Diocese celebrates the Feast of St. Blaise with traditional blessing of throats

Friday, Feb. 06, 2015

SALT LAKE CITY — Parishioners in the Diocese of Salt Lake City had the opportunity to have their throats blessed on the Feast of Saint Blaise Feb. 3. 

The blessing of throats is a sacramental, said the Most Rev. John C. Wester, Bishop of Salt Lake City. “That means that it is a symbolic action accompanied by prayer, which is meant to be an occasion of grace. It is not a sacrament, it is a devotion in which we pray for the intercession of St. Blaise to deliver us from the ailments of the throat and from every other evil.”

The practice underscores the Catholic belief in the Communion of Saints in that “we all pray for each other,” Bishop Wester continued. “Those who have already gone before us marked with the sign of faith are able to pray for us who are still on this earth and intercede for us. So we pray to St. Blaise for his intercession to help us from ailments of the throat.”

Saint Blaise was Bishop of Sebastia in Armenia in the fourth century.  The legend of his life that sprang up in the eighth century is that he was born to a rich and noble family who raised him as a Christian; he studied philosophy in his youth and was a physician. 

He was martyred in 316, when the governor of Cappadocia and of Lesser Armenia, having arrived in Sebastia at the order of the Emperor Licinius to kill the Christians, arrested him. As Blaise was being led to jail, a mother set her only son, who was choking on a fish bone, at his feet, and the child was cured. The governor was unable to make Blaise renounce his faith, and he was beheaded.

Nevertheless, Saint Blaise’s cure of the choking child “became a symbol of healing,” Bishop Wester said. 

Today, the blessing of throats may be given by a priest, deacon or lay minister; they follow the rites and prayers according to the Book of Blessings. The blessing may be given by touching the throat of each person with two candles that have been joined in the form of a cross.

Many local Catholics make a point of attending Mass on the Feast of Saint Blaise.

Fish bones are why Saint Catherine of Siena Newman Center parishioner Andy Odoardi’s mother had him get his throat blessed when he was a child, he said. “She came from a part in Italy where they ate a lot of fish and she was always worried that I would get a fish bone caught in my throat,” he said. 

Becky Odoardi likes to take advantage of the special blessings offered by the Church, she said. “I have issues with colds and asthma,” she said. 

“I get my throat blessed and I don’t get flu shots or colds,” said John Mooney, from Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Salt Lake City.

Victoria Gandley of Our Lady of Lourdes has had her throat blessed since she was a girl growing up in Brooklyn, N.Y. “I was brought up with the blessing,” she said.