Who was St. Nicholas?
The honest beginning is the Catholic Encyclopedia's: there is "scarcely anything historically certain about him except that he was Bishop of Myra in the fourth century." Franciscan Media says the same in its own words, that we can pinpoint only that one fact. Myra was a city in Lycia, on the southern coast of what is now Turkey. Everything else is tradition, and the traditions are old, loved, and not all in agreement.
The St. Nicholas Center tells the story this way. He was born in the third century at Patara, in Lycia, was made bishop of Myra while still a young man, attended the Council of Nicaea in 325, and died in Myra on December 6, 343, and was buried in his cathedral. The Encyclopedia is more careful at each step. Patara is where "the legend" places his birth; his name is missing from the old lists of bishops at Nicaea, so "there is reason to doubt his presence"; and the year of death is given as 345 or 352. Franciscan Media follows the Center with 343. Hold the year loosely and the day, December 6, firmly: it is the day the Church keeps for him.
The stories are what carried him. The Center collects thirty-eight of them, "drawn from ancient sources, Orthodox tradition, and The Golden Legend," and says plainly that as they were retold, imaginative and sometimes miraculous details were added. The best known is the dowry. A poor man could not provide dowries for his three daughters, who faced being sold into prostitution, in Franciscan Media's telling, or into slavery, in the St. Nicholas Center's; on three separate occasions a bag of gold came through the window, and the daughters married. Franciscan Media says this story became the custom of giving gifts on his feast and, by "a twist of the tongue" in English-speaking countries, turned St. Nicholas into Santa Claus. The Center tells also of sailors who prayed to him in a storm and saw the wind and waves suddenly calm, of a boy named Basilios carried off by pirates and brought home still holding the king's golden cup, and of three murdered students restored to life. The Encyclopedia calls such miracles "outgrowths of a long tradition" and does not repeat them.
Two facts close the story. In 1087 sailors from Bari, in southern Italy, took his bones from Myra and brought them home, where a church was built over the crypt and Bari became a great pilgrimage center. And from his tomb, the Encyclopedia says, comes an oily substance known as the Manna di S. Nicola, which the Center says is "said to have healing powers." Franciscan Media adds a claim worth repeating only as a claim: that after the Virgin Mary he is the saint most often pictured by Christian artists.
Why Catholics pray to St. Nicholas for children, for sailors and for the poor
Every one of his patronages is traditional, and each has a story behind it. Children, because of the daughters saved from being sold and the students brought back to life; the Center calls him "the patron and protector of children." Sailors and travelers, because of the storm; the Encyclopedia lists him first as patron of mariners, and the Center says sailors, claiming him as patron, carried stories of his protection far and wide. The poor, brides, bakers, merchants and pawnbrokers, because of the gold through the window. Greece and Russia honor him as patron. The Center sums it up: he is "the friend and protector of all in trouble or need."
What the devotion looks like is what a parent does. In much of Europe December 6 is still the main day of gift-giving. In the Netherlands children leave carrots and hay in their shoes for the saint's horse and find candies and chocolate letters in the morning. In Germany and Poland, the Center says, boys dressed as bishops once begged alms for the poor, which is nearer to the man than any shopping season. Franciscan Media draws the lesson for a Catholic: let his legendary charity change how we handle money at Christmas, and find someone in real need to share it with.
So a parent prays to Nicholas for a child who is sick, or afraid, or far away; a family short of money asks him for what came through the window; a sailor or a long-haul driver asks him for the calm. None of this is a decree. All of it is seventeen centuries of people in need asking a bishop who, in every story told about him, gave.
How to pray to St. Nicholas
His optional memorial is December 6; Churches on the Julian calendar keep it on December 19. The nine days before it, November 27 to December 5, are the natural time for a novena, and the evening of December 5 is the night for shoes by the door. His relics are at Bari.
Say the prayer below with your children if you have them, and then give something away in secret, which is the devotion in its original form. Pair the prayer with the ordinary care of a child: the pediatrician, the teacher, the honest conversation. If a child is in danger, call for help first and the saint second. If money is the trouble, the parish and the food bank exist for exactly this, and asking them is not a failure of faith. Nicholas, in the only fact everyone agrees on, was a bishop who did his job. Doing yours is how you pray to him.