Saint Blaise, February 3rd.
A fish bone has made St. Blaise an ‘influencer’ through the centuries in the believing community of Catholics.
A fish bone stuck in the throat of a child who was suffocating and whose mother went to the saint who, throughthe imposition of his hands on the head of the child and prayer, obtained the complete recovery of the affected boy.
That the event is historical or a pious story, is a mater of debate without which the story can never come to any certainty. On the other hand, what is certain and historical is the great popularity that brought St. Blaiseto be patron and protector of illnesses of the throat. All of Catholic Europe and all of Latin America go to St. Blaise with their afflictions of the throat. For centuries the thin ‘cord of St. Blaise’ has been blessed in the churches and the devotees have worn it tied around the throat until it frays through use.
St. Blaise was a third century Bishop of Sebaste in present day Turkey. It is striking the fact that, having lived and died so far away, his fame has reached and spread through Europe and America. He was a bishop and a martyr, because in the persecution against Christians pursued by the Emperor Licinio, for the fact of being a Bishop, he was condemned to martyrdom.
The historical tradition tells us that when they took him to be killed, after being found in a cave where he had hidden and where the animals had fed him, was when the mother with the boy who was suffocating, opening up a path through the people, threw herself at his feet and begged him for the life of the little one. Despite what happened and the sudden healing and the admiration of all who had been there, the martyrdom continued and St. Blaise was decapitated.
We should not just ask the Saint to cure us of illnesses of the throat, for which today there are excellent tablets and sprays from the pharmacy, but rather refine our vocal cords so that our speaking may always be truthful, sincere, friendly and charitable.
And you, Iseverythingyouspeak ‘healthy’?
Carlos Díaz Muñiz, CMF
