December 6: St Nicholas
From C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
C. S. Lewis requires no introduction. I have recently been reading the Narnia books to my children, and this passage struck me as quite apposite for today. Lewis rescues St Nicholas from the ad-man’s jolly rotundity and gives him the saintly dignity he deserves. The saint inspires a gladness matched with solemnity in the children, which stills them. So might we be awed at the saints, who are each icons of some aspect of Christ, in their own particular way reflecting His universal glory. And is that not also the twofold spirit of Advent? Gladness shared with Our Lady and the angels at Christ’s birth, balanced with the solemnity of standing before our Judge and our Redeemer. Let us then receive Him with the stillness of a sweetly dreaming child, resting in the confidence that the enemy’s magic, however strong it may seem, weakens day by day. —T.P.
It was a sledge, and it was reindeer with bells on their harness. But they were far bigger than the Witch's reindeer, and they were not white but brown. And on the sledge sat a person whom everyone knew the moment they set eyes on him. He was a huge man in a bright red robe (bright as holly-berries) with a hood that had fur inside it and a great white beard that fell like a foamy waterfall over his chest. Everyone knew him because, though you see people of his sort only in Narnia, you see pictures of them and hear them talked about even in our world—the world on this side of the wardrobe door. But when you really see them in Narnia it is rather different. Some of the pictures of Father Christmas in our world make him look only funny and jolly. But now that the children actually stood looking at him they didn't find it quite like that. He was so big, and so glad, and so real, that they all became quite still. They felt very glad, but also solemn.
"I've come at last," said he. "She has kept me out for a long time, but I have got in at last. Aslan is on the move. The Witch's magic is weakening."
And Lucy felt running through her that deep shiver of gladness which you only get if you are being solemn and still.