THROAT

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “Throat!”

Today is the feast of St. Blaise. As you know this feast has the long tradition of the day we can get our throats blessed.

As kids I remember this day very distinctly - remembering the two candles tied together -sometimes with the red bow. Remembering as a kid you could finally get something up here in front of the church - not having received First Holy Communion yet.

As priest I have experienced that this ceremony of the Blessing of Throats has a great pull - and value - and significance.

One reason would be that  it takes place only 1 time a year - although in my life time the Church allows us to do this on the Sunday closest to St. Blaise’s feast day. To me it’s like Ash Wednesday and Palm Sunday. You’re getting something different.

Now - in my opinion - the Church has done some dumb things at times with regards changes - but it has not dropped this practice. I’m sure some purist would say it’s superstitious - or others would say it’s based on mere or sheer legend.

St. Blaise supposedly blessed a kid who got a fish bone caught in his throat.

I’ve heard stories of one or two people dying because of such a problem.

I’ve never given the Heimlich Maneuver. I thought it was interesting that  Henry Heimlich was born on this day - February 3, 1920. He could also be called the Patron Saint of Choking like St. Blaise. As far as I know, he’s not dead yet.  What’s wrong with giving both their due?

In preparing this homily,  I read that the Heimlich Maneuver has been downplayed a bit in recent years.  Other methods should be tried for chocking and drowned victims - like the 5-5 pushes -  into the back and then in the chest. They should also be tried. And I read that in 2003 a Doctor Edward Patrick said he would like to get co-credit with Doctor Henry Judah Heimlich for this procedure.

THROAT

I think about the throat - the front part of the neck. It’s an important bottleneck in the human body - connecting our head to our torso. 

It contains our thyroid and part of the thymus - amongst other things.

It’s contains the highway down which food and drink travel - giving nourishment to the whole body.

It contains the wind pipe - through which air comes in and out of our nose and mouth - going to and from  pass our lungs.

It contains our vocal cords - our voice box - which helps us formulate words - which help us communicate with our world.

SICKNESS BLESSING

We like this blessing because we know that in the colder parts of the northern hemisphere - during the winter months - we tend to get sick in the throat. We get the so called, “sore throat”.  We get laryngitis. We lose our voices.

So it’s a blessing that we can have our throats blessed at this time of the feast of St. Blaise.

As the commentaries say, “We know more about the practice of Blessing of Throats in the history of our church - than over knowing that much about Blaise himself.

I would think the blessing should be first of all to pray for healing of the throat - as the words of the blessing put it for starters.

I would think the blessing should be secondly to pray to have words of blessing to come out of our mouth and not cursing.

I like today’s readings.

In the first reading from 2 Samuel 15: 13-14, 30, 16: 5-13, David allows this guy Shimei to curse him up and down.  I love it when today’s reading has the following: “Abishai, son of Zeruiah, said to the king: ‘Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Let me go over, please, and lop off his head.’ As you know head chopping takes place right there at our neck.

And today’s gospel from Mark 5: 1-20 has this crazy guy yelling out - but he doesn’t curse Jesus. In fact, he’s one of the few who really knows who Jesus really is. I always think that in these early stories in the Gospel of Mark, that Mark is being cute and telling us: the crazies are the ones who know who Jesus really is, and the rest of us don’t. And Jesus heals him.

So a good second blessing is that for sweet words to come out of our throat.

And a third blessing could be that we have courage to speak up and strength when we do speak. I’ve noticed that nervousness shows up right here in our neck. Notice when speakers and readers are nervous they do things like touching their throats - or they go “ahem” or softly or roughly clear their throat. 

I would love to know if there is some research done on all this. Maybe it’s a primitive fear that people have about speaking up in gatherings. I wonder if it’s the basic fear that sometimes people got their heads cut off - literally or figuratively - for speaking up.

CONCLUSION

Amen. Let me close with the blessing words that go with this feast - words that every priest and everyone who has blessed throats has said thousands and thousands of  times down through the years and probably in their sleep.

“Through the intercession of St. Blaise - Bishop and Martyr - may you be free of any ailments to your throat and any other sickness. Amen.”