The
month of July is dedicated to the Precious Blood. The feast of the Precious
Blood of our Lord was instituted in 1849 by Pius IX, but the devotion is as old
as Christianity. The early Fathers say that the Church was born from the
pierced side of Christ, and that the sacraments were brought forth through His
Blood.
"The
Precious Blood which we worship is the Blood which the Savior shed for us on
Calvary and reassumed at His glorious Resurrection; it is the Blood which
courses through the veins of His risen, glorified, living body at the right
hand of God the Father in heaven; it is the Blood made present on our altars by
the words of Consecration; it is the Blood which merited sanctifying grace for
us and through it washes and beautifies our soul and inaugurates the beginning
of eternal life in it."
The Old Testament
Cain
and Abel are making an offering. Abel's sacrifice is pleasing to God, Cain's is
not. This gives rise to the sin of hatred, and fratricide is its resolution.
The thirsting earth soaks up Abel's blood as it shouts to heaven for vengeance.
This shouting prefigured the scene on Calvary, where Christ's Blood cried to
heaven for the redemption of mankind.
Millennia
pass, and now we see Israel oppressed by Egypt. God commands the people to kill
a lamb and to sprinkle the doorposts with its blood; houses thus besprinkled
are spared by the messenger of death. But where the doors are not reddened with
the blood of the lamb, all male firstborn from king to slave die. This blood on
the doorposts was a type of the Blood of Christ. Can the blood of a lamb save a
man? No, but as a figure of the Redeemer's Blood it certainly does. For when
the Destroyer sees the thresholds of a human heart marked with Christ's sacred
Blood, he must pass by. And another soul is saved.
In
a vision the prophet Isaiah saw a man treading out grapes (in the Orient,
trampling upon grapes in the wine-press was the usual means of extracting the
juice). The prophet asked the man: "Why are your garments so red?”The
wine-press I have trodden alone," he answers, "because from the
nations there is no one with me." The trodder of the wine-press is Christ,
His garments crimsoned by the Blood of redemption.
Excerpted
from The Church's Year of Grace , Pius Parsch
The New Testament
The
Church reminds us of the first drops of blood that flowed for our redemption on
the day when Jesus was circumcised.
It
is night on Mount Olivet, and the moon is shining. We see the holy face
crimsoned with blood during the agony in the garden.
Unhappy,
despairing Judas casts the blood-money down in the temple. "I have
betrayed innocent blood!"
In
the scourging chamber we see the Lord in deepest humiliation; under raw strokes
the divine Blood spurts out over the floor. Christ is led before Pilate. Pilate
shows the blood-covered Body to the crowds: Ecce homo! We go through
Jerusalem's streets following the bloody footsteps to Golgotha. Down the beams
of the Cross blood trickles. A soldier opens the sacred side. Water and Blood.
Excerpted
from The Church's Year of Grace , Pius Parsch
Symbols of the
Precious Blood
Adam
is sleeping an ecstatic sleep. God opens his side, removes a rib and forms Eve,
the mother of all the living. But our view transcends this action and in spirit
we behold the second, the divine Adam, Christ. He is sleeping the sleep of
death. From His opened side blood and water flow, symbols of baptism and the
Eucharist, symbols of the second Eve, the Church, the Mother of all the living.
Through blood and water Christ willed to redeem God's many children and to lead
them to an eternal home.
At
Jerusalem a service in Yahweh's honor is taking place on the Day of Atonement.
The high priest is making his annual entrance into the holy of holies to
sprinkle the blood of bucks and bulls upon the covenant in expiation for the
sins of the people. The Church shows us the higher meaning of this rite. Our
divine High Priest Christ on the first Good Friday entered that Holy of Holies
which is not made with hands nor sprinkled with the blood of bucks and bulls;
there He effects, once and for all, with His own Blood man's eternal
redemption.
A
finale. Holy Church transports us to the end. The heavenly liturgy is in
progress. Upon the altar is the Lamb, slain yet alive, crimsoned by His own
Blood. Round about stand the countless army of the redeemed in garments washed
white in the Blood of the Lamb. Hosts of the blessed are singing the new
canticle of redemption: "You have redeemed us out of every tribe and
tongue and nation by Your Blood."
Now
from vision to present reality. How fortunate we are to have divine Blood so
near to us, to offer it to the heavenly Father for the sins of the whole world!
Excerpted
from The Church's Year of Grace , Pius Parsch
The Old fulfilled
in the New Covenant
Sacrifice
is the highest form of religious worship which man offers to God as an act of
praise, thanksgiving, petition or atonement. The most singular
and pre-eminent sacrifice of the Old Law was the immolation of the Paschal Lamb
which celebrated the sparing of Israel's firstborn from the fatal sword of the
Angel of Death in Egypt at the time of Moses and Pharaoh.
The
imagery of sacrificial blood from slain animals is made more vivid and
meaningful if we recall Moses' words from the Book of Exodus, "And he
took the blood and sprinkled it upon the people, and he said: This is the blood
of the covenant, which the Lord has made with you concerning all these
words." (Exodus 24:8)
This
old sacrifice took a new form in the New Testament when the Immaculate Lamb of
God offered Himself on the altar of the Cross to redeem mankind from sin and
the slavery of Satan. And during the Last Supper, Our Lord offered Himself in
an unbloody yet real sacrifice when He uttered the following words: "For this is my blood of the new testament, which shall be shed for many
unto remission of sins." (Matthew 26: 28) Truly, this "shedding
of blood' or "pouring out of blood" took place and forms one of the
glorious mysteries of our Faith.
The Precious
Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ
Catholic
doctrine teaches the faithful that the blood of Jesus Christ is part of His
Sacred Humanity and hypostatically united to the Second Person of the Blessed
Trinity.
And
as such, it is worthy of adoration and veneration proper to latreutical worship
(cultus latriae) which is rendered only to God. In other words, we adore the human
nature of Christ because of its intimate and eternal union with the Person of
the Divine Word.
It
is for this same reason that we honor the Most Sacred Heart or the Wounds of
Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Devotion to the
Precious Blood
Devotion
to the Precious Blood is not a spiritual option, it is a spiritual obligation,
and that not only for priests, but for every follower of Christ. I really
believe that one of the symptoms of modern society (and I would even include,
sadly, modern Catholic society) one of the symptoms of a growing, gnawing
secularism is the lessening and the weakening of devotion to the Precious
Blood. Devotion, as we know, is a composite of three elements: It is first-
veneration, it is secondly- invocation, and it is thirdly- imitation. In other
words, devotion to the Precious Blood of Christ, the Lamb of God who was slain,
is first of all to be veneration on our part, which is a composite of
knowledge, love and adoration. We are to study to come to a deeper
understanding of what those two casual words, Precious Blood, really mean.
I
found this passage in the oldest document, outside of sacred scripture, from
the first century of the Christian era – to be exact, from Pope St. Clement I,
dated about 96 A.D. Says Pope Clement: "Let us fix our gaze on the Blood
of Christ and realize how truly precious It is, seeing that it was poured out
for our salvation and brought the grace of conversion to the whole world."
To
understand the meaning of the Precious Blood we must get some comprehension of
the gravity of sin, of the awfulness of offending God, because it required the
Blood of the Son of God to forgive that sin. We are living in an age in which
to sin has become fashionable.
This
veneration of the Precious Blood, which is the first element in our devotion to
the Precious Blood means that we have a deep sensitivity to the awfulness of
sin. Sin must be terrible. It must be awful. It must be the most dreadful thing
in the universe. Why? Because it cost the living God in human form the shedding
of His Blood.
Lord
Jesus, You became Man in order by your Passion and Death and the draining of
your Blood on the Cross, might prove to us how much You, our God, love us.
Protect us, dear Jesus, from ever running away from the sight of blood.
Strengthen our weak human wills so that we will not only not run away from the
cross, but welcome every opportunity to shed our blood in spirit in union with
your Precious Blood, so that, dying to ourselves in time we might live with You
in Eternity. Amen
Excerpted
from The Precious Blood of Christ, Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.
source: http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/overviews/months/07_1.cfm; https://www.americaneedsfatima.org/Our-Lord-Jesus-Christ/july-month-of-the-most-precious-blood-of-our-lord.html
As Mary stood at the foot of the Cross on which Jesus hung,
the sword of sorrow Simeon had foretold pierced her soul. Below are the seven
sorrows of Mary:
