Feast of St. Blase; Honoring this Saint on Sunday January 31st

We will continue our tradition of Blessing of the throats with a virtual ceremony on January 31st. Below is a brief history of this Fourth Century Saint. Saint Blase was the bishop of Sebaste in Armenia, the city of his birth, during the fourth century Blaise, who had studied philosophy in his youth, was a doctor who exercised his art with miraculous ability, good-will, and piety. When the bishop of the city died, he was chosen to succeed him, with the acclamation of all the people. His holiness was manifest through many miracles: from all around, people came to him to find cures for their spirit and their body; even wild animals came in herds to receive his blessing. In 316, Agricola, the governor of Cappadocia and of Lesser Armenia, having arrived in Sebastia at the order of the emperor Licinius to kill the Christians, arrested the bishop. As he was being led to jail, a mother set her only son, choking to death of a fish-bone, at his feet, and the child was cured straight away. Consequently, Saint Blaise is invoked for protection against injuries and illnesses of the throat. Regardless, the governor, unable to make Blaise renounce his faith, beat him with a stick, ripped his flesh with iron combs, and beheaded him. In many places on the day of his feast the blessing of St. Blaise is given: two burning candles, blessed on the feast of the Presentation of the Lord ("candlemas"), are held in a crossed position by a priest over the heads of the faithful or the people are touched on the throat with them. At the same time the following blessing is given: "May Almighty God at the intercession of St. Blaise, Bishop and Martyr, preserve you from infections of the throat and from all other afflictions". Then the priest makes the sign of the cross over the faithful.