December 6: Today is the feast day of St. Nicholas, the patron saint of children and–eventually–the the inspiration behind Santa Claus. De La Salle’s meditation for this day reads in part, “The obligation that you have to instruct children and bring them up in the spirit of Christianity should make you very assiduous in prayer…”
St. John Baptist de La Salle, Meditation for December 6, the Feast of Saint Nicholas, Bishop of Myra. Printed in Meditations by John Baptist de La Salle, trans. Richard Arnandez (FSC) and Augustine Loes (FSC); ed. by Augustine Loes (FSC) and Francis Huether (FSC) (Landover, MD: Christian Brothers Conference, 1994), p. 365.
