The Catechetical Corner

Why I believe in Santa Claus

A Jesuit retreat master once said that the stages of the spiritual life can be likened to the stages of belief in Santa Claus:

            Stage One: I believe in Santa Claus!

            Stage Two: I do not believe in Santa Claus!

            Stage Three: I AM Santa Claus!

 Perhaps some will think he was over influenced by his studies in Zen Buddhism.  But it’s certainly a memorable phrasing.  And I think he’s got a point.

At any rate, has a child ever asked you whether there really is a Santa Claus? 

Well, God is truth, and all lies are by nature foreign to God.  So lying isn’t a good option for us.  Yet our hearts hesitate.  We sense that there is a goodness in the innocence of the child’s belief – something that we want to preserve, if we can.  So, what’s a person to do?

What follows is a piece that allow me to look a child in the eyes and say, with a twinkle in my eye: “Well, I don’t know about other people, but *I* believe in Santa Claus.” 

The genius of the piece, to my mind, is that it resolves our dilemma: it allows us to speak truthfully AND preserve the innocence of the child.

And it just might re-enchant the world for us, too.

Most people have heard of  this piece.  But, in my experience, few have actually read it, or really remember what it says.  So go ahead – read it.  And let yourself believe again.

Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus

We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun:

   Dear Editor--I am eight years old.
   Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
   Papa says, 'If you see it in The Sun, it's so.'
   Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?

   Virginia O'Hanlon
   115 W. 95th Street

Virginia, your little friends are wrong.  They have been affected by the scepticism of a sceptical age.  They do not believe except they see.  They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds.  All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's are little.  In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.  He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy.  Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus!  It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias.  There would be no child-like faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence.  We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight.  The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus!  You might as well not believe in fairies!  You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove?  Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus.  The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see.  Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn?  Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there.  Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart.  Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond.  Is it all real?  Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus!  Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever.  A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Eight-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon wrote a letter to the editor of New York's Sun, and the quick response was printed as an unsigned editorial Sept. 21, 1897. The work of veteran newsman Francis Pharcellus Church has since become history's most reprinted newspaper editorial.

When we pray to Mary she leads us closer to Christ her son

so that we can join his prayer to the Father

http://www.radiantlight.org.uk

Mary: the Model of True Femininity

by Michael Benz

Seminarian, Kenrick-Glennon Seminary

Blessed John Paul II called for a “new feminism” in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae.

Many people react negatively to the term “new feminism” because of its associations with radical feminism. Others may dislike the idea of calling attention to the differences between men and women, preferring instead to emphasize our equal dignity as human beings.

As we celebrate the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, however, we can reflect on Blessed John Paul’s plans for this “new feminism” -- based on the errors of radical feminism as well as the great dignity and vocation of women -- and look to Mary as the perfect model of true femininity.

From its beginnings, feminism was about attaining rights for women. At its best, it has sought to affirm, develop and advance all that is feminine. Over time, however, certain strands of the feminist cause (radical feminism) became built upon some faulty principles. For one thing, these strands adopted an incorrect view of human freedom as the freedom to do whatever one wants to do as long as it doesn’t harm someone else or interfere with their freedom. A correct view of human freedom, however, must take into account the truth about who we are as creatures made in the image and likeness of the Good Creator. We are free, with God’s grace, to conform ourselves more fully to that image by the choices we make.

Related to the false notion of freedom is the concept of power in radical feminism. Rather than serving the common good and the rights of individuals, power becomes the ability to dominate the adversary and impose one’s will upon everyone else. This view of power tends to make women downplay typically feminine traits that may seem passive but are actually highly creative, such as attentiveness to and receptivity of others. Men should also possess these human traits, but women have a particular genius for them. They live them more fully and even teach men to live them more fully in their own way.

Finally, radical feminists tend to place individual experience above tradition. Thus, if they read scripture at all, they tend to interpret it from the view point of their own experience rather than interpreting their experience through scripture accepted as the revealed Word of God. This leads many radical feminists to deny the masculine characteristics of God and even posit their God as a feminine God. God revealed himself to humanity as Father because he is completely other from our experience. (See Catechism of the Catholic Church, # 239.)  Similarly, the man, as father, is always “other” to the child, while the mother is intimately bonded to the child, receiving its home and nourishment within the mother for the first nine months of its existence.

Thus, while we all have an equal dignity based on being created in the image of God, we are not the same. These differences should be celebrated and lived rather than ignored or even eradicated. If we try to make man and woman the same, we become one-sided as a species. The balance of the male and the female is so important for fruitful social life.

These differences must be lived through love, however. We are most fully in God’s image as a communion of persons, and man and woman joined together in love for the purpose of cooperating with God in the creation of new life is a shining example of this communion. John Paul II believed that women have a special gift for realizing and nurturing this communion. After all, they are the ones that nurture the life of a new human person from its very conception.

Mary is the perfect example of the feminine genius that a new feminism would study and emulate.

Mary can teach us how to live in true freedom. Everything Mary did was directed toward God’s will. She used her specifically feminine gifts of receptivity and obedience to freely direct herself to her ultimate good (cf. Lk 8:19-21). She thus was able to fulfill her vocation in a special way (cf. Rev 12:5-6).

Mary also provides the perfect example of the proper use of power. She was given authority over the Son of God as his mother, but she did not use this authority to get her way. Instead she let everything be done to her according to God’s word (cf. Lk 1:38), and her entire life was spent in serving her Son and his mission to save the world (cf. Jn 2:1-11).

Mary is also the perfect example of a mother who nurtures interpersonal communion. When Christ gave her to John as his mother, she became for each one of us, as adopted children of God, a mother, with our own unique relationship with her, and with our other brothers and sisters in Christ (cf. Jn 19:25-27). Most importantly, she teaches us that we can totally surrender ourselves to Jesus Christ (cf. Jn 2:5).

Let us pray that Mary will guide us in this "new feminism" to live in peace and unity with one another, each giving of him or herself according to the gifts he or she has received from God.  Holy Mary, Mother of God, Pray for Us!

St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)

We know that there are three comings of the Lord. The third lies between the other two. It is invisible, while the other two are visible. In the first coming he was seen on earth, dwelling among men; he himself testifies that they saw him and hated him. In the final coming all flesh will see the salvation of our God, and they will look on him whom they pierced. The intermediate coming is a hidden one; in it only the elect see the Lord within their own selves, and they are saved. In his first coming our Lord came in our flesh and in our weakness; in this middle coming he comes in spirit and in power; in the final coming he will be seen in glory and majesty.

Because this coming lies between the other two, it is like a road on which we travel from the first coming to the last. In the first, Christ was our redemption; in the last, he will appear as our life; in this middle coming, he is our rest and consolation.

Saint Charles Borromeo (1538-1584)

The Church asks us to understand that Christ, who came once in the flesh, is prepared to come again. When we remove all obstacles to his presence he will come, at any hour and moment, to dwell spiritually in our hearts, bringing with him the riches of his grace.

...And Let Perpetual Light Shine Upon Them.

May They Rest in Peace.  Amen.

Title: The souls of purgatory are drawn into God's bliss as soon as they can bear the brightness of His glory.

For more images like this, go to www.radiantlight.org.uk

Catechism of the Catholic Church (1030-1031)

All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.

 The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned.