On St. Nicholas, truth, magnanimity, holiness, and love

Note: This homily was preached on December 6, 2024, the memorial of St. Nicholas, at the Church of the Holy Innocents, New York City.

I would like to dedicate my homily this evening to the loving memory of our dearly departed Father Nicholas Gregoris. May this feast be the occasion for him to have a sacra conversatio with his holy patron, whom he so loved.

Our saint of the day lived in the fourth century and served as the Bishop of Myra, where he gained a reputation for charity. Particularly poignant is the story of how he delivered three young girls from prostitution by hurling bags of gold into the window of their father’s house on three consecutive nights so that their father would have the necessary dowries for their weddings. He is the patron of children, bankers, pawnbrokers, sailors, perfumers, brides, unmarried women, travelers, fishermen, dock workers, brewers, poets, and prisoners—all coming from lore connected to his generous ministry. He is honored in such diverse lands as Russia, Greece, Sicily, England, and Italy’s Apulia region, especially in the City of Bari, where his relics are enshrined and guarded by Orthodox and Catholic monks alike. A legend relates that at the Council of Nicea (whose 17^th centennial we shall commemorate this coming year), our saint became so agitated by the stubborn heretic Arius that he waltzed across the chamber and slapped him in the face—hardly in keeping with his moniker as “Jolly Old St. Nick”! Of course, Nicholas is most known for his devolution into “Santa Claus,” based on his name in Dutch—Sinter Claus.

This evening I would like to focus on St. Nicholas as a model of Christian charity or generosity. The wonderful Dominican Sisters of Ann Arbor offer a splendid program in virtue education for our Catholic schools around the country, whereby the whole school community—administration, faculty, students and parents—zero in on one specific virtue a month to develop. In one of the promotional videos, a little kindergartner is asked what virtue he is studiously practicing that month. Very charmingly, he says: “Our virtue this month is ‘Mag-na-nim-i-ty’”!

St. Thomas Aquinas devotes a number of questions in his Summa to the virtue of magnanimity, wherein he reminds us that “good is diffusive of itself,” by which he means that there’s a lot to go around; therefore, no need ever to be stingy or miserly. Needless to say, the exercise of generosity lies at the very core of the Christian experience, with Our Lord actually telling us in Matthew 25 that the final exam on Judgment Day will be a test on how well we did or didn’t practice the virtue of charity. For a moment, though, I would like to go outside the biblical sphere to share with you what a rather diverse group of individuals have had to say about generosity down the centuries. And then I want to offer some applications.

“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” — Simone Weil

“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” — Winston Churchill

“You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving.” — Robert Louis Stevenson

“When you give yourself, you receive more than you give.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“Never measure your generosity by what you give, but rather by what you have left.” — Venerable Fulton J. Sheen

“Teach us to give and not to count the cost.” — St. Ignatius Loyola

“The poor don’t know that their function in life is to exercise our generosity.” — Jean-Paul Sartre

“Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours.” — C. S. Lewis

“Among the rich you will never find a really generous man even by accident. They may give their money away, but they will never give themselves away; . . . To be smart enough to get all that money you must be dull enough to want it.” — G. K. Chesterton

“Very various are the Saints, their very variety is a token of God’s workmanship; but however various, and whatever was their special line of duty, they have been heroes in it; . . . they have been blessed with such strange successes, that they have set up a standard before us of truth, of magnanimity, of holiness, of love.” — St. John Henry Newman

“After Mass one day a woman came to me complaining about a priest’s homily. His preaching ability left something to be desired. . . So this woman was complaining and I asked her, ‘How much did you put in the collection?’” She said, “A quarter.” I said, ‘What do you want for a quarter, Bishop Sheen?’” — Mother Angelica

“It is in giving that we receive.” — St. Francis of Assisi

“Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time and always start with the person nearest you.” — St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Last but not least of all, we should recall the words spoken by St. John Paul II in this very city on October 2, 1979, as he reflected on the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus during his Mass at Yankee Stadium (at which I had the privilege and pleasure of serving as a Communion priest) :

Was the rich man condemned because he had riches, because he abounded in earthly possessions, because he “dressed in purple and linen and feasted splendidly every day?” No, I would say that it was not for this reason. The rich man was condemned because he did not pay attention to the other man. Because he failed to take notice of Lazarus, the person who sat at his door and who longed to eat the scraps from his table. Nowhere does Christ condemn the mere possession of earthly goods as such. Instead, he pronounces very harsh words against those who use their possessions in a selfish way, without paying attention to the needs of others.

Now, for the moment when the rubber meets the road—some applications, some of which I hope unnerve many of you.

The first point to consider is the embarrassing giving pattern of Catholics—the most close-fisted of any religious group in the nation—although they are now the most affluent, surpassing even Jews (who held that position for nearly a century). Look around any diocese and you will see churches and schools built by near-penniless immigrants, but institutions now unable to be sustained by their wealthy descendants. That realization causes me to remark that our problem today is not finances, but faith. My Ukrainian grandmother, who raised three children alone during the Great Depression, gave a dollar a week to her parish (out of her five-dollar-a-week paycheck). I once asked her how she could have been so generous (20%!) under such dire circumstances. She replied: “The priest said we have to build a school. We have to build a new church. If not us to give, who?” The widow’s mite: Faith!

When I was a boy, we were given children’s collection envelopes by our pastor, who taught us: “When you give to the Church, you are giving to Christ, and you must give sacrificially. How do you know you are giving sacrificially? You give until it hurts, and then you give some more.” The same priest frequently commented: “Catholics are for the birds. Cheap, cheap, cheap!”

The second indication of a lack of generosity stems from disordered priorities. How can we explain that in suburbia the parish school hosts 200 children, while the CCD program has 600? Or worse, Catholic schools in wealthy parishes shuttering their doors? Clearly, the winter vacation in the Caribbean or the Lexus are more important than safeguarding the souls of their children. And grandparents, who received a nearly free Catholic education themselves, are not disposed to chip in for their grandchildren’s tuition or, even more magnanimously, to provide scholarships for other needy youngsters.

Speaking of grandparents, those of us who live close to senior citizen villages are daily assaulted by the bumper sticker that proudly proclaims: “I am spending my grandchildren’s inheritance.” Such folk are apparently forgetful of the adage that reminds us: “Shrouds have no pockets.”

There is a generosity that involves more than money, and that is of one’s time and presence. A person’s compassion, especially offered in a Christian context, may be required quite often today—and perhaps more often than in the past—so that a silent presence, accompanied by a knowing glance, at times, may mean more than a thousand words or a thousand dollars. Christian outreach in an era of isolationism, created by the social media that was supposed to make us all one happy family, can be an important first step in breaking through those barriers.

Catholics frequently complain about the clergy shortage or the prevalence today of foreign-born priests. Recently, a Nigerian priest preaching, halted in midstream, and said, “I know many of you say you find my accent hard to understand, but until you produce some of your own sons for the priesthood, this is the best you’re going to get.” African bluntness to confront the parental selfishness that wants someone else’s son to become a priest because, as one woman told my mother, “I want my boys to have a real life.” Which caused my mother to blurt out, “I have one boy, and you’re happy he’s a priest; you have three sons, and you want them ‘to have a real life’?” How pitiful.

There’s also a certain generosity of spirit that must emerge in the act of forgiveness. How often I hear confessions of the sin of resentment—sometimes harbored for decades. This causes me to counsel, “The person you resent either doesn’t know or doesn’t care that you resent him. Get rid of that baggage; the only one suffering from it is you!” We have to enter into our prayer the echo of our Crucified Lord: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And then move on.

Finally, some helpful hints to foster magnanimity in the lead-up to Christmas.

Make the necessary Christmas preparations holy. We Catholics are not dour Puritans or Scrooges, who shun a genuine Christmas spirit; nor should we do “Christmas things” grudgingly. Shopping for gifts for family and friends should be done happily, recalling St. Paul’s sage reminder: “God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor 9:7).. Let’s remember that we give gifts at Christmas in imitation of our Heavenly Father, who began the whole process by giving us the inestimable gift of His Only Son,

While generosity is called for, extravagance is not. Give religious gifts like spiritual books, subscriptions to reliable Catholic periodicals, Christian art for home decoration, as well as spiritual bouquets. When family members ask you what you want, don’t be afraid to ask for something that really matters to you, like suggesting that your fallen-away son or daughter make a long-overdue confession before Christmas and get back on track with their life in Christ’s Church. When writing Christmas cards (or email versions of them), make a point of praying for the people to whom you are writing.

And remember the poor, not with perfunctory or token gifts, but gifts imbued with a true sacrificial dimension. So much of popular Christmas lore brings to mind the poverty of the Christ-Child, born in a stable. A beautiful French carol, “Jésus-Christ s’habille en pauvres” (“Jesus Christ comes in the guise of the poor”), recounts how a poor family shares their humble Christmas dinner with someone who is even poorer than they, finally to discover that their Guest was none other than the Lord Himself (the haunting melody of that carol comes into English hymnody as the lovely Communion hymn, “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence”).

In sum, make this Advent the time to join that little kindergartner by developing the virtue of magnanimity. That’s an effort that would surely gladden the heart of the Christ-Child. In that endeavor, bring to your side the example and intercession of St. Nicholas:

O good St. Nicholas, you who are the joy of the children, put into my heart the spirit of childhood, of which the Gospel speaks, and teach me to sow happiness around me.

You, whose feast prepares us for Christmas, open my faith to the mystery of God made man.

You, good bishop and shepherd, help me to find my place in the Church and inspire the Church to be faithful to the Gospel.

O good Saint Nicholas, patron of children, sailors, and the helpless, watch over those who pray to Jesus, your Lord and theirs, as well as over those who humble themselves before you. Bring us all in reverence to the Holy Child of Bethlehem, where true joy and peace are found. Amen.

Catholic World Report