The Blessing of Throats . . .

Do you have the Blessing of Throats in your parish on the Feast of St Blaise? We do.

This tradition stems from the story of St Blaise healing a boy with a fishbone caught in this throat.

It made me think about these sort of traditions and devotions in general. It was interesting to note that when I started looking for some information to confirm my understanding of the feast and the tradition, I found a link to an article on the Blessing of Throats under the title, ' British Folk Customs'. What is the difference between a 'folk custom' and a 'religious tradition'? Where does tradition and/or custom end and superstition begin?

Fr Dwight Longenecker has a very interesting post on just this subject. You'll find it on his blog Standing on my Head.

I hope you all manage to get though the rest of the Winter free from throat problems.

May Day . . .

Tomorrow is May Day as we all know. There are all sorts of customs associated with the 1st May in England. I remember at primary school practising maypole dancing ready for the school May fayre and our own parish school still takes part in the maypole dancing in the local May Fayre with crowning of a May Queen, stalls, games, food and other fundraising activities.

They may not have particularly Christian associations but I think it's good to continue our local customs and we Catholics have the whole month dedicated to Our Lady so I don't think we can begrudge others one day to celebrate in a more secular way.

I was browsing for some good pictures of maypole dancing and came across this superstition associated with 1st May.

"First thing in the morning on May 1st, young girls used to rush out into the garden to wash their faces in the May dew.

Why? There is an old tale that says that May dew has magic properties and that anyone who has washed their face in it will have a beautiful complexion all through the year. This dew was supposed to be able to remove freckles and also spots and pimples."

I must remember to set my alarm clock a lot earlier tomorrow morning - I don't want to miss out on that. Mind you, I gave up worrying about my freckles a long time ago!