St Peter tells us (1 St Pet. i. 20) that the Precious Blood of Christ was ‘foreknown before the foundation of the world.’ From all eternity God had decreed that the Precious Blood of the Word made Man should be shed for us. Even before man had sinned, God had provided a remedy, and had determined that if man should rebel against the sovereignty of God, He would not cast the rebel off, but would redeem him from sin, even at such a price as this! How can we sufficiently admire the love and mercy of God, thus counteracting the effect of sin even before it was committed?
God’s foreknowledge of what was to happen did not effect the perfect freedom of the human will, any more than the presence of a spectator affects the freedom of those whose actions he watches. God determined that the Precious Blood should be spilt because He foreknew that man would sin, and He foreknew that man would sin because in His omniscience He foresaw that man acting freely would use his free will to disobey. Make an act of faith in man’s freedom and God’s foreknowledge.
When God looks forward to my life, what does He forsee? That depends on myself and my voluntary choice of good or of evil. What return does He look forward to from me for the inestimable gift of the Precious Blood? Am I going to grieve and wound Him Who from all eternity decreed that His Precious Blood should be shed to win for me the kingdom of heaven?
Our Morning Offering – 1 July – “The Feast and Month of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus”
Salvete Christi vulnera Hail, Holy Wounds of Jesus, Hail! Anonymous Latin Hymn, 17th Century
Hail, holy Wounds of Jesus, hail, Sweet pledges of the saving Rood, Whence flow the streams that never fail, The purple streams of His dear Blood.
Brighter than brightest stars ye show, Than sweetest rose your scent more rare, No Indian gem may match Your glow, No honey’s taste with Yours compare.
Portals ye are to that dear home Wherein our wearied souls may hide, Whereto no angry foe can come, The Heart of Jesus crucified.
What countless stripes our Jesus bore, All naked left in Pilate’s hall! From His torn flesh flow red a shower Did round His sacred person fall!
His beauteous brow, oh, shame and grief, By the sharp thorny crown is riven; Through hands and feet, without relief, The cruel nails are rudely driven.
But when for our poor sakes He died, A willing Priest by love subdued, The soldier’s lance transfixed His side, Forth flowed the Water and the Blood.
In full atonement of our guilt, Careless of self, the Saviour trod Even till His Hearts best Blood was spilt The wine-press of the wrath of God.
Come, bathe you in the healing flood, All ye who mourn, by sin opprest; Your only hope is Jesus’ Blood, His Sacred Heart your only rest.
All praise to Him, the Eternal Son, At God’s right hand enthroned above, Whose Blood our full redemption won, Whose Spirit seals the gift of love.
Office Hymn at Lauds on the Feast of the Most Precious Blood. (The Hymn is also used for Lauds on the Friday after the Fourth Sunday in Lent, for the Office of the Instruments of the Passion.) Translated by – Henry Nutcombe Oxenham (1829-1888) for whom I find little information.
One Minute Reflection – 1 July – “The Feast and Month of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus” – Hebrews 9:11-15, John 19:30-35 – Scripture search here: https://www.drbo.org/
“But one of the soldiers opened His side with a lance and immediately there came forth, Blood and water.” – John 19:34
REFLECTION – “Take thought now, redeemed man and consider how great and worthy is He, Who hangs on the Cross for you… Arise, then, beloved of Christ! Imitate the dove ‘that nests in a hole in the cliff’ (Jr 48:28), keeping watch at the entrance ‘like the sparrow that finds a home’(Ps 84:4). There, like the turtledove, hide your little ones, the fruit of your chaste love. Press your lips to the Fountain, draw water from the wells of your Saviour; for this is the spring flowing out of the middle of paradise, dividing into four rivers, inundating devout hearts, watering the whole earth and making it fertile.
Run with eager desire to this Source of Life and Light, all you who are vowed to God’s service. Come, whoever you may be and cry out to Him, with all the strength of your heart. O indescribable Beauty of the most high God and purest Radiance of Eternal Light! Life that gives all life, Light that is the Source of every other light, preserving, in everlasting splendour, the myriad flames that have shone before the throne of Your Divinity from the dawn of time!
Eternal and inaccessible Fountain, clear and sweet stream, flowing from a hidden spring, unseen by mortal eye! None can fathom Your depths nor survey Your boundaries, none can measure Your breadth, nothing can sully Your purity. From You flows ‘the river which gladdens the city of God’ (Ps 46:5) and makes us cry out with joy and thanksgiving, in hymns of praise to You, for we know, by our own experience, that ‘with You is the Source of Life and in Your Light we see light’ (Ps 36:10).” – St Bonaventure (1221-1274) Doctor of the Church (The Tree of Life, 29-30, 47, – Breviary)
PRAYER – Almighty, eternal God, Who made Thine Only-begotten Son the Redeemer of the world and, willed to be reconciled by His Blood, grant us, we beseech Thee, so to worship in this Sacred rite the price of our salvation and to be so protected, by its power against the evils of the present life on earth, that we may enjoy its everlasting fruit in Heaven. Through the same Jesus Christ, Thy Son our Lord, Who lives and reigns with Thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen (Collect).
Aspiration:Precious Blood, ocean of Divine Mercy, Flow upon us.
Why is the blood of Jesus called the Precious Blood? Because it was the blood of God Himself veiled under the form of man, and therefore every drop of it as it flowed through His sacred veins deserved our supreme homage, as being united to His divinity. Hence we can adore the Precious Blood as we adore the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and all else which belongs to the Sacred Humanity, with the supreme homage which belongs to God alone.
We also term it the Precious Blood inasmuch as it was the blood of One Who was not only full of grace, but was Himself the Source of all grace, so that the grace that dwelt with Him was infinite, and the grace that manifested itself through the veil of flesh had no bounds or limits, save those that the mere fact of His human nature carried with it. If, therefore, the blood of the saints is counted as most precious, if we treasure a piece of cloth stained with their blood, how much more is the blood of the King of saints precious beyond all price!
The Precious Blood is also precious on account of its effects. One drop of it was sufficient to not only cleanse the world from sin, but to earn all possible graces for all the millions who have ever lived on earth. How infinite then must be its preciousness! What has it not done for man! What has it not done for me! It has washed me clean and made me pure, in spite of all my sins. O Jesus! give me an ever increasing devotion to the Precious Blood!
1 July The Feast and the Month of the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ
Epistle to the Hebrews 9,11-15
11 But Christ, being come an high Priest of the good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hand, that is, not of this creation: 12 Neither by the blood of goats or of calves, but by his own blood, entered once into the Holies, having obtained eternal redemption. 13 For if the blood of goats and of oxen, and the ashes of an heifer, being sprinkled, sanctify such as are defiled, to the cleansing of the flesh: 14 How much more shall the blood of Christ, who by the Holy Ghost offered himself unspotted unto God, cleanse our conscience from dead works, to serve the living God? 15 And therefore he is the mediator of the new testament: that by means of his death for the redemption of those transgressions which were under the former testament, they that are called may receive the promise of eternal inheritance.
Holy Gospel according to Saint John 19,30-35
30 Jesus therefore, when he had taken the vinegar, said: It is consummated. And bowing his head, he gave up the ghost. 31 Then the Jews (because it was the parasceve), that the bodies might not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day (for that was a great sabbath day), besought Pilate that their legs might be broken: and that they might be taken away. 32 The soldiers therefore came: and they broke the legs of the first, and of the other that was crucified with him. 33 But after they were come to Jesus, when they saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. 34 But one of the soldiers with a spear opened his side: and immediately there came out blood and water. 35 And he that saw it hath given testimony: and his testimony is true. And he knoweth that he saith true: that you also may believe.
Saint Bonaventure (1221-1274)
Franciscan, Doctor of the Church
The Mystical Vine
They have not only pierced his hands and his feet but his side as well, and have opened up the inmost part of his most holy heart, already wounded by the lance of love. Oh how good and how pleasant it is to dwell in this heart! O my good Jesus, your heart is a true treasure, a pearl of great price which we found when we dug in the field of your body (cf Mt 13,44-45). Would anyone toss it aside? Rather will I give all I have in exchange, I will give up all my thoughts and desires to buy it, tossing all my preoccupations into the heart of my Lord Jesus and, undoubtedly, that heart will sustain me.
In his book, The Precious Blood, Father Frederick William Faber CO (1814-1863), calls St Paul ,the Doctor of the Precious Blood owing to his evident fondness of preaching on Ithis subject in his Epistles (Romans 3:25; Ephesians 1:7; Hebrews 9:12 et al).
He recounts that the lives of the Saints are replete with devotion to the Precious Blood making special mention of St John Chrysostom, St Augustine, St Gertrude and St Catherine of Siena, the last whom he considered the Prophetess of the Precious Blood for putting emphasis on It as the solution to the ills of her times.
Constant Prayer to the Precious Blood of Jesus By St Catherine of Siena (1347-1380)
Precious Blood, Ocean of Divine Mercy, Flow upon us! Precious Blood, Most Pure Offering, Procure us every grace! Precious Blood, Hope and Refuge of sinners, Atone for us! Precious Blood, Delight of holy souls, Draw us! Amen
Father Faber also remarks that the Precious Blood makes us appreciate more, Christ’s redemption of mankind, His sacrifice and Passion. It makes us comprehend too, the beautiful doctrine and the august realities of the Blessed Sacrament, as we kneel in front of the Tabernacle, in humble adoration.
Over time, the Church gave Her blessing to the devotion by approving societies like the Missionaries of the Precious Blood; enriching confraternities like that of St Nicholas in Carcere, in Rome and that of the London Oratory; attaching Indulgences to prayers and Scapulars in honour of the Precious Blood and instituting commemorative Feasts of the Precious Blood, Friday after the fourth Sunday in Lent and, since Pius IX, the first Sunday of July. St Pius X assigned the date of 1 July to this Feast.
July “The Month of the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ”
On this day, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus Christ. This Feast which had been celebrated in some Diocese since the 15th Century, on the Monday after Trinity Sunday, was extended by Pope Pius IX. over the whole Christian world and its celebration prescribed for the 1st Sunday of July. On the tenth day of August 1849, he instituted the Feast of the Precious Blood.
That most Sacred blood is the price of our Redemption and is poured out daily in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, whence it flows into the channels of the seven Sacraments, as an atonement for our sins and for our sanctification. For, as in Egypt, God was propitiated by the blood of the paschal lamb, the Type and Figure of the true Lamb of God, so He is propitiated by the Blood of His Son, the true Paschal Lamb which speaketh better than Abel’s. Herein is the strongest evidence of the Infinite Love of Jesus Christ, Who not only once but seven times, shed His Precious Blood amidst the most cruel sufferings, for our salvation. Let this seven-fold shedding of the Precious Blood be the subject of our present meditation. Amen – Cardinal Johann Evalgelist Zollner (1825-1900) Archbishop of Salzburg from 1890 until his death on 5 May 1900
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