Homily for the Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B
Brothers and sisters:
In Christ Jesus you who once were far off
have become near by the blood of Christ (Eph. 21:13).
July is popularly called the month of the Precious Blood. This is because the first of July is the feast of the Most Precious Blood of the Savior, which Bl. Pius IX established in the 1800s. This feast is found in the calendar of the so-called “extraordinary form” of the Holy Mass, and in some places also in the so-called “ordinary form.”
What do we understand by the worship of or devotion to the Precious Blood of Jesus? St. Paul in the lesson appointed for today clearly attributes a power to the Blood of Christ. What is this power?
After all, blood separated from a body is just a material substance, and it corrupts very quickly unless preserved under very careful conditions; it’s hard to see how it could have any real power by itself. Not only that, blood is also generally regarded with horror when shed or spilt, so that it is not uncommon for even grown men to be queasy or squeamish at the sight or even the thought of blood. I happen to know a man who is more than six feet tall and is a great athlete and truly manly in his demeanor but who becomes sick and faint at the sight of blood.
On the other hand, blood even when it has dried contains an almost unlimited amount of information about the person who shed it, so much as to provide science with all kinds of useful knowledge.
The root of the Church’s devotion to the Precious Blood of the Lord is very simple, but also mysterious and profound. It is essentially the mystery of the Incarnation of God taking to himself a human nature in its entirety: body, blood, and soul, along with his own eternal, divine Person.
Did you ever wonder about the Body and Blood of the Lord after the Savior’s death? The fact is—and it is a very important fact for our faith—that even though as a man Christ could undergo bodily death (that is, the separation of soul and body), and even though he did in fact undergo death, it still remains true that his divine nature (that is, his divine Person), never subject to death, was never separated from the parts of his humanity that were divided in death.
This means that the soul of Christ in death, his body in the tomb, and his shed blood were all united to the Person of the Son, the Word. Thus his blood was worthy of adoration, as it was poured out on the way of the cross and as it was taken up again in his resurrection.
Fr. Frederick Faber, in his great work of devotion The Precious Blood, which is still in print, expounds this doctrine at length in the line of the teaching of St Thomas. But the Church in our own time has approved the direct invocation of the Blood of Christ as to the Person of the Son in the litany of the Precious Blood promulgated by Pope St. John XXIII in 1960. Take a moment to pray this lovely invocation, and thus you will benefit from the closeness of the Lord, who has brought us near by his precious Blood!
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
Christ, hear us.
Christ, hear us.
Christ, graciously 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 Spirit,
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 honor,
save us.
Lamb of God, who take away the sins of the world,
spare us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, who take away the sins of the world,
graciously hear us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, who take away the sins of the world,
have mercy on us, O Lord.
V. You have redeemed us, O Lord, in thy blood.
R. And made us, for our God, a kingdom.
Almighty and eternal God, you have appointed your only-begotten Son the Redeemer of the world and willed to be appeased by his blood. Grant, we beg of you, that we may worthily adore this price of our salvation and through its power be safeguarded from the evils of the present life so that we may rejoice in its fruits forever in heaven. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.