Saturday, February 03, 2007

Feast of St. Blaise

Today is the feast of St. Blaise. He was a physician and bishop in Armenia in the second century. He was arrested for being a Christian after being discovered in prayer. On the way to prison, he prayed over a child who was choking on a fish bone. The child was healed.

From this, grew the custom of the blessing of the throats on his feast day, February 3.

How common is this custom today? Do any of your pastors bless throats either on this day, or on the Sunday nearest to the feast day? I know some otherwise reluctant priests will bless throats if the parishioners ask for it to be done.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Every year we have the blessing of the throats after Mass.

In the bulletin someone made a spelling mistake though. They wrote it was the feast day of St. Blasé...so, would he be the patron saint of indifference??!!

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"Slavery ended in medieval Europe only because the church extended its sacraments to all slaves and then managed to impose a ban on the enslavement of Christians (and of Jews). Within the context of medieval Europe, that prohibition was effectively a rule of universal abolition. "— Rodney Stark

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