The Precious Blood of Jesus (Part I of II)

by Fr. Don Kline, V.F.  |  07/13/2025  |  Letter from the Pastor

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The month of July is dedicated to the Precious Blood of Jesus. 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. In 96 AD, Pope St. Clement I wrote: “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” (First Letter to Church at Corinth).

In his apostolic letter “On Promoting Devotion to the Most Precious Blood of Jesus Christ” on June 30, 1960, Pope St. John XXIII wrote: “You know well enough that your ransom was not paid in earthly currency, silver or gold; it was paid in the Precious Blood of Christ; no lamb was ever so pure, so spotless a victim. If only they would lend a more eager ear to the apostle of the Gentiles: “A great price was paid to ransom you; glorify God by making your bodies the shrines of his presence (1 Corinthians 6:20).”

“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" (Pope Pius IX).

In 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 so murdering his brother was his way of “solving the problem”. The 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.

In the Old Testament, we read that Israel is being oppressed by Egypt. God commands the people to kill a lamb and to sprinkle the doorposts with its blood; houses sprinkled with the blood are spared by the angel of death. But where the doors are not sprinkled with the blood of the lamb, all male firstborn from king to slave die. This blood on the doorposts points to 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 Enemy sees the thresholds of a human heart marked with Christ's sacred Blood, he must pass by. And another soul is saved. (Excerpted from The Church's Year of Grace, Pius Parsch).

To be continued…

God Bless,

Fr. Don Kline