The Living History That Surrounds Us

Faced with the ever increasing rate of change in our lives, we spend an inordinate amount of time keeping up with things. Lifetime jobs are rare, today's iPad is tomorrow's obsolescence and living in the same city all your life is a rarity. We try to keep up every day with an eye focused on the future. In this kind of environment it is no wonder that we have lost our appreciation of the past.
So much of who and what we are stems from the past. Yet, there seems to be a decided lack of appreciation for history. Newness is a necessity. Old ideas don't fit our views anymore and must be revised and a new face put on them.
A recent media-induced controversy regarding the race and ethnicity of Santa Claus is a good example of our efforts to ignore the past. With little effort the source of the Santa Claus myth (sorry kids) can be traced back to the 4th century Saint Nicholas of Myra, a man whose race and ethnicity are fairly well established. The story of St. Nicholas and its development over the centuries is quite wonderful and for our children can provide many valuable lessons in care for the poor and generosity. It can instill in their hearts a deeper appreciation of Christmas and a sense of the rich past in which it has evolved.
In one of his talks Gil Bailie once said that he was a Christian because he knew someone, who new someone, who knew someone ... who knew St. Peter, who knew Jesus Christ. The Christian faith is because of the testimony of those who came before us.
In his letter, Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis in his comments on evangelizing touches on this point.

13. Nor should we see the newness of this mission as entailing a kind of displacement or forgetfulness of the living history which surrounds us and carries us forward. Memory is a dimension of our faith which we might call “deuteronomic”, not unlike the memory of Israel itself. Jesus leaves us the Eucharist as the Church’s daily remembrance of, and deeper sharing in, the event of his Passover (cf. Lk 22:19). The joy of evangelizing always arises from grateful remembrance: it is a grace which we constantly need to implore. The apostles never forgot the moment when Jesus touched their hearts: “It was about four o’clock in the afternoon” (Jn 1:39). Together with Jesus, this remembrance makes present to us “a great cloud of witnesses” (Heb 12:1), some of whom, as believers, we recall with great joy: “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God” (Heb 13:7). Some of them were ordinary people who were close to us and introduced us to the life of faith: “I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice” (2 Tim 1:5). The believer is essentially “one who remembers”.