Saturday, February 4

 

Great Balls of Fire


So, I got my throat blessed as I always do on St. Blaise's day. Two years ago I managed to get blessed three times in three different ways (once according to the Armenian rite, no less), but that's another story. Anyway, Father is about ready to lead into the blessing and he makes this odd deadpan comment about how we no longer use lit candles to bless throats, in these days of fluorocarbons and hydrocarbons. And we laugh. I assumed he was just being droll, but there's a comment on Jimmy Akin's blog suggesting they actually used to do this in pre-Conciliar days (scroll to bottom). With lit candles. Really. Huh. Fortescue doesn't cover this sort of stuff, and my copy of the '65 Rituale says nothing about lighting the candles.

How this ever escaped my usual eagle eye for Tridentine liturgical esoterica is beyond me. Anyone know anything about this? Is my leg being pulled? As wonderfully POD as it sounds, I can't help wondering they managed it without setting hair, clothes or mantillas on fire...
Posted by: Matthew / 1:53 AM
Permalink |  0 comments

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?