The Blessing of the Throats
was celebrated at Our Lady of Lourdes Church on February 3, the
feast day of
Saint Blaise. He was a physician before becoming a bishop during the fourth century and 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.