Patrick Comerford
The Season of Advent – and the real countdown to Christmas – began last Sunday with the First Sunday of Advent (30 November 2025), and tomorrow is the Second Sunday of Advent. With less than three weeks to go to Christmas, the Church Calendar today celebrates Saint Nicholas of Myra (6 December), the ‘real Santa Claus’.
Later today, I hope to attend Το Στέκι Μας (Our Place), the pop-up Greek café at the Greek Orthodox Church on London Road, between 10:30 and 3 pm, with traditional Greek desserts and seasonal small gifts, as well as the usual: Greek coffees and delicacies. But, before the day begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Mark 10: 13-16 (NRSVA):
13 People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. 14 But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. 15 Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.’ 16 And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.
Today’s reflection:
The Gospel reading in the Lectionary for the daily Eucharist today (Matthew 9: 35 to 10: 1, 6-8) tells of Jesus going through cities and villages, teaching, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing disease and sickness. When he sees the crowds, he sees they are harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd, and tells the disciples: ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.’
Jesus gives the 12 authority to cast out unclean spirits and to cure every disease and every sickness. He tells them to go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, to proclaim the good news that the kingdom of heaven has come near, to cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, and to cast out demons.
But the Gospel reading provided for celebrating Saint Nicholas of Myra (Mark 10: 13-16) is the story of little children being brought to Jesus for blessings, and his reminder that it is ‘to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs’ (verse 14).
Today is the Feast of Saint Nicholas of Myra (6 December 2025). He is, of course, the real Santa Claus, and he is so popular in Greece that almost every town and city in Greece has a church dedicated to Saint Nicholas.
Saint Nicholas is also the patron of sailors, and in the mediaeval period almost every coastal town and city in both England and Ireland also had a church dedicated to Saint Nicholas.
The celebration of Saint Nicholas today is a joyful, child-friendly interruption in the Advent preparations as we wait for Christmas and anticipate all its joys.
Saint Nicholas, whose name means ‘Victory of the People,’ was born in Myra in Lycia, now known as Demre, near Antalya on the south coast of Anatolia in present-day Turkey.
He had a reputation as a secret giver of gifts and the protector of children, so you can see why he has links with our Santa Claus today.
There are stories too of Saint Nicholas and the defence of true doctrine. In the year 325, the Emperor Constantine convened the Council of Nicaea, attended by more than 300 bishops, to debate the nature of the Holy Trinity.
It was one of the most intense theological debates in the early Church. Arius from Alexandria was teaching that Christ was the Son of God but was not equal to God the Father, not God incarnate. As Arius argued at length, Nicholas became agitated, crossed the room, and slapped Arius across the face.
The shocked bishops stripped Nicholas of his episcopal robes, chained him and jailed him. In the morning, the bishops found his chains on the floor and Nicholas dressed in his episcopal robes, quietly reading his Bible. Constantine ordered his release, and Nicholas was reinstated as the Bishop of Myra. Which probably also makes it appropriate that the Church of Saint Nicholas on the corner of Priskosoridi street and Emmanouil Kefalogianni avenue, near the bus station in Rethymnon, is not only close to both an old fishing harbour but also close to the Church of Saint Constantine and Saint Helen.
Saint Nicholas defended doctrines that are central to the Incarnation and that make Christmas worth celebrating … the word homoousios (ὁμοούσιος) means ‘same substance,’ while the word homoiousios (ὁμοιούσιος) means ‘similar substance’. As the debate went on, the Council of Nicaea agreed with Nicholas and his views and decided against Arius. The Council of Nicaea affirmed the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are of the same substance, rather than of a similar substance, and agreed on the Nicene Creed, which remains the symbol of our faith.
This year marks the 1700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in the year 325 CE and it has been another opportunity for the churches to bear witness to the growing communion that already exists among all who are baptised in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Pope Leo XIV signed a Joint Declaration in the Patriarchal Church of Saint George last weekend affirming their commitment to the path towards restoring full communion and rejecting the use of religion to justify violence.
In the text, they recalled the 1700th anniversary of the First Council of Nicaea, calling it ‘a providential event of unity’, and noted that Christians are united by the faith professed in the Nicene Creed: ‘This is the saving faith in the person of the Son of God, true God from true God, homoousios with the Father, who for us and our salvation was incarnate and dwelt among us, was crucified, died and was buried, arose on the third day, ascended into heaven, and will come again to judge the living and the dead.’
‘Endowed with this common confession, we can face our shared challenges in bearing witness to the faith expressed at Nicaea with mutual respect, and work together towards concrete solutions with genuine hope,’ they said in their Joint Declaration.
Today’s Prayers (Saturday 6 December 2025):
The theme this week (30 to 6 December 2025) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), has been ‘The Kingdom is for All’ (pp 6-7). This theme was introduced last Sunday with a programme update from the Revd Magela, Vicar of Cristo Redentor Parish in Tocantins, Brazil and coordinator of Casa A+, a place of hope and healing for people living with HIV.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 6 December 2025) invites us to pray:
Let us pray for courage and compassion in public policies, so that governments, institutions and international organisations prioritise life over profits, and care over power.
The Collect:
Almighty Father, lover of souls,
who chose your servant Nicholas
to be a bishop in the Church,
that he might give freely out of the treasures of your grace:
make us mindful of the needs of others
and, as we have received, so teach us also to give;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
God, shepherd of your people,
whose servant Nicholas revealed the loving service of Christ
in his ministry as a pastor of your people:
by this eucharist in which we share
awaken within us the love of Christ
and keep us faithful to our Christian calling;
through him who laid down his life for us,
but is alive and reigns with you, now and for ever.
The Collect on the Eve of Advent II:
O Lord, raise up, we pray, your power
and come among us,
and with great might succour us;
that whereas, through our sins and wickedness
we are grievously hindered
in running the race that is set before us,
your bountiful grace and mercy
may speedily help and deliver us;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
to whom with you and the Holy Spirit,
be honour and glory, now and for ever.
Yesterday’s Reflections
Continued Tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
