Saturday, February 3, 2024
First Saturday
feast of st. blaise
Psalm
112, Verse 1
Hallelujah! Blessed the man who FEARS the LORD, who greatly delights in his commands.
This psalm is detailing the blessings received by those who remain close to God by obedience to the commandments. Among their blessings are children, wealth that enables them to be magnanimous, and virtue by which they encourage others. The just person is an affront to the wicked, whose hopes remain unfulfilled.[1]
Hallelujah is a conjunction of two Hebrew words which mean
“Praise the Lord”. Yes, praise God for men who have Holy fear and follow his
commands for such person’s help to create a Kingdom of Heaven on earth.
Hallelujah! If you know such people, follow, and emulate them.
First Saturday[2]
In December of 1925, Our
Lady appeared to Sister Lucia, giving her the following guaranty of salvation
for those who complete the First Five Saturdays Devotion:
“I promise to
assist them at the hour of death with all the graces necessary for the
salvation of their souls."
Why Five Saturdays?
The
five first Saturdays correspond to the five kinds of offenses and blasphemies
committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary:
1) Blasphemies
against the Immaculate Conception
2) Blasphemies
against her virginity
3) Blasphemies
against her divine maternity, at the same time the refusal to accept her as the
Mother of all men
4) Instilling
indifference, scorn and even hatred towards this Immaculate Mother in the
hearts of children
5) Direct
insults against Her sacred images
How to complete the Five First
Saturdays Devotion:
On
the first Saturday of five consecutive months:
1. Go
to confession.
2. Receive
Holy Communion.
3. Say
five decades of the Rosary.
4. Keep
Our Lady company for 15 minutes, meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary.
5. Have
the intention of making reparation to Our Lady for the offenses listed above.
Feast of St.
Blaise[3]
While he was in prison, the
Armenian Bishop Blaise (who suffered martyrdom in the fourth century)
miraculously cured a little boy choking on a fishbone lodged in his throat.
Ever since then, St. Blaise has been the patron saint of throats. Saint
Blaise Sticks (pan bendito) are distributed on his
feast and kept in the home to be eaten for a sore throat. The most popular
custom, however, is the Blessing of Throats.
Blessing
of throats[4]
The rite of the blessing of
throats may take place before or after Mass. The priest or deacon places the
candles around the throat of whoever seeks the blessing, using the formula:
"Through the intercession of St. Blaise, bishop and martyr, may God deliver
you free from every disease of the throat, and from every other disease. In the
name of the Father and of the Son, + and of the Holy Spirit. R. Amen."
Things to Do
·
Take your children to Mass to receive
the blessing of throats today.
·
Establish a home altar with the blessed
candles (symbols of Saint Blaise) from the feast of the Presentation, February
2.
· Visit this website and learn more about St. Blaise and how he saved Dubrovnik in Croatia in the 12th century.
Feast of St. Blaise—Invoking Against Diseases of the Throat
A physician of Sebaste in Cappodocia, where he was later named Bishop, St.
Blaise was martyred about the year 320. He is venerated as a patron to protect
us against diseases of the throat, mainly because of the story told that he
cured a boy choking from a fishbone.
As a doctor Blaise went into every home, at all hours of
the day and night, knew both the rich and poor of the neighborhood, comforted
and cured and advised all. As a bishop, he did the same thing. It was said that
people had to look for him in the prisons, in the caves with hermits, in the
mountains and the valleys, so fast were his steps to search out and to help
each member of his flock.
Blaise also had the reputation for curing sick and wounded
animals, it was while he tended an animal that some of the governor's hunters
found him and announced him as a Christian. This was their best catch, a
bishop; and Blaise was ready, for he had been warned in prayer to prepare
himself as a sacrifice. On his way to prison, Blaise greets his people along
the way, says goodbye to them, evangelizes them and baptizes. As he speaks, a
voice is heard on the streets:
"Stop," says a woman, "my child is
dying!"
"And what is the matter with this child?"
"There is a fishbone in his throat, and it is
strangling him."
Is it a physician or a bishop that is needed? Blaise
does not hesitate medicine is too long, faith is shorter. He touches the elbow
of the little boy, and commands the fishbone in the name of its maker:
"Go down or come out, by the law of the
All-Powerful!"
The fishbone disappears and the child is returned safe and
sound to his mother.
Blaise is thrown into prison, from which there is no exit
except by adoration of the pagan gods. Upon his first refusal to worship,
Blaise is whipped; and this achieves nothing, attempts are made to buy him off:
he must keep his faith to himself, and simply appear at the official ceremonies
of the state. Again, he refuses, and is tortured, beaten and thrown into prison
again.
"You punish my body," says Blaise, "but
there is nothing you can do to my soul. If he wished, my God could snatch my
body from your hands. His will be done."
"Do you think he could save you, if I had you drowned
like cat in a pond?" asked the governor. Thereupon he orders Blaise to be
thrown into a nearby lake and is astonished to find the waters remain frozen
like ice, unwilling to be an accomplice in the death of this holy man. In a
frenzy, a soldier draws his sword, and with a single blow delivers Blaise from
the hands of his tormentors into those of the living God. Excerpted from The Encyclopedia of Catholic Saints,
Volume 2
THE RACCOLTA[5]
387. Prayer to St Blaise.
300 Days, once a day. (See Instructions.) 387 Leo XIII, May 13, 1903.
O GLORIOUS St Blaise, who with a short prayer didst restore to perfect safety a child at the point of death from a fishbone fixed in its throat, grant that we may all feel the power of thy patronage in every malady of the throat and may have the special grace to mortify the dangerous sense of taste by observing faithfully the precepts of the Church. Thou also, who in thy martyrdom hast left to the Church the testimony of a glorious faith, grant that we may keep this divine gift intact, and that in these times we may be enabled, by word and deed, without fear of man, to defend the truths of faith, so grievously obscured and attacked.
Catechism
of the Catholic Church
PART THREE: LIFE IN CHRIST
SECTION ONE-MAN'S VOCATION LIFE IN THE
SPIRIT
CHAPTER THREE-GOD'S SALVATION: LAW AND
GRACE
Article 3-THE CHURCH, MOTHER AND TEACHER
2030 It is in the Church, in
communion with all the baptized, that the Christian fulfills his vocation. From
the Church he receives the Word of God containing the teachings of "the
law of Christ." From the Church he receives the grace of the
sacraments that sustains him on the "way." From the Church he learns
the example of holiness and recognizes its model and source in the all-holy
Virgin Mary; he discerns it in the authentic witness of those who live it; he
discovers it in the spiritual tradition and long history of the saints who have
gone before him and whom the liturgy celebrates in the rhythms of the sanctoral
cycle.
2031 The moral life is
spiritual worship. We "present (our) bodies as a living sacrifice, holy
and acceptable to God," within the Body of Christ that we form and in
communion with the offering of his Eucharist. In the liturgy and the celebration
of the sacraments, prayer and teaching are conjoined with the grace of Christ
to enlighten and nourish Christian activity. As does the whole of the Christian
life, the moral life finds its source and summit in the Eucharistic sacrifice.
Daily Devotions
·
Unite in the work of the Porters of St. Joseph by joining them
in fasting: Today's Fast: The Pope
·
Saturday
Litany of the Hours Invoking the Aid of Mother Mary
·
Offering to
the sacred heart of Jesus
·
Rosary
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