Dean Nicola’s Christmas Blog
St. Paul’s Advent wreath fully lit on Christmas Day. Credit: Kyler Brown.
A tradition of mine is to listen to Carols from Kings on Christmas Eve, while wrapping presents for my family members. Carols from Kings is a Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols that was first offered in 1918 for solace at the horrors endured through the First World War, and first broadcast in 1928. My tradition of listening followed me across the Atlantic when I immigrated to the United States in 1999, listening initially with difficulty on a short-wave radio purchased especially for the purpose but nowadays with ease thanks to IPR and the world wide web. The service begins with a bidding prayer “Dear People of God: in this Christmas Season, let it be our duty and delight to hear once more the message of the Angels, to go to Bethlehem, and see the Son of God lying in the manger.” The message is that God is come to us in human form. What struck me this year in the familiar reading from the gospel of Luke Chapter 2 is that, on hearing the shepherds’ recounting of what angels had told them, that Jesus is Savior and Messiah, “Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” Mary conserved the shepherds’ words and conversed within on their meaning – a conversation that would continue for three decades and more as she observed her son grow in grace and truth. My prayer is that we too will treasure and ponder anew the gift of Christ, this Christmas.
Book of the Blog
Dilexi Te: Apostolic Exhortation on Love for the Poor
Pope Leo XIV. Dilexi Te: Apostolic Exhortation on Love for the Poor. New York: New City Press, 2025.
I grew up believing that government could be relied upon to care for people who were ‘less fortunate’ than others. I now realize that this belief came out of the context of post-World War II Britain in which recommendations for universal healthcare, social security, and education were enacted. A comprehensive welfare system was created in Britain in the late 1940s, that addressed widespread poverty exposed by the war. In the United States of the 21st century, it is becoming more and more necessary for each of us to exercise care for our neighbors in all the ways that we can.
Pope Leo XIV's first Apostolic Exhortation, released in October 2025, was not on my bookshelf but has been lent to me by St. Paul’s Sr. Warden Duane Sand. Pope Leo XIV calls every Christian to remember that “Love for our neighbor is tangible proof of the authenticity of our love for God.” In our Cathedral context, where we are blessed with talented musicians, exquisite organ and carillon, and a place of worship that we hold sacred, my heart was quickened when I read the following weaving together of the purpose of worship, our hoped-for transformation by God’s Holy Spirit, and our actions in caring for the poor:
“…works of mercy are recommended as a sign of the authenticity of worship, which, while giving praise to God, has the task of opening us to the transformation that the Spirit can bring about in us, so that we may all become an image of Christ and his mercy towards the weakest.”
In 2026 the Connection Café will return to St. Paul’s. The opportunity for spiritual transformation will be ours as we work with the Bridge Board to offer mercy to our hungry neighbors in downtown Des Moines. May it be so!
“The Work of Christmas” Howard Thurman
When the song of the angels is stilled, When the star in the sky is gone, When the kings and princes are home, When the shepherds are back with their flock, The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among others,
To make music in the heart.
