Saint Nicholas~Apostolic Succession~Eucharistic Devotion

     

The Christmas Story

Saint Nicholas~Apostolic Succession~Eucharistic Adoration

December 6th, 2014

      Who is this man taking his place in the manger scene, gazing with tender adoration upon the Baby Jesus?  His entire posture seems to express that Jesus, the Son...is also God, in the Mystery Holy Trinity.  Belief in the Holy Trinity explains why any soul would kneel before the humble Infant Savior, born in a lowly Bethlehem manger. 

      Saint Nicholas suffered through persecution, imprisonment and heresy as he made his way to this peaceable pose of faith.  Although fiercely free and faithful in his belief in the Holy Trinity, he suffered bodily imprisonment as Bishop of Myra under the Diabolical Diocletian (A.D.284-305).  Once liberated under ‘Constantine the Great’, he, along with the Bishops of his day, would be compelled to meet to refute a false teaching from Arius who taught that Jesus, the Son, was not God, the Father.  

     Every Sunday, we are reminded of the consensus of truth preserved by the Holy Spirit through the Bishops at the Council of Nicea (325 A.D.).  During every Sunday liturgy, we stand to profess the twelve articles of our faith contained in the Nicene Creed~seven articles concerning God the Son.   

     God the Son promised to remain with us always until the end of the age~to adore, receive and serve in His Eucharistic presence, made possible by the Apostolic Succession, through the ministerial priesthood.  

      As Bishop Saint Nicholas is whimsically portrayed as holding God in his hands over three hundred years after the birth of this Infant Savior, we are reminded of the many times he held God the Son in his hands with each Mass he offered for the flock he shepherded until his death on December 6th, A.D.343  

      We are closest to Saint Nicholas on Christmas Eve where Jesus remains ~ where he has earned the honor to to be jolly...and to sing through all eternity,
                                        “Ho, Ho, Holy is His Name”

"Our profession of faith begins with God, for God is the First and the Last, the beginning and the end of everything. The Credo begins with God the Father, for the Father is the first divine person of the Most Holy Trinity; our Creed begins with the creation of heaven and earth, for creation is the beginning and the foundation of all God's works."
---the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 198

Catholic belief is succinctly expressed in the profession of faith or credo called the Nicene Creed:

The Nicene Creed

I believe in one God,
the Father almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all things visible and invisible.
I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the Only Begotten Son of God,
born of the Father before all ages.
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father;
through him all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,
and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary,
and became man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate,
he suffered death and was buried,
and rose again on the third day
in accordance with the Scriptures.
He ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory
to judge the living and the dead
and his kingdom will have no end.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.
I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.
I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins
and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

~USCCB