Monday, February 3, 2025
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Norman Stone-ShadowlandsFebruary 3 Monday
feast of st. blaise
Psalm 31, Verse 20
How great is your goodness, Lord, stored up for those who FEAR you. You display it for those who trust you, in the sight of the children of Adam.
Reviewing this verse one wonders, what exactly does “stored up mean”. A little research reveals that stored up means to gather or amass something. King David is professing here that just as in the natural world there are laws that if followed lead to exponential growth so it follows that if a believer but trust in the Lord and retain a Godly fear versus the fear of man; there will be a great abundance in spiritual growth.
This growth will be so great that it will be accompanied by physical abundance, so that all may see, as stated in the verse “in the sight of the children of Adam” that God has blessed those who love and trust him. Fear not, for God is with you! Trust in Him as you would a mighty fortress in harsh conditions.
Feast of St.
Blaise[1]
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[2]
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[3]
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
Day
237 1762-1775
PART THREE: LIFE IN CHRIST
SECTION ONE-MAN'S VOCATION LIFE IN THE
SPIRIT
CHAPTER
ONE-THE DIGNITY OF THE HUMAN PERSON
Article 5-THE MORALITY OF THE
PASSIONS
1762 The human person is ordered to beatitude by his
deliberate acts: the passions or feelings he experiences can dispose him to it
and contribute to it.
I. Passions
1763 The term
"passions" belongs to the Christian patrimony. Feelings or passions
are emotions or movements of the sensitive appetite that incline us to act or
not to act in regard to something felt or imagined to be good or evil.
1764 The
passions are natural components of the human psyche; they form the passageway
and ensure the connection between the life of the senses and the life of the
mind. Our Lord called man's heart the source from which the passions spring.
1765 There are
many passions. The most fundamental passion is love, aroused by the attraction
of the good. Love causes a desire for the absent good and the hope of obtaining
it; this movement finds completion in the pleasure and joy of the good
possessed. The apprehension of evil causes hatred, aversion, and fear of the
impending evil; this movement ends in sadness at some present evil, or in the
anger that resists it.
1766 "To
love is to will the good of another." All other affections have their
source in this first movement of the human heart toward the good. Only the good
can be loved. Passions "are evil if love is evil and good if it is
good."
II. Passions and
Moral Life
1767 In
themselves passions are neither good nor evil. They are morally qualified only
to the extent that they effectively engage reason and will. Passions are said
to be voluntary, "either because they are commanded by the will or because
the will does not place obstacles in their way." It belongs to the
perfection of the moral or human good that the passions be governed by reason.
1768 Strong
feelings are not decisive for the morality or the holiness of persons; they are
simply the inexhaustible reservoir of images and affections in which the moral
life is expressed. Passions are morally good when they contribute to a good
action, evil in the opposite case. The upright will orders the movements of the
senses it appropriates to the good and to beatitude; an evil will succumbs to
disordered passions and exacerbates them. Emotions and feelings can be taken up
into the virtues or perverted by the vices.
1769 In the
Christian life, the Holy Spirit himself accomplishes his work by mobilizing the
whole being, with all its sorrows, fears and sadness, as is visible in the
Lord's agony and passion. In Christ human feelings are able to reach their
consummation in charity and divine beatitude.
1770 Moral
perfection consists in man's being moved to the good not by his will alone, but
also by his sensitive appetite, as in the words of the psalm: "My heart
and flesh sing for joy to the living God."
IN BRIEF
1771 The
term "passions" refers to the affections or the feelings. By his
emotions man intuits the good and suspects evil.
1772 The
principal passions are love and hatred, desire and fear, joy, sadness, and
anger.
1773 In
the passions, as movements of the sensitive appetite, there is neither moral
good nor evil. But insofar as they engage reason and will, there is moral good
or evil in them.
1774
Emotions and feelings can be taken up in the virtues or perverted by the vices.
1775 The
perfection of the moral good consists in man's being moved to the good not only
by his will but also by his "heart."
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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