Dear Friends

Monday is the feast of St Nicholas, our patron Saint. We do know a few things about Nicholas. A third-century Greek orphaned early, he was left rich in the hands of a bishop uncle. He became the bishop of Myra in present-day Turkey, Nicholas used his wealth to help the poor, providing dowries to women and putting coins in children’s shoes. He freed innocent prisoners, and rescued endangered sailors. There is a very good chance he attended the Great Council of Nicaea which formulated and published the Nicene Creed which we still say in church today.

Apparently unlike other saints whose bones are generally scattered all over the world the bones of Nicholas were kept intact. As a result in 2005 it was determined that he was under five feet tall and had a broken nose – I wonder who broke a Saints nose? I wonder what the other person’s face looked like!

Nicholas is a good saint for Advent. Perhaps we could consider how we give our love away, or how we face up to injustice and use our voice to speak for the voiceless. Let us pray for larger and wider hearts this season.

Simon