Commontide
Liturgical Color: White/Gold
The 2nd Sunday in Advent
Blessed Lord, who caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and the comfort of your holy Word we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Advent
Because you sent your beloved Son to redeem us from sin and death, and to make us heirs in him of everlasting life; that when he shall come again in power and great glory to judge the world, we may without shame or fear rejoice to behold his appearing.
Most liturgical texts are from the Book of Common Prayer (2019) of the Anglican Church in North America.
The New Coverdale Psalter, © 2019 by the Anglican Church in North America. Used by permission.
Bishop and Protector of the Vulnerable
Ecumenical Commemoration
Nicholas was the Bishop of Myra in Lycia (modern Demre, Turkey) whose extraordinary generosity made him the most popular saint in both Eastern and Western Christianity and — through centuries of cultural transformation — the ancestor of Santa Claus. Almost nothing about his life is historically certain: he was bishop of Myra, he may have attended the Council of Nicaea in 325, and he was dead by 343. Everything else comes from hagiographic legend. But the legends — the three bags of gold, the rescue of sailors, the resurrection of murdered boys — testify to a cult ancient, universal, and remarkably consistent in its portrait of a man who gave secretly, protected the vulnerable, and embodied God's generosity.
The historical Nicholas is almost entirely obscured by legend. He is not mentioned by any contemporary source, and the earliest references to his cult date from the sixth century — over two hundred years after his death. What can be said with confidence is that he was bishop of Myra in the early fourth century, that he may have suffered in the Diocletian persecution and was released under Constantine, and that he may have attended the Council of Nicaea in 325 — his name appears on some lists of attendees, though not the earliest.
His cult, however, is one of the most remarkable in Christian history. By the sixth century, Emperor Justinian built a church in his honor at Constantinople. His popularity spread rapidly through the Byzantine Empire, the Slavic world, and eventually the Latin West. More churches have been dedicated to Nicholas than to any other saint except the Virgin Mary.
The legends cluster around three themes: secret generosity, protection of the innocent, and power over nature. The most famous story tells of three daughters of a poor man who faced prostitution because their father could not provide dowries. Nicholas threw three bags of gold through the window (or down the chimney) on successive nights, providing dowries and saving the daughters. This story became the foundation of the gift-giving tradition associated with his feast.
Another tradition tells of three boys (or three scholars or three soldiers) who were murdered by an innkeeper and pickled in a brine tub. Nicholas discovered the crime and restored them to life. Though grotesque, the story expressed the conviction that Nicholas's holiness carried resurrection power.
Traditionally, at the Council of Nicaea, Nicholas became so incensed by Arius's denial of Christ's full divinity that he slapped the heretic across the face. The other bishops stripped Nicholas of his episcopal insignia for the outburst, but that night Christ and the Virgin Mary appeared to him in his cell and restored his vestments, vindicating his zeal. This story, first attested in medieval sources, has no historical basis but captures the medieval conviction that Nicholas was a passionate defender of Nicene orthodoxy. The three-bags-of-gold tradition portrays him as the protector of the vulnerable — particularly young women facing forced prostitution.