Sep 28th - Wenceslaus

How do we translate the tenets of our Faith into political action? Can one both support Caesar and be Christian?
What is political progress? Can Christian values impede political progress? Can they aid it?
Those around him, apparently even his mother, worried what a Christian ruler might do. I like the response given here in this biography "Just because you tire of serving Christ, why should you hinder the rest of us?" I am convinced, thanks to his example, that is the way to think about it, especially in today's environment where so many have wearied of what they perceive following Christ to mean.
In the end, like Wenceslaus we must be true followers of Christ and that is up to us, no matter what those around us think, say, and feel.
We are neither a party nor conservative or liberal, we are followers of Christ - and that is what we need to be everyday, regardless of the labels assigned to us.

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Finally, strengthened by the power of God that encircled him, he summoned his mother and those under her influence, and rebuked them.... "The sayings of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed" (Ecclesiastes 12:11). Thus said the blessed Wenceslaus: "Why, sons of criminals, offspring of liars and men of iniquity, have you hindered me from learning the law of the Lord Jesus Christ and obeying His commandments? Just because you tire of serving Christ, why should you hinder the rest of us? Although I have been under your power up until now, yet now I reject it, and I choose instead the omnipotent God whom I desire to serve with all my heart."
From his boyhood he did not depart in the smallest degree from the Lord's teaching: true in his speech, just in his judgment, faithful in every enterprise, his piety exceeding all human measure. When anyone was undergoing a trial in the council of judges and was awaiting his judgment as chief judge, he took every opportunity to quietly withdraw himself, remembering the threats of Christ put forward in the Gospel: "Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned" (Luke 6:37).
He destroyed gallows and prisons that had been built in ancient times but were still standing. He tirelessly comforted orphans, widows, the poor, the groaning and the wounded, fed the hungry, revived the thirsty, covered the naked, visited the sick, buried the dead, welcomed neighbors, friends, and strangers, honored priests and clergy as the Lord, honored monks, and opened the way of truth to those who had gone astray. He observed truth, humility, patience, meekness, and above all things charity, seizing nothing by force or deceit.

-- Life and Passion of Saints Wenceslaus and Ludmila