So many of us cry out for justice to truly be blind and for social equality and goodness to prevail.

But where does it start?

It starts in each heart, with each one who would practice the second greatest commandment: to love neighbor with the same care one would show one’s self.

Today, instead of profiling one specific person, I simply want to let Ms. Keller’s beautiful words stir our souls. And I want to quietly commend everyone who chooses to do what is good and right for another person, no matter if their just or good acts will ever be widely know.

Let us press on to love and to uphold the welfare of each other.

We so often think of negative consequences or fateful punishment when we hear the word justice. Yet, there is really a neutral feeling to the word and a positive side we can easily overlook.

As definitions in Webster’s Dictionary point out, the doling out of justice may include bestowing merited rewards and showing equal, impartial, and fair treatment to another — no matter who they are. Combining those two meanings, we might also observe that a just person is a person who generously bestows blessings on others all around them, in fair measure and regardless of who those other people may be.

In that regard, justice cannot be administered by someone who is selfish. Indeed, if the vices of greed and self-centeredness grip the mind and heart of the person at hand, he or she will never be able to administer true justice. And so, selfishness can stand as an antonym and a barricade to the presence of justice in a person’s life.

And not just the life of a rich, famous, or powerful person. But also in the lives of common people like you and me. However, since most of the historical records still available to us detail the lives of the rich or the powerful, let us the consider the example of one man who was both, in his time, so that we might consider if his example is worth following.

Though history has preserved it, relatively few people know his name or his story apart from a now somewhat-less-popular Christmas song which combines a 13th century melody with lyrics penned in the 1850s. And his name is something of a tongue twister for England speakers outside of Eastern Europe.

His name was Wenceslas, and he ruled Bohemia (the modern day Czech Republic) as a Duke from the age of 18 until his life was (unjustly) cut short several years later. Only posthumously was he given the title King of Bohemia, the title by which we may have heard his name in the song.

It is a happy, lively tune, telling the tale of a ruler who stopped at nothing to provide for his people, going to personally attend to their needs and show them kindness, no matter how lowly their circumstances might be. In fact, besides the note that he banished his own mother, the former queen regent, soon after he began to rule, we don’t see much sign of him administering justice in a negative sense. It seems he spent the vast majority of his time bestowing goodness and righting wrongs wherever he could.

When Wenceslas began to rule, other leaders in the country insisted that half of the kingdom be given to his younger brother, Boleslaus. This was only fair, after all, and would likely help maintain peace in the land. Interestingly, Boleslaus was not prone to pure justice and was much greedier at his core. Where Wenceslas thrived in his generosity, Boleslaus brewed in his self-centeredness and longed for years to rule it all.

Finally, one September day, Boleslaus carried out a plot with three conspiring noblemen. First, the noblemen all stabbed his brother, and then Boleslaus finished Wenceslas off with a lance — right in the doorway of a church.

There are several ironies in the story. The ending of Wenceslas’ life was gruesome and heartbreaking, yet the tune which commemorates it is so sweet and cheerful. He had the status of a king, but he spent his years giving away his worldly goods, time, and energy to touch the lives of those he ruled. He could have treated some people better than others, but he seems to have had equal care and kindness for every single needy person. And even though his brother wanted only to destroy him, Wenceslas would live on forever in the memories of those who love what is good, in the Spirit of the One he worshipped.

This is justice in us: when we are filled less with ourselves and more with that Spirit, so that we want to bless others in equal measure and our deeds long reep the rewards, even after our earthly life has ended.

To quote the final refrain of the song, “Therefore, Christian men be sure, wealth or rank possessing, ye who now will bless the poor shall yourselves find blessing.” This, too, is justice. Perhaps the sweetest justice of all.

Abducted as a minor, he was carried to a foreign place and enslaved to labor against his will for years. When he found a miraculous way back home, he seized the opportunity and was reunited with his beloved family.

I think now of how he might have fared afterward according to my own culture’s standards.

Many people would have, at the very least, harbored awful feelings towards the people group from that foreign place, despising anyone of their ethnicity and every expression of their culture.

Most people would have just wanted to stay home with their family.

Some people would have become hypervigilant about every possible person who could pose a threat to them or their family at any future point.

And a few people would have raised an army to go back and fight the original captors, demanding retribution for all the damage those people had done.

This young man could have understandably declared his hatred for that people. But he chose instead to return to them with love and communicate that love to them through their very own culture.

He certainly had the chance to stay with his family. But he gave it up, leaving his home behind for the remainder of his life.

He could have lived out his days in fear and paranoia. But he chose instead to walk in paths of faith and trust, exuding a calm and strength that only comes in a life when love has smothered fear.

And, if the records are true and he really came from a noble family, he likely would have been able to raise an army to take across the sea so that he might exact justice on human terms. But he did not, choosing instead to let the Spirit ruling over him do the conquering of hearts and minds.

Last week, we noted how Jael dealt a literal blow of justice upon a threatening enemy. And such violent acts are often what we think of when we consider the word “justice.” Death by some form of bloodiness at its most extreme, sentencing by a judge or other authority at a lesser extreme.

We don’t think of dedicating the rest of one’s life to loving the very people who tried to destroy us as justice. Mercy or grace perhaps. Superhuman ethical perspective perhaps. Taking leave of one’s senses perhaps. But not justice.

But what if, in a different line of thinking, the life of Patrick shows us justice lived out in another way?

What if his ability to love his former enemies and even embrace them as his new, own people was built on a foundation of trusting that God knew what justice was yet needing to be done and that God would do it?

Does it take more courage to violently administer justice or to wait and give one’s enemies the chance to turn and seek forgiveness?

When I look at Patrick’s life, I think of another saint’s admonition, written a few hundred years previously: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21). Indeed, in his calling and his obedience, just as in the life of the Lord he followed, Patrick showed us a different way of honoring justice and ushering in rightness.