St. Nicholas and St. Thomas Aquinas: Keeping Christmas

The Christian must never think he will someday be mature enough to be able to move on from a child's Christmas. No intellectual achievement, no humanitarian activity, no synthesis of faith can ever replace the treasure of wonder as one contemplates the Son of God made Man, the Divine Person taking on mortal flesh. 

The world -- and our families -- and the smallest child -- and the greatest theologian -- would be made bereft of the fulfillment of their deepest longings if ever we Christians were to abandon our simple observance of this time of preparing for and celebrating the Incarnation of Our Lord Jesus Christ!

Nothing can replace it; nothing can fulfill the longing and excitement of the preparations of Advent and the joy of a childlike Noël, lovingly prepared by Church, priest, mother, father, and grandparents, passed down through the generations. Many a convert has been made, secretly, in the love of Christmas carols and the dear crèche with its Infant and Mother, star, angels, shepherds, ox, and ass.

Today at 1Peter5, Peter Kwasniewski makes a brilliant connection between the great saint of charity, St. Nicholas, and the great saint of wisdom, St. Thomas Aquinas. Thinking in a worldly way, one might suppose the latter had found the key to transcendence in his own mind and been able to achieve a higher level of faith. Instead, we see that contemplation found him at the feet of Santa Claus (the identity of the great bishop, as Pope Benedict tells us, forged in the depths of history). 

It seems that St. Thomas, aided by St. Nicholas, saw the Christmas path and could no longer stop to write about it anymore; famously he compared his work to straw, which sounds sad but was a great joy for him. He found, like a child, the Christ whom Isaiah foresaw: "A Word completing and shortening in righteousness, because a shortened word will God make in the whole earth." 

All of Christendom has built up a wealth of customs, music, and art, all fittingly radiating the glory of this otherwise hidden event; let us dedicate ourselves to preserving this wealth and to protecting it from those who are arrogantly, erroneously beyond or above such things, who slothfully wish a change, or who fatally succumb to the world and its weary ways. 

Let us be as little children, the Angelic Doctor, and St. Nicholas, accepting what is so greatly given. Let us piously do our humble best to make straight the paths and keep Christmas.