How St. Nicholas Became Father Christmas And Father Christmas Became Santa Claus

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SPECIAL GUEST

Brother Andre Marie

Host of the ReConquest aired only on the Crusade Channel.

Follow Brother on GAB and Twitter – @Brother_Andre

HEADLINE: Saint Nicholas of Bari (350) by The Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary 

• The great Saint Nicholas, whom everybody knows and speaks of, was an Archbishop at Myra in Asia Minor.  He has come to be honored as the patron saint of children.  His relics were taken by the Italians to Italy in 1087, and are now honored there, at Bari.  Saint Nicholas raised three children from the dead.  His name has been corrupted from Saint Nicholas into “Santa Claus.”  The true Saint Nicholas is the one who honors those who love and venerate him as a saint, not as an advertisement.  Saint Nicholas is the patron saint of Russia.

HEADLINE: Why I Love St. Nicholas by Charles A Coulombe 

• But one day, the very man who had made Santa live in our home took it upon himself to end my faith in him. Dad explained to me that although he himself was responsible for the actual delivery of gifts, and the North Pole was empty of everything but Polar Bears, Santa made up in symbolic value what he and his cohorts lacked in objective reality. Moreover, he was a sort of image of a very real person, St. Nicholas. Dad then proceeded to pull out from his bookshelf the December 1960 American Heritage and opened it to an article — “A Certain Nicholas of Patara.” Thanks to my father, I shed my belief in Santa and gained instead a love of St. Nicholas. 
• On a happier note, however, St. Nicholas will always be Christ’s second in the matter of Christmas celebration. Alongside his Divine Master, he reminds us that the gifts, the lights, the ornaments, the tree, the holly and the mistletoe, and the Christmas dinner are pointers, not ends in themselves, as we moderns tend to make them. But if we use them rightly, in the true spirit of St. Nicholas, they will bring us not merely to the sentimental joys of this Christmas, and the next, and the next — but to the Eternal Happiness of that Christmas which never ends, but always is.
• St Nicholas and Father Christmas are not the same person.

HEADLINE: The Politics of Christmas by Charles Coulombe  

• The oldest Cathedral – Saint Nicholas – Calvinist cathedral dedicated.
• In this country it was illegal to have Christmas!
• The personification of these became known as “Father Christmas,” who was seen as a political ally in the struggle — and who in time became the major gift giver for children. In sharp contrast to the New England Puritans, their Dutch brethren in what became New York retained Christmas, and most especially the figure of St. Nicholas, who then and now was the gift distributer of Yule in the Netherlands and the rest of Central Europe. He, of course, in turn became our Santa Claus, who has since turned Father Christmas into a sort of clone, despite their wildly different origins.
• All of that nonsense that Christmas came from Pagan origins – all of that has been debunked.

HEADLINE: In Defense of Christmas by Brother Andre Marie

• The Ox and the Ass know their Maker but Israel knows not its God.
• If Israel is unworthy he will come in on an Ass or Donkey.
• He was a Gentile not a Jew.
• “The ox knows its owner,  and the ass its master’s crib;  but Israel does not know,  my people does not understand.”  Isaiah 1:3

ReConquest Episode 400: Don’t Call It ‘the Tridentine Mass’!