The Precious Blood of Jesus: The Price of Man's Salvation

One of the most beautiful feast days in the traditional Catholic liturgy is that of the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ. I say "traditional Catholic liturgy" because this feast day was suppressed in the new liturgy in 1969 by Pope Paul VI. Thus the month that the Catholic Church traditionally honours as the "Month of the Precious Blood" no longer even has a feast of the Precious Blood, which always used to be celebrated on July 1 every year, the Octave Day of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist. The rationale sometimes given for suppressing this feast day was that it was "unnecessary" because Corpus Christi already celebrates the Body and Blood of Christ. However, the focus of Corpus Christi is different than that of the feast of the Precious Blood. While the former focuses on the Blessed Sacrament itself, the latter focuses on the Precious Blood as the central cause of man's salvation. We are redeemed from sin and eternal death only because of the atoning Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, a Sacrifice which necessarily involved the shedding of His Sacred Blood.

In the Old Testament, God commanded that sacrifices be made in the temple of Jerusalem for the atonement of sins. Various types of sacrifices were prescribed, depending on the nature and gravity of the sin committed. Once a year on the Day of Atonement, the High Priest in the Temple would offer a bloody sacrifice for the atonement of the sins of all the people. Its purpose was to cleanse the temple and the people from all sins committed within that year. But daily, burnt offerings (known as holocausts) would be offered as well every morning and every evening for the same purpose. Every Sabbath (Saturday), a special offering would be made in the temple, also for the atonement of the sins of Israel. Monthly, and again on special festivals such as Passover, Pentecost, the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), and the Feast of Tabernacles, sacrificial offerings were once again made. Guilt offerings were made as needed whenever a specific sin was committed by an individual (such as fraud, deceit, or desecrating something that is holy). Furthermore, an individual who became aware of a specific sin committed personally or by the community, would have the temple priest make a sin offering (on top of the guilt offering) to make amends for the sin in question. In many such offerings — especially for the most grave sins — the sacrifice of an animal was required. In one particular ceremony, the priest would slay the animal on the altar in the temple and sprinkle the blood over the altar and sometimes even over the people. This is because, as the Scriptures say, and in accordance with God's Will, without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins (Heb 9:22).

St. Paul gives a fairly complete theology of this in the following passage (Hebrews 9-10). It is fairly long, but well worth reading and meditating upon in full:

Now even the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly sanctuary. For a tent was prepared, the outer one, in which were the lampstand and the table and the bread of offering; it is called the Holy Place. Behind the second curtain stood a tent called the Holy of Holies, having the golden altar of incense and the Ark of the Covenant covered on all sides with gold, which contained a golden urn holding the manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded, and the Tablets of the Covenant [the Ten Commandments]; above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat. Of these things we cannot now speak in detail.

These preparations having thus been made, the priests go continually into the outer tent, performing their ritual duties; but into the second [inner tent] only the high priest goes, and he but once a year, and not without taking blood which he offers for himself and for the sins of the people. By this the Holy Ghost indicates that the way into the sanctuary is not yet opened as long as the outer tent is still standing (which is symbolic for the present age). According to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot perfect the conscience of the worshipper, but deal only with food and drink and various baptisms [ritual cleansings with water], regulations for the body imposed until the time of restoration. [Note: This refers to the time of the coming of Christ into the world and the inauguration of the New and Eternal Covenant in His Precious Blood].

But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) He entered once and for all into the Holy Place, taking not the blood of goats and calves but His Own Blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for the purification of the flesh, how much more shall the Blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, purify your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

Therefore He is the mediator of a New Covenant [the New Testament], so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a Death has occurred which redeems them from the transgressions under the First Covenant [the death of Christ on the Cross]. For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established.  For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive. Hence even the First Covenant [the Old Testament] was not ratified without blood. For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, “This is the blood of the covenant which God commanded you.” And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.

Thus it was necessary for the shadows [foreshadowings] of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ has entered, not into a sanctuary made with hands, a copy of the true one, but into Heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer Himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the Holy Place yearly with blood not his own; for then He would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, He has appeared once and for all at the end of the age to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And just as it is appointed for men to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices which are continually offered year after year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered? If the worshippers had once been cleansed, they would no longer have any consciousness of sin. But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sin year after year. For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and offerings Thou [God the Father] hast not desired, but a body hast Thou prepared for Me; in burnt offerings [holocausts] and sin offerings Thou hast taken no pleasure. Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do Thy Will, O God,’ as it is written of Me in the roll of the Book.” When He said above, “Thou hast neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings [holocausts] and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), then He added, “Behold, I have come to do Thy Will.” He abolishes the first [the Old Covenant] in order to establish the second [the New Covenant in His Blood]. And by that Will we have been sanctified through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once and for all.

And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, He sat Himself down at the right hand of God [the Father], then to wait until His enemies should be made a stool for His feet. For by a single offering [shedding of His Precious Blood] He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. And the Holy Ghost also bears witness to us; for after saying, “This is the Covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,” then He adds, “I will remember their sins and their misdeeds no more.” Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.

In the above two chapters from the Epistle to the Hebrews, St. Paul explains that the sacrifices in the Old Testament only found their efficacy in the fact that they mimicked (or better yet, foreshadowed) the once and for all eternal Sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross. This is why they required the shedding of blood. However, he adds that it was not the blood of animals shed it these sacrifices that had any real power to atone for sin in themselves. The only real, bloody sacrifice acceptable by God the Father and that is capable of atoning for sin is the Sacrifice of His Beloved Son. And the feast of the Precious Blood of Jesus highlights this in a marvellous way.

The elimination of the feast of the Precious Blood from the Church's liturgical calendar after Vatican II was probably due to a shift in the theology of sin and sacrifice that occurred after Vatican II. The post- Conciliar liturgical reformers sought to eliminate systematically from the sacred liturgy (of the Mass, the Divine Office, and indeed of all the Sacraments) all the "negative" elements of Catholic theology that "no longer speak to the heart of modern man." Old-school concepts such as sin, sacrifice, atonement, and God's justice that calls for reparation, were all parts of a theology that the new liturgists largely rejected. Vatican II's desire to present to the world a more "positive" side of Catholicism led to the modification of a large number of texts, rituals, and prayers from the traditional Catholic liturgy, including the suppression of feasts dubbed "unnecessary," such as that of the Precious Blood.

However, to remove from the faithful the memory of the Precious Blood of Jesus by never celebrating it as a liturgical feast is to impoverish greatly the Catholic faithful's understanding of one of the most central aspects of man's salvation. As we saw in the above passages from St. Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews, there is no atonement for sin without the shedding of blood. In accordance with God's infinite Wisdom, Divine Justice can only be satisfied through the offering of a bloody victim, one whose shed blood both appeases the just wrath of God and provides forgiveness for sins. But the notion of God's Holy Wrath is, again, one of the concepts of traditional Catholic theology that the liturgical reformers of the last half-century found hard to accept — and thus eliminated from the contemporary liturgy.

The feast of the Precious Blood of Jesus is also a reminder to us Catholics to never take for granted at what great price our salvation was won. A single drop of the Blood of Our Lord would have sufficed to save mankind from its sins. And yet, Our Beloved Saviour chose to have not just one drop of His Blood spilt, but all of it. This shows that the love of Christ for the human race is not content to pour itself out for mankind in a minimalist way. Jesus did not say to His Father before His Passion: "What is the minimum that I have to do to save mankind." His love was maximal, without reservation, total and complete. By this, Our Lord teaches us that love cannot be limited or contained, as if it were possible to love too much. Love, by its very nature, is limitless and without bounds because it has its source in an infinite, limitless God. In the words of the Mellifluous Doctor of the Church, St. Bernard of Clairvaux: The measure of love is to love without measure.

One of the most beautiful images associated with the Precious Blood devotion shows Our Lord on the Cross with two Angels reverently collecting the Precious Blood that flows from His Holy Wounds into Chalices that they hold under the dripping Blood, lest a single drop of that Precious Blood be lost. The image is meant to show that the Blood that flows from the Cross from the pierced hands and side of Our Saviour is the same Blood into which the wine at Holy Mass is consecrated. Thus the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is shown to be the very Sacrifice of the Cross itself, and the priest at the Altar is the one who applies the merits of Christ's atoning death on the Cross to the faithful through the Blessed Sacrament that he consecrates.

In the Church's traditional calendar from before 1955, the Octave of St. John the Baptist (June 24 - July 1) was extremely well placed. This Octave ended on the feast day of the Precious Blood, in order to show that the entire life of St. John the Baptist points to the Sacrifice of Our Lord on the Cross. The Precursor of the Lord points to Christ, and specifically to Christ as the Lamb of Sacrifice who shed His Blood on the Cross for man's salvation, as the Baptist himself testified to when he said:

Behold the Lamb of God; behold Him who taketh away the sins of the world. -Jn. 1:29

Thus St. John the Baptist was the Saint chosen by the Church to have his feast day Octave end on the very day when the Precious Blood of Jesus is remembered and celebrated as a liturgical feast. This profound link between the life of St. John the Baptist and the Precious Blood of the Lamb of God is also highlighted within the Catholic Mass itself when the priest turns away from the Altar, faces the faithful, and says to them as he holds the consecrated Host suspended above the Chalice:

Ecce Agnus Dei; ecce qui tollit peccata mundi.

Behold the Lamb of God; behold Him who taketh away the sins of the world.

This month of July, as we meditate on the mystery of the Precious Blood, let us never forget to thank Our Lord for the witness of His faithful precursor, St. John the Baptist, who pointed others to the Lamb of Sacrifice. The role of the Baptist continues today through the Church and, as it has done for the last 2000 years, it continues to cry out in the wilderness of this world the truth that salvation can be found in none other than in the Precious Blood of the one true Lamb, Jesus Christ, the only Victim whose shed Blood suffices to bring about the redemption of fallen mankind, and his freedom from sin and eternal death. The Catholic Church is the true Bride of the Lamb. She is the new and final Precursor of the Lord whose mission it is to prepare souls for the glorious Second Coming of Jesus Christ and the great Day of Judgement.

I leave you with the beautiful Litany of the Precious Blood, which Holy Mother Church encourages the faithful to pray throughout the month of July:

Lord, have mercy.

Christ, have mercy.

Lord, have mercy.

Christ, hear us.

Christ, graciously hear us.

God the Father of Heaven, have mercy on us.

God the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us.

God, the Holy Ghost, have mercy on us.

Holy Trinity, One God, have mercy on us.

Blood of Christ, only-begotten Son of the eternal Father, save us.

Blood of Christ, Incarnate Word or God, save us.

Blood of Christ, of the New and Eternal Testament, save us.

Blood of Christ, falling upon the earth in Agony, save us.

Blood of Christ, shed profusely in the Scourging, save us.

Blood of Christ, flowing forth in the Crowning with Thorns, save us.

Blood of Christ, poured out on the Cross, save us.

Blood of Christ, price of our salvation, save us.

Blood of Christ, without which there is no forgiveness, save us.

Blood of Christ, Eucharistic drink and refreshment of souls, save us.

Blood of Christ, stream of mercy, save us.

Blood of Christ, victor over demons, save us.

Blood of Christ, courage of Martyrs, save us.

Blood of Christ, strength of Confessors, save us.

Blood of Christ, bringing forth Virgins, save us.

Blood of Christ, help of those in peril, save us.

Blood of Christ, relief of the burdened, save us.

Blood of Christ, solace in sorrow, save us.

Blood of Christ, hope of the penitent, save us.

Blood of Christ, consolation of the dying, save us.

Blood of Christ, peace and tenderness of hearts, save us.

Blood of Christ, pledge of eternal life, save us.

Blood of Christ, freeing souls from purgatory, save us.

Blood of Christ, most worthy of all glory and honour, save us.

Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world,

spare us, O Lord.

Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world,

graciously hear us, O Lord.

Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world,

have mercy on us, O Lord.

V. Thou hast redeemed us, O Lord, in Thy Precious Blood.

R. And hast made us a Kingdom for our God.

Let us pray.... Almighty and eternal God, Thou hast appointed Thine only-begotten Son the Redeemer of the world and willed to be appeased by His Precious Blood. Grant, we beseech Thee, that we may worthily adore this price of our salvation, and through its power be safeguarded from the evils of the present life so as to rejoice in its fruits forever in Heaven. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.