notes that St. Nicholas was bishop of Myra in what is now Turkey. Centuries after his death, his bones were brought to Bari, Italy, where many people came to venerate his tomb and be healed of illnesses.
The story most associated with St. Nick is of the poor man who couldn’t support his daughters. Just as he was going to sell them into slavery so they wouldn’t starve, the saint tossed three bags of gold through the man’s window, saving the family.
Incidentally, the tangerine I got growing up was a reminder of the gold St. Nicholas gave to the poor women; the candy cane was symbolic of his bishop’s crozier. These gifts helped me anticipate what I’d receive at Christmas, especially the greatest gift of all: Jesus.
If celebrating St. Nicholas on Dec. 6 isn’t a tradition in your family, give it a try. It’s a delightful custom that reminds us not only of the generosity of this saint, but that we’re called as well to be giving in this season.
And if you know of any “deserving candidates,” I’ve got a lump of coal you can borrow!
