Blazing Candles

“Through the intercession of St. Blase, bishop and martyr, may God deliver you from ailments of the throat and from every other evil. In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Blessing of St. Blase).

We know that Bishop Blase was martyred in his episcopal city of Sebastea, Armenia, in 316. The legendary Acts of St. Blase were written 400 years later. According to them Blase was a good bishop, working hard to encourage the spiritual and physical health of his people. Although the Edict of Toleration (311), granting freedom of worship in the Roman Empire, was already five years old, persecution still raged in Armenia. Blase was apparently forced to flee to the back country. There he lived as a hermit in solitude and prayer, but made friends with the wild animals. One day a group of hunters seeking wild animals for the amphitheater stumbled upon Blase’s cave. They were first surprised and then frightened. The bishop was kneeling in prayer surrounded by patiently waiting wolves, lions and bears.

As the hunters hauled Blase off to prison, the legend has it, a mother came with her young son who had a fish bone lodged in his throat. At Blase’s command the child was able to cough up the bone.

Agricolaus, governor of Cappadocia, tried to persuade Blase to sacrifice to pagan idols. The first time Blase refused, he was beaten. The next time he was suspended from a tree and his flesh torn with iron combs or rakes. (English wool combers, who used similar iron combs, took Blase as their patron. They could easily appreciate the agony the saint underwent.) Finally he was beheaded. (from AmericanCatholic.org)

I always love the Feast of St. Blase, which we usually commemorate after the Candlemas ceremony, with a throat blessing in the chapel with two crossed candles. We have a rather arcane device which holds the candles, and legend has it they used to be lit as in the drawing above, but now we just tie a red ribbon around two beeswax candles (unlit). St. Mary's still uses lit candles held by a very peculiar looking contraption, quite dramatic and rather scary I must say, to have your throat between two blazing candles. This year we will have this rite on Sunday, which will also be the Feast of the Dedication.

Last night we celebrated the Feast of Candlemas in grand High Church style, with newly restored proper ceremonial for the candle blessing and procession. The past few years various MCs and priests had tinkered with the ceremonial to try and streamline things, rushing a service that defies being rushed, to the point that we had lit all the aisle candles and extra altar candles beforehand, which kind of defeated the purpose of lighting all the candles from a single flame. It was wonderful to finally do it right again with the ancient ritual, starting out in semi-darkness, then watching the place gradually fill with light as the choir sang the Antiphons. We processed around with a decent size congo (about 55, mostly visitors) in the semi-darkness (finally got that setting right also, last year it was way too dark). I was subdeacon and got to chant the epistle to the Hebrews in the solemn tone. We were honored to have Bishop Andrew St. John with us, preaching a fine and entertaining sermon that included his Candlemas adventures in Australia where it was the middle of summer and often hot enough to melt the candles before they could get lit. He also gave us a great new term for high church: a "tabby and six" as they say in Oz: a tabernacle and six high altar candles. The choir did a splendid job on the Missa “Ave regina coelorum” of Dufay and the altar party did fine even without a rehearsal with the added pontifical elements of the Mass. All in all a splendid celebration which ended with an auspicious snowfall, which supposedly means there will be an early Spring.

"If Candlemas be fair and bright, Winter has another flight. If Candlemas brings clouds and rain, Winter will not come again."