Saint Nicholas is one of my very favorite Saints. He was born around 270 in Myra (modern-day Turkey) and became a bishop at 30. He dedicated his life in service to God. In his life’s work, he advocated for children, the poor, and those who could not defend themselves. The man whom we commercially know as a jolly gift-giver was quite passionate about his work and did not hesitate to stand up for what is right and just. There are two stories of Saint Nicholas which are most commonly associated with his becoming Santa Clause. The first is the story of three young women whose father could not afford their dowery. One three separate evenings Saint Nicholas dropped bags of gold down the chimney of the women’s home so that they could afford their dowery. The second story accredited to Saint Nicholas is that of three young boys who were resurrected by Saint Nicholas. Both of these stories are not what I would automatically associate with the notion of Santa Clause. Our notion of Christmas and even Saint Nicholas has been so simplified away from the message of the Gospels and into the giving of small trinkets to the people we care for. However, the truth behind the man, Saint Nicholas, was of giving of his life as a gift. That is the spirit of Christmas which is hidden behind the glamour of toys and trinkets.
As I mentioned, Saint Nicholas is one of my favorite Saints. I do love giving gifts. My housemates and I will talk about our love languages or how we best show our care and devotion to others. I took a course at my home Parish of Saint Clarance focused on the book “Living Your Strengths”. In this course, we delved into the different love languages and spent time discovering which love language we display and how to best interact with the different love languages. All this is to say that my love language, quite firmly, is gift-giving. The idea of gift-giving is much deeper than buying toys and goodies for others, though I will admit I do love finding the perfect present for my friends and family, and in fact, I do have my perfect Christmas presents for my family back home already wrapped and under the tree. But gift-giving is more than giving objects. For me, gift-giving is about knowing the deepest desires of someone and meeting those desires in your ways.
I have always found that gifts from the heart have always been a deeper form of love. In previous weeks we have heard many parables about gifts. Largely the takeaway from these is the message to not hide your gifts but rather to share and continue to develop them. In the month since I have been out of quarantine and working at the Parish of the Church of the Annunciation, I have spent a lot of time reflecting on how I have been able to share my gifts with both my teach bhríde community and my Parish community.
In discerning this year of service I knew that our ministry at its forefront was that of music ministry. The gift of music and song is the one gift I had come into this year knowing I would be giving and developing. However, that is just a drop in the bucket of what I am realizing will be a much deeper and fuller year of development and giving. In the past few weeks, I have been given the opportunity to share my gift of art with the Parish community in the form of drawings done for our Mass handout sheets.
Drawing by: Anibee Zingalis
As well, the talents I have started to develop from my position as an IT team member at Saint Mary’s Husking Instructional Technology have been used in setting up projectors for video events. Even my skills in Computer Science have come into play as I was able to develop a simple webpage for keeping a tally of people coming into our Parish for Masses to maintain restrictions. I have also had the incredible opportunity to share my gifts with my teach bhríde community members in the form of cooking and baking. I owe a great debt of gratitude to my community members, Joseph, Clare, and Emma, for their support of my gifts and encouragement to share them. Our journey is still just beginning and I am so blessed to have the support of their love and look forward to all the moments in which I can support and encourage them as well.
In all, as we move through this season of Advent towards Christmas, it feels very important to focus on the example set by Saint Nicholas, that gift-giving is meant to be sharing of yourself and your gifts with others and helping them to share and develop their gifts as well.
