SAINTS OF THE DAY: FEAST DAY ~ FEBRUARY 3RD

MEMORIAL OF SAINT BLAISE, BISHOP AND MARTYR AND SAINT ANSGAR, BISHOP – FEAST DAY ~ FEBRUARY 3RD: Today, we celebrate the Memorial of Saint Blaise, Bishop and Martyr and Saint Ansgar, Bishop. Through the intercession of St. Blaise, we humbly pray for all those who are sick, we particularly pray for those suffering from diseases of the throat and terminal diseases and for protection of all people. We ask this through Christ our Lord…. Amen🙏

SAINT BLAISE, BISHOP AND MARTYR: St. Blaise (d. 316 A.D.) was born into a wealthy Christian family in Armenia. He was trained as a physician before becoming a priest, and was finally ordained a Bishop of Sebaste in Armenia. He is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers. Saint Blaise devoted the earlier years of his life to the study of philosophy, and afterwards became a physician. In the practice of his profession he saw so much of the miseries of life and the hollowness of worldly pleasures, that he resolved to spend the rest of his days in the service of God. From being a healer of bodily ailments, he became a physician of souls. When a wave of Christian persecution began, God instructed St. Blaise to hide in a desert cave, then he retired for a time, by divine inspiration, to a cavern where he remained in prayer. While he was in hiding, birds miraculously brought him food and sick men came to him to be healed. He lived in a cave on Mount Argeus and was a healer of men and animals. According to legend, sick animals would come to him on their own for help, but would never disturb him at prayer. Agricola, governor of Cappadocia, came to Sebaste to persecute Christians. His huntsmen went into the forests of Argeus to find wild animals for the arena games, and found many waiting outside St. Blaise’s cave. Discovered in prayer, St. Blaise was arrested, and Agricola tried to get him to recant his faith. While in prison, St. Blaise ministered to and healed fellow prisoners, including saving a child who was choking on a fish bone. Saint Blaise’s protection of those with throat troubles apparently comes from a legend that a boy was brought to him who had a fishbone stuck in his throat. The boy was about to die when Saint Blaise healed him. This led to the blessing of throats which takes place on St. Blaise’s feast day.

St. Blaise was eventually martyred, he thrown into a lake to drown, he stood on the surface and invited his persecutors to walk out and prove the power of their gods; they drowned. When he returned to land, he was martyred by being beaten, his flesh torn with wool combs (which led to his association with and patronage of those involved in the wool trade), and then beheaded in about the year 316. At the execution site he prayed aloud to God for his persecutors, and asked that in the future those who would invoke him might be aided, as he had been permitted to assist them during his lifetime. Our Lord appeared to him and said in a voice which all bystanders heard, that He granted his prayer. Since that time his intercession has often been effectually solicited, especially in cases of all kinds of throat problems. St. Blaise has been extremely popular for centuries in both the Eastern and Western Churches and many cures were attributed to him, notably that of a child who was suffocating through a fish bone being caught in his throat. In 1222 the Council of Oxford prohibited servile labour in England on his feast. He is invoked for all throat afflictions, and on his feast two candles are blessed with a prayer that God will free from all such afflictions and every ill all those who receive this blessing. St. Blaise is a Patron Saint of throat diseases; goiters; coughs; whooping cough; healthy throats; choking, wild animals, builders, infants,,physicians; veterinarians; wool-combers; wool weavers; builders; carvers; construction workers; stonecutters;  animals; Against wild beasts; Dalmatia; Dubrovnik.

It is customary in many places to bless the throats of the faithful with two candles tied together with a red ribbon to form a cross. The rite of the blessing of throats may take place before or after Mass. The priest or deacon in giving the blessing of the throat places the candles around the throat of the faithful as they seek the blessing, using the following prayer: “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.”🙏

PRAYER: Lord, hear Your people through the intercession of St. Blaise, Your Martyr. Help us to enjoy peace in this life and find a lasting refuge in the next. Amen🙏

SAINT ANSGAR, BISHOP: St. Ansgar (801- 865), also known as Anskar, Anschar or Oscar, was Archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen in the northern part of the Kingdom of the East Franks. St. Ansgar became known as the “Apostle of the North” because of his travels (Scandinavia, specifically of Denmark and Sweden) and the See of Hamburg received the missionary mandate to bring Christianity to Northern Europe. St. Ansgar was the son of a noble Frankish family, born near Amiens (present day France) on September 8, 801. After his mother’s early death, St. Ansgar was brought up from childhood and educated at the  Benedictine monastery of Old  Corbie in Picardy and later became a monk there and Abbot of New Corbie in Westphalia. According to the Vita Ansgarii (“Life of Ansgar”), when the little boy learned in a vision that his mother was in the company of Blessed Mary, mother of Jesus, his careless attitude toward spiritual matters changed to seriousness. The vision became His main life motivator. In 822, St. Ansgar became one of many missionaries sent to found the abbey of Corvey (New Corbie) in Westphalia, where he became a teacher and preacher. A group of monks including St. Ansgar were sent further north to Jutland with the king Harald Klak, who had become newly converted to Christianity and received baptism during his exile. With Harald’s downfall in 827 and St. Ansgar’s companion Autbert having died, their school for the sons of courtiers closed and St. Ansgar returned to Germany without noticeable success. Then in 829, Sweden asked for Christian missionaries, the Swedish king Björn at Hauge requested missionaries for his Swedes, King Louis sent St. Ansgar, now accompanied by friar Witmar from New Corbie as his assistant. St. Ansgar preached and made converts, particularly during six months at Birka. At Sweden, St. Ansgar built the first Christian Church there.

In 831, St. Ansgar was recalled and he returned to Louis’ court at Worms and appointed to the Archbishopric of Hamburg-Bremen. He received the mission of evangelizing pagan Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The King of Sweden decided to cast lots as to whether to admit the Christian missionaries into his kingdom. St. Ansgar offred the issue to the care of God, and the lot was favorable. St. Ansgar was consecrated as a bishop of Hamburg in November 831, with the approval of Gregory IV. Before traveling north once again, he traveled to Rome to receive the pallium directly from the pope’s hands, and was formally named legate for the Scandinavian missions in northern lands. Funds for the northern apostolate stopped with Emperor Louis’s death in 840, his empire was divided and St. Ansgar lost the abbey of Turholt, which Louis had given to endow St. Ansgar’s work. Then in 845, the Danes  unexpectedly raided Hamburg, destroying all the church’s treasures and books. After thirteen years’ work in Hamburg, St. Ansgar saw it burned to the ground by invading Northmen; Sweden and Denmark returned to paganism. St. Ansgar now had neither see nor revenue, and many helpers deserted him. The new king, Louis’ 3rd son, Louis the German, did not re-endow Turholt to St. Ansgar, but in 847 he named the missionary to the vacant diocese of Bremen, where St. Ansgar moved in 848 and was made Archbishop of Bremen. In 854, he was entrusted with the organization of the hierarchy in the Nordic countries. In 854, he returned to Denmark, converted Erik, King of Jutland, and helped mitigate the horrors of the slave trade. Pope Nicholas I approved the union of the two dioceses of Bremen and Hamburg in 864. St. Ansgar’s biographers remark that he was an extraordinary preacher, a humble and ascetical priest. He was devoted to the poor and the sick, imitating the Lord in washing their feet and waiting on them at table. He died peacefully at Bremen, Germany on February 3, 865 (aged 63), without achieving his wish to be a martyr. Sweden became pagan again after his death and remained so until the coming of missionaries two centuries later. He had enough frustrations to become a saint and he did. Patron Saint of: Denmark; Scandinavia; Sweden.

PRAYER: Saint Ansgar, you persevered in difficult times to bring the faith to a pagan land. You saw success and then failure, glory and then disappointment. Your work did not outlast you, but pleased God nonetheless. May we see our work as our duty, and our vocation as God’s will, even when the fruit of our labor is harvested by someone else, or not at all ~  Amen🙏