Saint Wenceslas Celebrations

Since 1936 a so-called vigil preceding the celebrations was once again held in the lower part of Wenceslas Square. It was all organized by P. Kelnar, the pastor of Our Lady of Tyn. The St. Vitus choir and trumpeters performed, and Radovan Lukavsky read passages from the Kristian Legend. At the end of the hourlong program, P. Alois Kansky gave a short speech.

If we were to believe the historians, then during the rule of King Wenceslas this country used to send 120 oxen and 500 bars of silver every year to Germany. Perhaps we should suggest to the German government that the custom be renewed. We could send them 500 oxen each year (in Czech the word "ox" can have the same derogatory meaning as "ass " in English, talking about the population). Just imagine how that would clean up our state!

I don´t think that I would say too much about the bars of silver, since we could surely use them better here.

Have you ever noticed that in our country we have no victory arches to commemorate a victorious battle? However, we do have Marold´s Panorama of the Battle at Lipany. Apparently, as Jara Cimrman would say, "we commemorate our famous losses".

On this Square, we have a statue of St. Wenceslas who from the earthly point of view was a loser, since he was murdered.

At the Old Town Square there stands the statue of Jan Hus who also lost and was burnt at the stake. It is at these statues that the people gather in times of turmoil. Nobody goes up the Vitkov Hill where the largest bronze equestrian statue in the world stands, the statue of Jan Zizka who had never lost any battles. People don´t go there just to say, "What a champ! He´ll surely help us."

We go and address those, who in the eyes of the world had been struck down, as if we felt our own frailty, and hope that by losing on the earthly planes not all is lost.

The blood of Wenceslas soaked into the Czech land just like the blood of Christ had soaked into the land of Palestine.

It may just be that, notwithstanding all the obstacles and difficulties, Christianity in this country remains alive.