Seventeen years ago, I was living in southern France for six months as part of my degree program. While I was there, I made a weekend habit of getting to know a lot of the small towns. One day in early March, my Canadian feet wandered sandal-clad into the black-basalt cathedral of Agde—no longer its own diocese but part of the Diocese of Montpellier—and slowly took everything in. I stopped before the little chapel of Saint Blaise.

At the time, I was in RCIA back in England. The half-year “on the continent” was a slight and unavoidable interruption to that experience. So, one of my many self-assigned tasks while in France was to find a confirmation name. That day in Agde, it found me.

Rather, he found me—my confirmation name saint, Blaise, found me. When I walked into that chapel, I’d never heard of him, at least not in any distinct way. When I walked out, I was stubbornly and inexplicably convinced that this was to be my saint’s name.

There’s no reasonable explanation for it. Although I had prayed in that chapel, I hadn’t had any extraordinary experience of prayer. The decorations were nice, but except to a newbie to Europe they were nothing to write home about. This was a side chapel in a cathedral that never regained its See following the French Revolution. There was no posted story of the saint’s life to entice me. Nothing in my determination makes any sense. But I had made up my mind.

When I returned to Manchester in August, I was informed that I would be confirmed and receive First Communion when the bishop visited on February 3^rd (and I was). At this point in the story, you’ll not be surprised to learn or be reminded that February 3^rd is the memorial of Saint Blaise.

What story’s in a name

As time has gone by, I’ve realized not just the miracle of that day in Agde, but the fact that God had a plan in giving me this saint’s name. It’s taken me ages to really figure out why. (Nobody ever said I was a quick study, only a thorough or occasionally profound one.) To an extent, that’s because there’s just so much to unpack.

One of the first things most people who know of Blaise realize is that he’s the longstanding saint of Ordinary Time. Of course, you could say that Christmastime ended many weeks back. But if its last day is Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation, then Blaise’s memorial is the very next day. He stands on the threshold of reminding us of absolutely ordinary life. No more counting days from Christmas. None yet to be counted towards Easter. It’s just ordinary. Blaise is the saint for the day after Jesus, Mary, and Joseph return home from the Temple. He’s one of those holy ones who point towards Nazareth. I certainly like Nazareth.

Of course, if you know that much about Blaise, you’ve probably also experienced or heard of the blessing of the throat (using candles and connecting the memorial to Candlemas). The origin of this is in the life story or legend of the Armenian bishop. When he was being taken from his refuge in the mountains to be martyred, he was presented with a young boy who had a fishbone stuck in his throat. Blaise healed him. Accordingly, Blaise is to this day associated with healing for all ailments of the throat—or ENT illnesses as we’d say today.

At this point, you should probably be wondering about why a bishop was hiding out in the mountains of eastern Anatolia and what he was doing there. In short, he left Sebaste because the small flock had scattered under persecution, and there was no one to tend to. So, like a forerunner of Francis of Assisi, he decided to chill with the animals and natural environment. I’m not kidding. There are abundant legendary stories of him talking to wild animals, healing them, just hanging out. The difference from the legends of Saint Francis is that Blaise is never preaching to them. He’s just there living with them—and them with him. In other words, there is even less of the proselytizing impulse, and it’s really a case of “who’s evangelizing whom” and “the apostolate of friendship”—with the community of creation.

The prophecy of contemplation

Now, you’re probably thinking how disparate all these elements are. You’re probably concluding from the disconnected nature of these stories that they’re extremely legendary and untrustworthy. They’re a mediaeval manufacture.

That may be.

But even if they are made-up or grossly exaggerated tales that don’t fit together as historiographical biography, they do point to something.

One of the most important texts to me is Querida Amazonia. I’ve said over and over again that it’s the charter of the relaunched CitM blog. Virtually everything that I focus on can be found in that apostolic exhortation. The part that I come back to over and over again, though, is this:

From the original peoples, we can learn to contemplate the [land/water] and not simply analyze it, and thus appreciate this precious mystery that transcends us. We can love it, not simply use it, with the result that love can awaken a deep and sincere interest. Even more, we can feel intimately a part of it and not only defend it; then the [earth] will once more become like a mother to us…

Let us awaken our God-given aesthetic and contemplative sense that so often we let languish. Let us remember that “if someone has not learned to stop and admire something beautiful, we should not be surprised if he or she treats everything as an object to be used and abused without scruple” (Laudato Si’ 215). On the other hand, if we enter into communion with the forest, our voices will easily blend with its own and become a prayer… (QA 55–56)

What we contemplate is beauty. Beauty is appreciated in love and knowledge and belonging. We can learn this from the First Peoples. The community of creation is a locus of Christian contemplation and one desperately needed today.

What I’ve rarely remarked, though, is that the section title for all this in Querida Amazonia is “the prophecy of contemplation.” The exhortation is big on raising a prophetic voice (QA 8, 19, 27, 46, 53–57, 95). There exists a certain exposition of beauty which is presented with an unignorable density. In Querida Amazonia, that is spoken of as prophecy. Poets of the natural world today, presenting it in all its goodness and suffering, are specifically called “contemplatives and prophets” (QA 46). There is a prophetic voice that arises from contemplation.

And isn’t that the message of the stories of Saint Blaise that I’ve recounted?

He lives with and learns from nature. That’s not where he’s preaching. No. That’s where he’s loving and knowing and slowing down and recovering and belonging.

He heals ailments of the throat. For those who cannot breathe, who cannot open their mouths, who cannot speak up, he is there.

The combination of these two elements is precisely the prophecy of contemplation.

The radiation of contemplation

Contemplation isn’t only communicated by speaking its prophetic power, however. I’ve always been clear on that around here. I think there is something really important in Christian reflection on the Transfiguration. What we contemplate with our heart gets manifested outwardly in the body. They aren’t two separate things, hermetically sealed off from one another. There is spillover. There is seepage. It’s not total. But it exists.

Well, one other key element of the story of Blaise of Sebaste is that, when he was on his way from the mountains to his death, the people looked at his face and found that it “radiated peace and gentleness.” There’s that word: radiation. The effects of the knowledge, love, and belonging of Christ push outwards, manifest visibly, draw the external world’s attention. There is a form of communication that passes without words, without distinct actions, for the words and actions that have formed inside and been enacted repeatedly have, over time, chiselled away at our exterior and made a pattern of it. The body is, to some degree, reformed. It’s metamorphosed. It’s transfigured. That can be seen. Something is communicated. This is another communication distinct from the prophetic voice. But it, too, is a contemplative communication.

Twofold contemplative communication

Bishop Saint Blaise is a symbol—whether historically accurate or just legendary—of the twofold communication of contemplation: prophetic voice and radiative transfiguration.

When the mouth speaks, it’s the prophetic voice of the contemplative, often rejected, sometimes accepted, usually well outside its time, but fully rooted in contemporary concerns, belonging deeply and disconcertingly to the true, the good, and the beautiful. God knows we need a healing touch to continue on this path, for treading it is not easy to the one sensitive enough to deeply know, love, and belong, to genuinely contemplate as Christians contemplate.

On the other hand, when words fall silent, the space between persons isn’t empty. It’s filled with a gesture, a posture, the lines of the face slowly adjusted by time and choice, the light of the eyes, a smile that uses those many muscles in a well-worn way. And outwards there radiates the metamorphosis of the body that contemplates Jesus, his members today, and his creation.

The story of Saint Blaise tells us both. Sure, he’s a healer of your cough, and maybe the yearly blessing from the priest is fun. But if we look deeper into his Acts, we find that he’s not just a martyr. He’s a witness to a whole theology of Christian contemplation, especially how it’s communicated to others.

Why in the world did I go to Agde that cool March morning, when I had a whole country and continent available to me on the train network and only six months to take it all in? I went there to learn, though pretty ploddingly, more who I am.

Image in header: Altar of Saint Blaise, Segovia Cathedral, Spain