Friday's in Lent

Immaculate Conception in Cleveland is making the Friday's of Lent a good place for Traditional Catholics to observe pious practices and devotions. The evening begins with confessions before a 6pm Latin mass. Stations and Benediction will follow.

Ash Wednesday Masses

The Ash Wednesday schedule of masses is below. We are reminded that it's a day of fast and abstinence. Also, though it is not a day of obligatory mass attendance, it's certainly a day of beauty and eternal truth concerning our mortality, and Catholics are encouraged to assist at Holy Mass.

Remember, man, you are dust; and unto dust you shall return.

6:50am Low Mass
St Stephen

7am Low Mass
Immaculate Conception

5:15pm
St Sebastian

6:30pm High Mass
Immaculate Conception

St. Blaise, Feb 3

The legend as given in the Grande Encyclopédie is as follows:

Blaise, who had studied philosophy in his youth, was a doctor in Sebaste in Armenia, the city of his birth, who exercised his art with miraculous ability, good-will, and piety. When the bishop of the city died, he was chosen to succeed him, with the acclamation of all the people. His holiness was manifest through many miracles: from all around, people came to him to find cures for their spirit and their body; even wild animals came in herds to receive his blessing. In 316, Agricola, the governor of Cappadocia and of Lesser Armenia, having arrived in Sebastia at the order of the emperor Licinius to kill the Christians, arrested the bishop. As he was being led to jail, a mother set her only son, choking to death of a fish-bone, at his feet, and the child was cured straight away. Regardless, the governor, unable to make Blaise renounce his faith, beat him with a stick, ripped his flesh with iron combs, and beheaded him.

7am Low Mass
Immaculate Conception

6:30pm Low Mass
St. Stephen

The Blessing of Throats will follow both Masses.

Article 1625 from The Book of Blessings contains a brief historical background of the blessing of throats:
“ Saint Blase was the bishop of Sebaste in Armenia during the fourth century. Very little is known about his life. According to various accounts he was a physician before becoming a bishop. His cult spread throughout the entire Church in the Middle Ages because he was reputed to have miraculously cured a little boy who nearly died because of a fishbone in his throat. From the eighth century he has been invoked on behalf of the sick, especially those afflicted with illnesses of the throat. ”
Details regarding the miraculous healing of the boy vary. One account relates that the miracle occurred during the journey to take Blaise to prison when he placed his hand on the boy's head and prayed; another that the miracle happened while Blaise was in prison when he picked up two candles provided to him and formed a cross around the boy's throat.
The use of candles for the blessing of throats stems from the candles that Blaise used while in prison. When an old woman's pig had been miraculously rescued from a wolf by Saint Blaise, she would visit him in prison, bringing him food and candles to bring him light in his dark cell.