I
last turned to longtime Catholic columnist Father John Dietzen a few days before the recent US
election; his column's handling of the matter of "single-issue"
voting, something contested among Catholics almost as vehemently as the merits
of the major candidates had been for the entire nation, put him in the same corner of the (nonexistent)
ring as me, a loyal (yet very anti-conservative) son of the Church,
pondering-yet-intractable on the matter.
Early
this month, he submitted a column looking at the figure of Santa Claus, himself
bringing in a particularly delightful and refreshing voice of authority, G. K.
Chesterton. Chesterton I've been getting
to know just over the last couple years, owing to a series carried
on EWTN,
"The Apostle of Common Sense". (Late last
year, regular MT2mb contributor Spartacus quite startled me by quoting
Chesterton in one of his email signoff lines. Small world!)
I
reproduce here Father Dietzen’s column in full, as posted on December 7, 2008, at the website of the Catholic
Times, "official
newspaper of the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois". (Disclaimer: © 2001 - 2008 Catholic Times)
Now,
Father Dietzen:
Q.
My question isn't very deep, but with Christmas coming I am concerned about the
attitude of some friends who don't want their children to "believe in
Santa Claus."
From
almost infancy, they tell their children there isn't really a Santa and that it
was all made up to sell more things at Christmastime. I think they're missing
something, but I'm not sure how to tell them. What do you think? (Florida)
A. I too think they are missing
something - very big. It's always risky to analyze fantasies, but maybe it's
worth trying for a moment.
Fantasies,
perhaps especially for children, are critical ways of entering a world, a real
world that is closed to us in ordinary human language and happenings. They are
doors to wonder and awe, a way of touching something otherwise incomprehensible.
Santa Claus, I believe, is like that.
No
one has ever expressed this truth more movingly and accurately, in my opinion,
than the great British Catholic author G.K. Chesterton in an essay years ago in
the London Tablet. On Christmas morning, he remembered, his stockings
were filled with things he had not worked for, or made, or even been good
for.
The
only explanation people had was that a being called Santa Claus was somehow
kindly disposed toward him. "We believed," he wrote, that a certain
benevolent person "did give us those toys for nothing. And ... I believe
it still. I have merely extended the idea.
"Then
I only wondered who put the toys in the stocking; now I wonder who put the
stocking by the bed, and the bed in the room, and the room in the house, and
the house on the planet, and the great planet in the void.
"Once
I only thanked Santa Claus for a few dolls and crackers; now I thank him for
stars and street faces and wine and the great sea. Once I thought it delightful
and astonishing to find a present so big that it only went halfway into the
stocking.
"Now
I am delighted and astonished every morning to find a present so big that it
takes two stockings to hold it, and then leaves a great deal outside; it is the
large and preposterous present of myself, as to the origin of which I can offer
no suggestion except that Santa Claus gave it to me in a fit of peculiarly
fantastic good will."
Are
not parents of faith blessed, countless times over, to have for their children
(and for themselves) such a fantastic and playful bridge to infinite,
unconditionally loving Goodness, the Goodness which dreamed up the Christmas
event in the first place?
Call
Santa Claus a myth or what you will, but in his name, parents (and for that
matter, all of us who give gifts at this special time of the year) are putting
each other in deeper touch with the "peculiarly fantastic good will"
who is the ultimate Source of it all. Plus, it's fun!
I
hope your friends reconsider.
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