September 28 St. Wenceslaus, Martyr

[DemBones DemBones]

St Wenceslaus (907 - 935)

He was born into the Bohemian royal family, and brought up as a Christian by his aunt.

When he became king, he worked hard to promote order in his kingdom and the free exercise of Christianity.

This raised considerable opposition, and he was eventually murdered by his brother’s henchmen.

He was immediately acclaimed as a martyr and is the patron saint of the Czech republic.


Also known for the Christmas carol, "Good King Wenceslaus"

"Good King Wenceslaus looked out
On the Feast of Stephen,
As the snow lay 'round about
Deep and crisp and even."

Gold star if you know when the Feast of Stephen is!

[tjwmason]

1. Where do I claim the gold star?

St. Stephen's day is 26th December - hence why the carol is sung at Christmas.

It's the first of three holy days which follow immediately after Christmas, St. Stephen, St. John the Divine, the Holy Innocents. I usually manage to make Mass for at least one of the three...however despite my best intentions I've never managed all three.

[DemBones DemBones]

2. Hmm, I haven't figured that out -- lucky you already have

a gold star! :D You should get three stars for naming all three feasts. It's an interesting juxtaposition to remember the stoning of the first martyr the day after we remember the birth of Jesus, reminding us that birth and death are both part of life. I always remember all the post-Christmas feasts. I saw one huge painting of the massacre of the Holy Innocents in Italy that I will never forget.

It's not easy to make it to weekday Masses unless you live or work near a church but it's a good goal and maybe you'll make all three this year. It would help to have one of the feasts fall on a Sunday but Christmas will be on a Tuesday this year. I hope I can make all the Wednesday Masses of Lent this year, as I used to when I worked in town.

[tjwmason]

3. The post-Christmas ones are among the few times I can get to week-day Mass.

My parish has the daily Mass at 9:30, by which time I'm into my working day (to be honest even if it were earlier I doubt I'd be up in time).

I used to love the week-day Masses when I was a student, I was in a small town (as in it took less than 40 minutes to walk from one end to the other) and so when I only had to attend about 10 hours of classes per week I could easily fit in Mass frequently.

[DemBones DemBones]

4. Ours are all at noon now. It used to be that

half were at noon and half were at 5:30, giving people a chance to come after work.
Not everyone can take enough time for lunch to go to a noon Mass. I think 5:30 or 5:45 Masses would be best for more people.

I miss going to Daily Mass. When I was teaching at a college in the city, it was very convenient. Now I'd have to drive 12 miles from home and gas is more expensive these days. Tomorrow is First Friday so I'm going to try to go for Adoration and maybe Mass. Wish me luck! Things often interfere with my plans these days.

Edit: Sounds like you teach, too. Who else gets time off at Christmas??? One of the perks! But when I taught public school I could only make the 5:30 Mass the rest of the year.

[tjwmason]

5. I don't teach - my office closes for Christmas.

So many people would be taking part of their annual leave entitlement (being in the U.K. we get lots more than the U.S.) that the management decided ages ago that it would just be easier to close the whole place down rather than drag in all of the janitors, receptionists &c.&c. to service a quarter of the usual staff - who probably wouldn't bother doing much work anyway. So they close at noon on Christmas-eve and reopen on 2 January (this year we finished earlier because of the week-end :bounce: ).

Before I worked here I would always take the week after Christmas as leave, it would just seem too odd to work between Christmas and New Year.

[DemBones DemBones]

6. That's really nice! Yes, you're more sensible in the UK,

as are the Europeans, about vacations, er, holidays ;-) and medical care, etc.

What is UK immigration policy like today? I often want out of the US and my dad's parents came from England, as did most of my mother's family, probably. I've only been there once but I loved it, especially Somerset and Devon, where my family is from. We had a wonderful time visiting a distant cousin and I have a lot more cousins in North Devon.

We'll probably just stay here but I would like to know if England is a possibility at all for retired Yanks. Mr. Bones could retire this year if he chose to and I've been retired due to disability for years. We might need the "Cash in the Attic" crew to come help us sell a bunch of antique furniture and things; you can really accumulate a lot when you live 35 years in a house!