Feast of St. Blaise; Honoring this Saint on Sunday February 6, 2022
We will continue our tradition of Blessing of
the throats with a General Blessing this Sunday after Communion.
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.
