He went on a little farther and bowed with his face to the ground, praying, “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” [Matthew 26:39 (NLT)]
Sometime near the end of the 3rd century, the Bishop of Myra died and a conclave was held to elect his replacement. Legend has it that the bishops kept praying and voting but could not come to an agreement. In a stalemate, they prayed all night for God’s guidance. That night, one bishop heard a voice telling him that, at the hour of matins, the man who walked into the church was the one God wanted to shepherd His flock.
A young man was the first to come in the door and, when asked his name, it is said he replied, “Nicholas, the sinner.” The man was brought into the sanctuary, placed on the bishop’s seat, and consecrated as the new Bishop of Myra. In spite of the odd manner of Nicholas’ selection, from what we know of the man—his good deeds, wisdom, generosity, and deep faith are legendary—God knew what He was doing.
When those bishops first got together to select the new bishop, I suspect each man had his favorite candidate and his prayers probably were that the other bishops would see the light and vote for his man. Busy telling God the outcome they desired rather than asking Him to reveal who He wanted, it’s no surprise the bishops came to an impasse. Once they agreed to ask God for His divine wisdom, their prayers were answered.
There’s no point asking God for His guidance, however, if we’re unwilling to accept His answer. Granted, selecting the first man into church seems rather strange but God knew who that would be. While there are variations in the story’s details, most agree that Nicholas was no more than thirty. While he was devout and well-versed in Scripture and even may have been a monk, the man was a complete stranger and not even a priest. Could some of the bishops have had second thoughts at that point? Here was an unknown entity: someone who’d never been deacon or priest, inexperienced in the church and its politics, who would now be on an equal footing with the other bishops and in charge of the deacons and priests of Myra. And what of young Nicholas? Many stories mention his hesitation at taking on such an undeserved honor. Nevertheless, both the young man and the bishops were obedient to God’s plan; Nicholas became the Bishop of Myra and history tells us he was the right man for the job.
Do we really think God needs our advice in running the world and our lives? When we pray, do we tell Him what we want Him to do and the outcome we desire or are our prayers open-ended, leaving the end result up to God’s will? God is not a cosmic vending machine and even He can’t please all the people all of the time. If I get every green light, then someone else is getting all the reds! We all can’t get what we want but we all can get what God wants for us! In Gethsemane, Jesus asked for release but He finished His prayer with acquiescence to God’s will. We must do the same in our prayers. When we say, “Thy will be done,” however, we can’t have the unspoken proviso of, “as long as I like Your answer.”
For me, the story of his ordination is the best part of the St. Nicholas legend and yet the saint plays a minor role in it. It’s both a story of faith—faith in a loving and wise God, a God who answers the right prayers—as well as a story of submission—submission to God’s will and the immediate acceptance of His answer, strange as that answer seemed.
Tomorrow, December 6, is the Feast of St. Nicholas (or Sinterklass). Although it is difficult to know fact from fiction, we do know that St. Nicholas was born around 270 AD in Patara, a city in Lycia (modern day Turkey). The son of wealthy and devout parents, it was his uncle, the Bishop of Patara, who took charge of his spiritual life. Nicholas became the Bishop of Myra in Turkey, quite likely attended the council of Nicaea, spent seven years imprisoned under Diocletian Persecution, and died on December 6, around 343 AD. While we don’t know much about the man, he must have had a great impact on the early Christian church because, by 450 AD, churches in Asia Minor and Greece were named in his honor and, by the mid-6th century, the Emperor Justinian dedicated a church to him in Constantinople.
When I was a girl (back in the days of pen, paper, and postage stamps), my mother insisted that I write a “thank you” note for any gifts I received. Whether my birthday or Christmas, I was not allowed to enjoy any gifts until the necessary notes had been written. Moreover, each note had to be personal. I couldn’t just write a quick generic, “Thank you for the nice present.” I had to say something specific about the gift and, if it was money, I had to say how I planned on using it. Even if the present was something I really didn’t like or want (and we’ve all had those kinds of gifts), I had to express gratitude. My mother reminded me that, while I might not value the gift, someone else’s time, thought, love, and money had gone into getting it for me. Therefore, I should take the time to properly acknowledge and show my appreciation for the giver’s generosity. Her “thank you” note rule also applied whenever someone did something special for me. If a family took me to an event or I’d spent the night at a friend’s house, a note of thanks had to be written.
For those of us who attend liturgical churches, yesterday was the last Sunday of the liturgical (or church) year: Christ the King Sunday. A kind of liturgical “New Year’s Eve,” it is the climax and conclusion of the Church’s year.
Our old friend Joe recently visited. Along with our friend Ric, he and my husband were partners in a manufacturing business in another state many years ago. Once a year, the three men would meet away from the business (with its phone calls and constant interruptions) to discuss their short-term and long-term business goals. While Ric and my husband were the legal, financial, and sales parts of the business, as a processing engineer, Joe oversaw manufacturing.
A certain amount of discontent seems to be built into us, which isn’t all bad since discontent can be the incentive to make improvements. Dissatisfaction with the harpsichord’s inability to vary the intensity of its sound led Bartolomeo Cristofori to invent the piano around 1708. Benjamin Franklin’s annoyance at having to switch between two pairs of glasses led to his invention of bifocals and it probably was his discontent with a cold house that led to his invention of the metal-lined Franklin stove. The invention of the “ballbarrow,” with its rust-proof plastic bin and ball-shaped wheel that won’t sink into soft soil, is the result of James Dyson’s discontent with the traditional wheelbarrow. As Thomas Edison said, “Discontent is the first necessity of progress.”
Devotions of the Heart 