Saint Nicholas

Archbishop of Myra in Lycia
(† 342)

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Saint Nicholas, the patron Saint of Russia, has won the warmest of praises from other Saints such as Saint John Chrysostom and Saint Peter Damian, who called him the glory of young men, the honor of the elderly, the splendor of priests and the light of Pontiffs. All the world was filled with his praises, Saint Peter added. The universal Church, in the Collect of his office, claims that God made known his nobility by an infinite number of miracles.

He was born during the third century, nephew of the Archbishop of Myra. He had lost his parents while still very young, and he desired not to conserve his rich heritage. Gradually he gave away everything of which he could dispose, establishing dowries for poor maidens and seeking out the needy wherever they could be found. The Archbishop, his uncle, already aware of his vocation to sanctity, ordained Saint Nicholas priest and appointed him Abbot of the monastery of Holy Sion near Myra. He undertook a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, resurrecting a sailor who fell from a mast during the voyage; he prayed for the frightened passengers in a near-fatal tempest and calmed it. He visited Saint Anthony of the Desert and healed many sick persons in Alexandria during a stopover in Egypt.

On the death of the Archbishop of Myra, he was elected to the vacant see. Immediately after the pontifical Mass, he resurrected an infant who had fallen into a fire.

A persecution broke out under the emperor Licinius; Saint Nicholas was banished and kept in chains. He suffered from severe mistreatment but returned to his church when Constantine the Great defeated Licinius, and in 313 then put a definitive end to the persecutions. Saint Nicholas labored in his domains to stop the worship of false gods, still practiced there as elsewhere. With his own hands he cut down a huge tree, site of a sacrilegious cult of the goddess Diana. During a famine his prayers multiplied the provisions of wheat which he had ordered for the port of Myra, to such an extent that what would have sufficed for his people for only a few days, was found to be sufficient for more than two years. He rescued from death, just before they were hanged, three innocents condemned by a judge who had been corrupted by money, reprehended the latter for his crime and sent these liberated ones home, entirely exonerated.

Throughout his life he retained the bright and simple manners of his early years; no one could converse with him without finding himself spiritually renewed. Saint Nicholas was the special protector of the innocent and the wronged. He is usually represented at the side of a container in which a cruel butcher had concealed the bodies of three young persons, whom he had killed and was intending to use in his commerce, but who were restored to life by the Saint. This miracle was reported by Saint Bonaventure in a sermon.

Saint Nicholas rejoiced when God made known to him that the end of his pilgrimage was near. He retired to his Monastery of Holy Sion, and after a short but intense episode of fever, died in the year 342. He is the patron of schoolchildren, sailors, travelers and pilgrims, prisoners and many others. His relics were translated in 1087 to Bari, Italy, where a church was built in their honor. And there, after fifteen centuries, the manna of Saint Nicholasstill flows from his bones and heals all kinds of illnesses.

Reflection: Those who would enter heaven must become like little children, whose greatest glory is their innocence. Two duties impose themselves on Christians: first, either to preserve our innocence by sage precautions or regain it by penance; secondly, to love and shield it in others.

St. Nicholas

The charm of Nicholas is fueled by the mystery about his origins, since very little or nothing is known of his family or childhood. He was probably born in Patara in Lycia (today’s Turkey), between 261 and 280, from Epiphanius and Joanna who were affluent Christians. He grew in an environment of Christian faith, but lost his parents prematurely because of the plague, and became therefore a wealthy man. About that period is dated the so-called Miracle of the three girls, masterfully represented by a painting of Sebastian Dayg (1525), as well as by Beato Angelico.

At this point however history fades into legend: a nobleman of Patara had become poor and decided to start his three daughters of marriageable age into prostitution because he could not marry them decently; Nicola learned of that situation and on three consecutive nights threw into the man’s house three cloth bundles full of gold coins, so that the three girls could have a dowry. On the third night the father stayed awake to discover who the benefactor was, but Nicholas asked him not to reveal what had happened. Also for this episode he is revered as a protector of children.

Later on, Nicholas left his hometown and moved to Myra (now Demre, Turkey) where he was ordained as a priest. On the death of the metropolitan bishop of Myra, he was hailed by the people as the new bishop. Imprisoned and exiled in 305 during the persecution by Diocletian, he was later freed by Constantine in 313 and continued his apostolic activity. It is not certain that he was one of the 318 participants at the Council of Nicea in 325: according to the tradition, however, during the Council he condemned Arianism defending the Catholic faith, and in a rush of rage he is said to have slapped Arius. The writings of Andrew of Crete, and Johannes Damascene confirm his faith was rooted in the principles of Catholic orthodoxy.

A famous episode in the life of Nicholas took place when Roman troops commanded by General Nepotianus, Ursus and Erpilion stopped at Myra during an expedition to quell a rebellion in Phrygia. The presence of soldiers in the city created riots, and in the ensuing chaos, the corrupt governor Eustathius agreed to condemn to death the three innocent generals. The execution was stopped by the bishop personally. However, upon their return to Constantinople, the three generals who had quelled the uprising were hailed as winners and this aroused the jealousy of the prefect Ablabius who organized a conspiracy, took them prisoners and sentenced them to death without trial. The three remembered the Bishop of Myra and implored his help: at night Nicholas appeared in a dream to both the prefect and the emperor threatening them of dire punishments if they had harmed the three innocent men. Once released, the three generals went to Myra to say thanks to their savior.

St. Nicholas died at Myra on December 6, presumably in the year 343.

It’s a long way from Lycia to the eastern coast of Italy.

St. Nicholas Church, Myra, Demre, Turkey

St. Nicholas’ tomb in Myra was a popular place of pilgrimage. As Myra was a seaport, sailors heard the stories of the saint’s shrine and carried them to many distant places. If a town were fortunate enough to host such a significant religious site, it enjoyed considerable commercial benefit because pilgrims needed to be housed, fed, and otherwise provided for. After Myra fell under the control of the Seljuks, who were not sympathetic to Christian faith, Italian merchants in both Venice and Bari, saw an opportunity to bring such advantage to their cities. Their motives were opportunistic, but also spiritual, as there was real fear that pilgrimage could become difficult and dangerous or that the shrine might even be desecrated.

Early in 1087, three ships with sailors and merchants from Bari stopped in Myra on their way home from Antioch. When they visited Nicholas’ tomb, the monks showed them where the manna was extracted. The sailors then asked where the saint’s body lay. The monks, perhaps naively, showed them. But the monks became suspicious and questioned the visitors about their intentions, “Surely you do not intend to take the saint’s remains to your own region? If so, we won’t allow it.” However, in the end the Barians prevailed and broke open the tomb with an iron bar. The sailors spirited the bones away to the ship, escaping just ahead of the townspeople coming in hot pursuit.

The men of Bari sailed away on the long voyage back to the southeast coast of Italy. Before getting there, they stopped at a nearby port to make a beautiful box (casket) to hold the saint’s relics. When they arrived in Bari, May 9, 1087, the townspeople thronged to the harbor to welcome the saint’s remains. The returning men made a solemn vow to build a magnificent church to honor St. Nicholas. The crypt was completed by October 1089 and Pope Urban II laid the relics of St. Nicholas beneath the crypt’s altar, consecrating a shrine that became one of medieval Europe’s great pilgrimage centers. The main church was built in ten years, but it wasn’t until the middle of the 12th century that the imposing and majestic Basilica di San Nicola was complete.

From the earliest time St. Nicholas devotees have asked for protection and health in mind and body through the use of the manna. It was diluted and made available in bottles decorated with images of the saint. Over the centuries a unique art of painting these glass bottles developed in Apulia. Every year the translation of the Nicholas relics to Bari is celebrated with a great festival which culminates in the extraction of the manna by the rector of the Basilica.

The “manna of Saint Nicholas”, which was once commonly called ‘oil’, is actually transparent pure water that is formed in the tomb of the Saint in the crypt of the Basilica in Bari. This phenomenon is not easily explainable. It is absolutely excluded that there is some kind of infiltration of water from the outside for it has been proven that the casket containing the bones of the Saint is impermeable. Notwithstanding the various solutions that are arrived at from numerous hypothesis forwarded, whether supernatural or natural explanations of the phenomenon, the manna is an authentic relic, because it is a liquid that remained in contact with the bones of the Saint, and therefore explains the very reason why there is such a great devotion springing up from this relic. The manna also exuded in the tomb of the Basilica of Myra immediately after the death of Saint Nicholas, as attested to by numerous biographies and eulogies, all are in accord of the exemplary virtue of the miracle worker.

The Legends of the translation likewise affirm that the urn containing the remains of Saint Nicholas of Myra was full of “manna”. After the translation to Bari the phenomenon continued uninterruptedly. It is also fully proven that the pilgrims coming to Bari, are attracted to the tomb of the Saint in view of the fact that the “manna” is famous because of the miracles St. Nicholas accomplishes through it. Between 1954 and 1957, the authenticity that this liquid truly came from the bones of the Saint, as was commonly held, was put into question. In 1954, because of the renovation being done in the crypt, the tomb was opened and the bones were exhumed. Then they were placed inside an urn, where it remained exposed to the public to see and venerate for three years in the hall of the treasures (of the Saint in the Basilica). Sometimes it was observed that the bones “perspired” a certain kind of fluid; one time the linen sheet which held the relics was found to be soaking wet when the mortal remains of St. Nicholas were re-interred in the tomb. This linen cloth has been preserved up to this day.

Translated from the Italian by Fr. Winston Fernandez-Cabading, OP
—from the Centro Studi Nicolaiani di Bari

For us the festivals of the Liturgical Year, according to the Church, should not be mere commemorations of past historical events, but should rather be opportunities, here and now, to re-live these events and participate in them as though they are just now taking place.  The person of Jesus Christ in whom the whole cycle of the Ecclesiastical Year is centered is not a dead person, who once lived, worked, and passed into history.  Jesus Christ is eternally alive and active.  Just as He once did on earth, so He does now.  He teaches and admonishes us, sanctifies and forgives us, offers Himself up for us, saves us, and draws us to Himself by His example.  “Jesus Christ,” says St. Paul, “is the same today as He was yesterday, and as He will be forever.”  (Heb. 13,8)  The Liturgical Year, then, is a continuation of Christ’s life, work and doctrine among us today.  It is the mystical repetition of the mysteries of Christ’s life in the hearts of the faithful.

In his encyclical letter of November, 1947, “Mediator of God”, Pius XII wrote:  “The Liturgical Year devoutly fostered and accompanied by the Church is not a cold and lifeless representation of the past, nor a simple, bare record of a former age.  Rather, it is Christ Himself who is ever living in His Church.  Here He continues that Journey of immense mercy which He lovingly began in His moral life ‘going about doing good’ with the design of bringing men to know His mysteries and in a way live by them.  These mysteries are ever present and active … they are shining examples of Christian perfection as well as sources of Divine grace.”  (§165)  Similarly, the decree of the Second Vatican Council on the “Constitution on the Liturgy” states that: “Recalling thus the mysteries of redemption, the Church opens to the faithful the riches of her Lord’s powers and merits, so that these are in some way made present for all times, and the faithful are enabled to lay hold upon them and become filled with saving grace. (§102)

Book of Heaven
3/24/14 – Vol. 11

Continuing in my usual state, I (Servant of God, the Little Daughter of the Divine Will, Luisa Piccarreata) was lamenting with Jesus who had not come yet. Finally He came and told me: “My daughter, my Will hides my very Humanity within Itself. This is why, sometimes, I hide my Humanity from you as I speak to you about my Will. You feel surrounded by Light; you can hear my voice but cannot see Me, because my Will absorbs my Humanity within Itself, since my Humanity has its limits while my Will is eternal and without limits. In fact, when my Humanity was on earth, It did not cover all places, all times or all circumstances; however, my interminable Will compensated for It and arrived where my Humanity could not reach.. So, when I find souls who live completely from my Will, they compensate for my Humanity – for the times, for the places, the circumstances and even for the sufferings, because they live in my Will and therefore I can use them just as I used my Humanity. What was my Humanity, if not the organ of my Will? Such are those who do my Will.”