Saint of the Day, December 6

Saint Nicholas of Myra (c. 270–343) was born to wealthy Christian parents in the Greek city of Patara in Lycia, on the southern coast of Asia Minor. Orphaned as a young man, he used his inheritance to relieve the poor, most famously by tossing three bags of gold through the window of a destitute father who could not provide dowries for his three daughters — a gift that spared them from slavery and became the seed of the Christmas tradition of secret giving.