The month of July (Overview - Calendar) 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."
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.
Millenia 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 Isaias 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 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
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
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.
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