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Showing posts with the label Blessing of the Throats

St Blaise, Hansel and Gretel, and Englebert Humperdinck

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St Blaise ,  Holy Trinity Column in Olomouc, Czech Republic  [ Wikipedia ] When I was a child growing up in Dublin the blessing of throats on the feast of St Blaise took place only in the Franciscan and Capuchin churches, as I recall. Apart from my memory, the only evidence I have been able to find of this is from  a bulletin of the Augustinian church  in Limerick, Ireland, a year ago:  For many centuries devotion to St. Blaise, a fourth century  Armenian bishop, had almost completely disappeared. It  was kept alive in some Franciscan churches. On the 4th  February 2004 the  Limerick Chronicle  published a picture  in its memory section, a clear photograph of a long queue  in the local Franciscan church lining up for the blessing  of the throats on the Feast of St Blaise. The Friars stood in  the sanctuary for the entire day ministering the healing of  this popular saint to those  who streamed in and out of  their church on Henry St .  I have a vague recollection of r