Bishop Anthony writes:
The inauguration of the Feast of the most Precious Blood of Our Lord, at the beginning of July, is due to Pope Pius IX who ordered the festival to be kept in the Universal Church in thanksgiving for the deliverance of the Apostolic See from the persecutions conducted against it by Italian republicans in the various Papal States – persecutions which lead to the Holy Father’s own exile from the Vatican until April 1850.
The Feast celebrates above all else the absolute saving power of the Precious Blood of Our Saviour Jesus Christ who died in agony on the Cross and washed away, by the shedding of that Blood, the myriad sins of all who truly believe in Him and accept his redeeming work. We Catholics must try to live in a sense of our perfect Absolution from sin through Christ’s most Precious Blood – that Blood poured out for us in agony on the Cross! Let us not keep this Divine Gift to ourselves but take it out, by our teaching and example, to the whole world. The Precious Blood is for everyone if only they will come to its fountain! JESUS offered His broken Body and shed for us His Precious Blood in unspeakable agony on the Cross. And that Body and Blood are, if we want it, our daily Eucharistic Food – the Food without which we have no life because He said so!
“He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in Me and I in him ... so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.” (St. John, Chapter 6)
To the Jews in Our Lord’s time this was outrage! To modern, unbelieving man it is meaningless! How can we drink another man’s blood? The answer, of course, lies in God’s interaction with us, His own creation. He made us ourselves as flesh, blood and spirit; and because He loves us so much He came Himself to be with us and, if you like, to taste of all the human sensations and experiences that He had Himself already given us – just by creating us. In eating and drinking JESUS we are eating and drinking GOD Himself because JESUS IS GOD as well as man. He shared our humanity but that humanity did not end when He returned at the Ascension to Heaven. He is still GOD and MAN. Put another way, JESUS actually left us HIMSELF – His Risen and glorified Self, but Himself nonetheless. And we eat and drink Him, whenever we receive Him at Holy Mass, at the hands of a valid Catholic priest, because He wants us to. It is indeed a mystery which we shall only fully comprehend when we are with JESUS at last and see Him face to face. |
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More wise words from Cardinal Manning on which we may like to meditate.
The fountain opened in the heavenly Jerusalem for the sin of man, is open day and night. Always full of power and grace, JESUS Himself is there, the Lord of all power. It is not the first, or one alone, who is healed, but all comers, and all sufferers from all lands and at all hours. And no man takes away another’s Absolution, nor does anyone need another’s hand to help him to go down into the pool of
THE MOST PRECIOUS BLOOD |
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The Collect for the Feast of the Most Precious Blood (July 1 st)
Almighty and everlasting GOD, Who didst appoint that Thine only-begotten Son should be the Redeemer of the world, and hast vouchsafed to accept His Blood as the propitiation for our sins: grant us, we beseech Thee, so to venerate in this solemnity the price of our salvation, that by its power we may be defended from all evils in this present life on earth and may rejoice in the everlasting benefit thereof in Heaven. Through the same our Lord JESUS CHRIST. +Amen+ |
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TIME’S PACES
When as a child I laughed and wept – Time crept.
When as a youth I waxed more bold – Time strolled.
When I became a full-grown man – Time ran.
When older still I daily grew – Time flew.
Soon I shall find,in passing on,Time gone.
O Christ! Wilt Thou have saved me then? Amen.
(a poem by Henry Twells inscribed on an old grandfather clock in Chester Cathedral) |
