I have a devotion to St Nicholas. I rather like the idea that we know very little about his life, it is almost as if he is more powerful after death .
The idea of saints as being powerful intercessors is an important part of Catholic devotion. It is the response to prayers -in a sense, the cash value- of saints which earned their place in the hearts of our forefathers, no more so than Nicholas the Wonderworker.
In this new period of ecumenism we need explore again what we have almost forgotten and what the East still continues to hold as of great value.
Devotion to the saints affirms the ultimate destination of Christians, we need them to focus our rather woolly understanding of heaven and our communion with them in Christ.
Their lives and their subsequent activity reminds us of the effects of sanctifying grace and the power of God mediated through his Church, we need to be reminded that we as Christians live in a supernatural world.
These things, the great periods of iconoclasm in the first millenium, and in the middle and end of the second millenium, have sought to destroy, corrode and undermine: from these Godless things may the saints preserve us.
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