Unlike TV shows and Christmas commercials, the presents brought by Santa to my house were never wrapped with colorful paper and ribbon. Gifts came in brown grocery bags, and somehow my parents knew to which child the bag belonged. One Christmas I noticed a beautifully wrapped gift. It was really big! Had I lain down beside it, it would have been longer than I was tall. But the length did not impress me as much as the recipient. It was for my mom! How happy I was that Santa knew that my mom deserved the best gift among all the paper bags under the tree. Santa was quite smart and very kind. Santa’s thoughts and kind deeds were way above anything my brain could imagine—something like infinite, but I didn’t know that word yet.

“My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways, and my thoughts above your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9). As I occasionally read this passage in the Liturgy of the Hours, I wonder whether my capacity to think of God’s greatness, God’s supreme kindness and thoughtfulness began as a child’s wonder at a wrapped gift beneath a tree.