Douglas Hickey
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Today is the Feast of St. Lucy, a day commemorating the 4th-century Sicilian martyr of the Great Persecution.
A much beloved story about St. Lucy is that she brought provisions to early Christians hiding in the catacombs, wearing a wreath of candles on her head so both hands would be free to carry much-needed food and drink. In recent times (especially in Scandinavian countries) families reenact this act of service by having the eldest daughter, dressed in a white gown and wreath, bring coffee and pastries to the rest of her family.
At our house, Greta is gleefully assuming the mantle of St. Lucy this year. Reasonable people might assume our decision to trust an eight-year old with a tray of hot liquids and a wreath of lit candles must signal a longstanding familial commitment to the observance of St. Lucy’s Day, but the truth is this will be our very first time doing any of this. Why then?
When the saints bring you breakfast in bed, best not to ask too many questions; however, something I find striking about St. Lucy’s Day is the way it inverts the typical holiday paradigm. Here, children play the magic-makers while parents get re-cast as anxious recipients (there’s fire involved after all) of holiday cheer. More than just a novel twist, I think this exposes something profoundly true about the role children play in our spiritual lives.
As parents (or mentors of young people), it’s easy to think we give our religion—the old magic, as it were—to the children in our care.
When I was younger and my faith was in a rocky place, I kept going to church not because it was something I thought I needed, but because I wanted to give the tradition to my children—a source of cultural enrichment, of community, of moral education. Now, looking back, I realize this wasn’t just an impoverished perspective on the role religion plays in a life, but also a misconstrual of who is the giver and who is the recipient.
In this season, Christ, the one through whom all things were made, comes to us as a child. He re-presents everything: a new creation. He is both gift and giver. Our call then is not to make magic happen—the old magic forever precedes us. Our role is to anxiously await. And then, to joyfully receive.
Pax,
—Douglas
