– July 1 –
The Most Precious Blood of Our Lord
Jesus Christ
History
The Feast of the Most Precious Blood
of Our Lord Jesus Christ was a feast included in the General Roman Calendar
from 1849 to 1969.
The feast, celebrated in Spain in the
16th century, was later introduced to Italy by Saint Gaspar del Bufalo. For
many dioceses there were two days to which the Office of the Precious Blood was
assigned, the office being in both cases the same. The reason was this: the
office was at first granted to the Fathers of the Most Precious Blood only.
Later, as one of the offices of the Fridays of Lent, it was assigned to the
Friday after the fourth Sunday in Lent in some dioceses, including, by decision
of the Fourth Provincial Council of Baltimore (1840), those in the United
States.
When Pope Pius IX went into exile at
Gaeta in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (1849), he had as his companion Father
Giovanni Merlini, third superior general of the Fathers of the Most Precious
Blood. After they had arrived at Gaeta, Don Merlini suggested that His Holiness
make a vow to extend the feast of the Precious Blood to the entire Church, if
he would again recover possession of the Papal States. The Pope took the matter
under consideration, but a few days later, on 30 June 1849, the day the French
army conquered Rome and the insurgents of the Roman Republic capitulated, he
sent his domestic prelate Joseph Stella to Father Merlini with the message: “The
pope does not deem it expedient to bind himself by a vow; instead His Holiness
is pleased to extend the feast immediately to all Christendom.” On 10
August of the same year, he officially included the feast of the Most Precious
Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the General Roman Calendar for celebration on
the first Sunday in July, the first Sunday after 30 June, the anniversary of
the liberation of the city of Rome from the insurgents. In reducing the
number of feasts fixed for Sundays, Pope Pius X assigned the date of 1 July to
this feast. In 1933, Pope Pius XI raised the feast to the rank of
Double of the 1st Class to mark the 1900th anniversary of Jesus’ death. In Pope
John XXIII’s 1960 revision of the General Roman Calendar, the feast was
classified as of the first class.
Dumped by Vatican II
The feast was removed from the
General Roman Calendar in 1969, “because the Most Precious Blood of Christ the
Redeemer is already venerated in the solemnities of the Passion, of Corpus
Christi and of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and in the feast of the Exaltation of
the Holy Cross. But the Mass of the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus
Christ is placed among the votive Masses.”
The Octave Day of St. John the Baptist
The Church unites on June the 24th in
one same glad celebration, the memory both of the Birth of the Precursor and of
his Circumcision, surrounded as it was by prodigies, related in the Gospel of
the feast itself. But, properly speaking, this is the day where on these
wonders were operated, according to the words of the Gospel: It came to pass
that on the Eighth Day the child was circumcised. By placing on the morrow of
this Eighth Day the celebration of Mary’s visit to her cousin Elizabeth, the
Church seems to insinuate, besides, that Our Lady, who had been staying in
Zachary’s house during the last three months, prolonged her stay and her tender
care of the infant and his mother up to this date. The babe that three months
ago, at her first arrival, had leaped as though fain to force the prison of the
maternal womb, seemed at the moment of his birth to spring towards her; she
received him into her arms, and pressed him to her breast wherein the Son of
God still lay reposing. She gave herself entirely to him during these eight
days; for she knew they would be the only ones in which the Friend of the
Bridegroom would taste here below, although without seeing him, the intimate
presence of him unto whom his whole heart turned. Save the solemn moment of his
Baptism, the sublime majesty of which would hold in subjection every sentiment
in the soul of the Precursor but that of self-annihilation and of adoration,
John is never to behold (excepting once or twice at a distance) the
Well-Beloved he has come to announce.
Profound mystery this of plan divine!
John is never to know the Bridegroom, never to enjoy our Jesus, save in Mary.
Nevertheless, even tomorrow must the farewell be; even tomorrow the desert is
to open before him; a desert of the soul, more terrific a thousand times than
that which affects the outward senses. His flight from the world to the desert
of Judea, far from being a trial to John, will be rather a solace to this
infant soul for whom earth was already too narrow.
In the wilderness, at least, the air
is pure, heaven seems ready to open, and God gives answer to the soul that
calls upon him. Let us then not be astonished that scarcely is John born than
he searches for solitude, and passes almost at once from his mother’s breast to
the desert wilds. There was no childhood for the man who three months previous
to his birth had attained, at one bound, to the plenitude of the age of Christ;
no need of human master had he whom heaven had undertaken to instruct, who knew
both the past and the future, in God, and whose own plenitude of knowledge,
transmitted by him to his parents, had turned them also into prophets. Better
far than Elizabeth had he entered into the meaning of Our Lady in her
Magnificat; even on this day he quite comprehends Zachary hailing him as
Prophet of the Highest, in the Benedictus: and from whom, save from the Word
Himself, could the Voice of the Word have received the science of language ?
Gifted with the full use of his will, what progress, on the other side, must he
not have made, in love, during these three months ! The Mother of divine grace
neglected nothing in the formation of this natural disposition so singularly
favored, where no obstacle opposed the full development of the divine germs.
St. Ambrose, whose exquisite delicacy has so wonderfully penetrated into these
mysteries, shows us John under Mary’s influence, exercising himself in the
several virtues, anointing his limbs like a valiant athlete, and essaying, even
from his mother’s womb, the combats which await him. The eight days which have
just elapsed for him in the arms of Our Lady have completed the work. His sweet
Mistress, whom he is to see no more, may even now be speak their meeting again,
in heaven, he at the left of her Son’s throne, she at the right, according to
the tradition of which Christian Art has made itself the faithful interpreter
up to our own time. Whilst awaiting for another six months the birth of the
Virgin’s Son, earth is meanwhile in possession of him who is the greatest
amongst all that are born of women. No human ken in its highest soarings may
touch the summits whereon this child of but eight days holds fixed the gaze of
his intelligence; no sanctity may stretch to further limits than his, the
heroism of love. Fully enlightened on all the bearings of the approaching
farewell, he will not shrink at seeing the Son and the Mother depart on the
morrow. Like the divine Spouse himself, he, the Friend of the Bridegroom, is
strong enough to have no other food than the accomplishment of the
Will of the Father who has sent them both. His soul, filled henceforth with the
memory of these days wherein his heart has been throbbing to the pulsations of
that of Jesus, whilst Mary has been clasping him to her breast, will, by its fidelity,
despite the distant parting, ever keep up between his own and these two Hearts
the sublime concert wherein, during these happy hours, the Eternal Trinity has
been listening for the first time to an echo, in the flesh, of Its own harmony.
Like to the sun-flower, friend of the day-star, which, without quitting earth
where on it is placed, keeps ever turning towards him its wistful corolla,
John, from the desert’s midst, will follow in heart and thought every step of
Jesus; but yet will he keep restraint upon his soul. With that eagle-glance of
his which heretofore espied him in Our Lady’s womb, he will behold him despite
all intermediaries, now a child, now grown up to man hood, passing by not far
from his solitude; yet never once will the impetuosity of his love carry him
away to climb the few hills then separating him from Jesus, and to throw
himself at his sacred Feet; never once will the zeal which devours him, the
Voice, the Witness of the Word, urge him to anticipate by one moment the hour
that Heaven has fixed for him to cry out to the ignorant crowd : Behold your
God, the Lamb that is to save you, the expected Messias! And when at last, in
the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, he manifests the Bridegroom at the
divine command, he, the great Baptist, is not the one to come nigh to Jesus,
saying: Master, where dwellest thou? nor is he the one that receives the
answer: Come and see! To others, yea, even to all others, the happy lot to
follow Jesus, to abide with Jesus: but as to John, he thrills indeed at his
blissful meeting; yet for his part, he keeps afar off, he disappears even until
that day, now fast approaching, when the prison of the adulterous Herod is to
become his grave. O God! cries out the gentle St. Francis de Sales, such an
example as this overwhelms my mind with its grandeur. Oh! what divine
abstinence, exclaims the Eagle of Meaux, in his turn, Oh! abstinence more
admirable far than all those other abstinences related of St. John the Baptist!
Let us, too, share with the Church in her admiring glad- someness, while during
these days she makes echo to Gabriel’s voice proclaiming at once the dignity
both of the Son of Zachary and of our Savior him self. Let us enter into the
enthusiasm wherewith so many fathers and doctors (hailing first of all Mary
blessed above all) are loud in their applause of the eulogium given to John by
the Word Himself.
The Liturgical Year – Dom Gueranger,
O.S.B.
MASS PROPERS
FEAST OF THE MOST PRECIOUS BLOOD
OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST
Double of the First Class – Red Vestments
Missa ‘Redemisti nos’
INTROITUS – Apocalypse 5: 9-10
Redemisti nos, Dómine, in sanguine
tuo, ex omni tribu, et lingua, et pópulo, et natióne: et fecísti nos Deo nostro
regnum. Ps. 88.2. Misericórdias Dómini in ætérnum cantábo: in generatiónem et
generatiónem annuntiábo veritátem tuam in ore meo. Gloria Patri.
INTROIT
Thou hast redeemed us, O Lord, in Thy
Blood, out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and hast made us to
our God a kingdom. Ps. The mercies of the Lord I will sing forever: I will show
forth Thy truth with my mouth to generation and generation. Glory be to the
Father.
ORATIO
OmnÍpotens sempitérne Deus, qui
unigénitum Fílium tuum mundi Redemptórem constituísti ac ejus Sanguine placári
voluísti: concéde, quǽsumus, salútis nostræ prétium (solémni cultu) ita
venerári, atque a præséntis vitæ malis ejus virtúte deféndi in terris; ut
fructu perpétuo lætémur in cælis. Per eúmdem Dóminum.
COLLECT
Almighty and everlasting God, who
didst appoint Thine only-begotten Son to be the Redeemer of the world, and hast
willed to be appeased by His Blood; grant unto us, we beseech Thee, so to
venerate (with solemn worship) the price of our redemption, and by its power be
so defended against the evils of this life, that we may enjoy the fruit thereof
for evermore in heaven. Through the same our Lord.
SECOND COLLECT – OCTAVE DAY OF ST. JOHN
THE BAPTIST
Deus, qui præséntem diem honorábilem
nobis in beáti Joánnis nativitáte fecísti: da pópulis tuis spirituálium grátiam
gaudiórum; et ómnium fidélium mentes dírige in viam salútis ætérnæ. Per
Dóminum.
O God, Who hast made this day
honorable to us on account of the birth of blessed John, grant Thy people the
grace of spiritual joys, and direct the minds of all the faithful in the way of
eternal salvation. Through our Lord.
EPISTOLA – Hebrews 9: 11-15
Fratres: Christus assístens póntifex
futurórum bonórum, per ámplius et perféctius tabernáculum non manufáctum, id
est, non hujus creatiónis: neque per sánguinem hircórum aut vitulórum, sed per
próprium sánguinem introívit semel in Sancta, ætérna redemptióne invénta. Si
enim sanguis hircórum et taurórum, et cinis vítulæ aspérsus, inquinátos
sanctíficat ad emundatiónem carnis; quanto magis Sanguis Christi, qui per
Spiritum Sanctum semetípsum óbtulit immaculátum Deo, emundábit consciéntiam
nostram ab opéribus mórtuis, ad serviéndum Deo vivénti? Et ídeo novi testaménti
mediátor est: ut morte intercedénte, in redemptiónem eárum prævaricatiónum, quæ
erant sub prióri testaménto, repromissiónem accípiant, qui vocáti sunt ætérnæ
hereditátis, in Christo Jesu Dómino nostro.
EPISTLE
Brethren: Christ being come, a High
Priest of the good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle,
not made with hands, that is, not of this creation: neither by the blood of
goats or of calves, but by His own Blood, entered once into the Holies, having
obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and of oxen and the
ashes of a heifer, being sprinkled, sanctify such as are defiled, to the
cleansing of the flesh: 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? 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, in Christ Jesus our Lord.
GRADUALE – I John 5: 6-9
Hic est qui venit per aquam et
sánguinem, Jesus Christus: non in aqua solum, sed in aqua et sánguine. V. Tres
sunt qui testimónium dant in cælo: Pater, Verbum, et Spíritus Sanctus: et hi
tres unum sunt. Et tres sunt qui testimónium dant in terra: Spíritus, aqua, et
sanguis: et hi tres unum sunt.
GRADUAL
This is He that came by water and
blood, Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. V. There are
three who give testimony in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost;
and these three are one. And there are three that give testimony on earth: the
Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three are one.
ALLELUIA – I John 5: 9
Allelúia, allelúia. V. Si testimónium
hóminum accípimus, testimónium Dei majus est. Allelúia.
Alleluia, alleluia. V. If we receive
the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater. Alleluia.
EVANGELIUM – John 19: 30-35
In illo témpore: Cum accepísset Jesus
acétum, dixit: Consummátum est. Et inclináto cápite trádidit spíritum. Judǽi
ergo (quóniam Parascéve erat) ut non remanérent in cruce córpora sábbato (erat
enim magnus dies ille sábbati), rogavérunt Pilátum ut frangeréntur eórum crura
et tolleréntur. Venérunt ergo mílites: et primi quidem fregérunt crura et
altérius qui crucifíxus est cum eo. Ad Jesum autem cum veníssent, ut vidérunt
eum jam mórtuum, non fregérunt ejus crura, sed unus mílitum láncea latus ejus
apéruit, et contínuo exívit sanguis et aqua. Et qui vidit testimónium
perhíbuit: et verum est testimónium ejus.
GOSPEL
At that time, Jesus, when He had
taken the vinegar, said: It is consummated. And bowing His head, He gave up the
ghost. 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. The soldiers, therefore, came: and they broke the legs of the first and
of the other that was crucified with Him. But after they were come to Jesus,
when they saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs
But one of the soldiers with a
spear opened His side, and immediately there came out blood and water.
And he that saw it hath given testimony, and his testimony is true.
OFFERTORIUM – I Corinthians 10: 16
Calix benedictiónis, cui benedícimus,
nonne communicátio Sánguinis Christi est? et panis, quem frángimus, nonne
participátio Córporis Dómini est?
OFFERTORY
The chalice of benediction which we
bless, is it not the communion of the Blood of Christ? And the bread which we
break, is it not the partaking of the Body of the Lord?
SECRETA
Per hæc divína mystéria, ad novi,
quǽsumus, testaménti mediatórem Jesum accedámus: et super altária tua, Dómine
virtútum, aspersiónem sánguinis, mélius loquéntem quam Abel, innovémus. Per
eúmdem Dóminum.
SECRET
We pray that through these divine
mysteries, we may draw near to Jesus, the mediator of the new Testament:
and upon Thine altars, O Lord of Hosts, may we renew the sprinkling of that
Blood which pleadeth better than that of Abel. Through the same our Lord.
SECOND SECRET – OCTAVE DAY OF ST. JOHN
THE BAPTIST
Tua, Dómine, munéribus altária
cumulámus: illíus nativitátem honóre débito celebrántes qui Salvatórem mundi et
cécinit adfutúrum, et adésse monstrávit, Dóminum nostrum Jesum Christum Fílium
tuum: Qui tecum vivit et regnat.
We heap Thine altars with gifts, O
Lord, celebrating with fitting honour the nativity of him who heralded the
coming of the Saviour, and pointed Him out when He had come, Our Lord Jesus
Christ, Thy Son: Who liveth and reigneth.
PREFACE OF THE HOLY CROSS
Vere dignum et justum est, ǽquum et
salutáre, nos tibi semper, et ubíque grátias ágere: Dómine sancte, Pater
omnípotens, ætérne Deus: Qui salútem humáni géneris in ligno Crucis
constituísti: ut unde mors oriebátur, inde vita resúgeret: et qui in ligno
vincébat, in ligno quoque vincerétur: per Christum Dóminum nostrum. Per quem
majestátem tuam laudant Angeli, adórant Dominatiónes, tremunt Potestátes. Cæli,
cælorúmque Virtútes ac beáta Séraphim, sócia exsultatióne concélebrant. Cum
quibus et nostras voces, ut admítti júbeas, deprecámur, súpplici confessióne
dicéntes:
It is truly meet and just, right and
availing unto salvation that we should at all times and in all places give
thanks unto Thee, O holy Lord, Father almighty and everlasting God. Who didst
set the salvation of mankind upon the tree of the Cross, so that whence came
death, thence also life might rise again, and that he who overcame by the tree
might also be overcome on the tree through Christ our Lord. Through whom the
angels praise Thy majesty, the dominions worship it, and the powers stand in
awe. The heavens and the heavenly hosts, and the blessed seraphim join together
in celebrating their joy. With these we pray Thee join our voices also, while
we say with lowly praise:
THE SANCTUS
Sanctus,
Sanctus, Sanctus, Dóminus Deus Sábaoth. Pleni sunt cæli et terra glória tua.
Hosánna in excélsis. Benedíctus qui venit in nómine Dómini. Hosánna in
excélsis.
COMMUNIO – Hebrews 9: 28
Christus semel oblátus est ad
multórum exhauriénda peccáta: secúndo sine peccáto apparébit exspectántibus se
in salútem.
COMMUNION
Christ was offered once to exhaust
the sins of many; the second time He shall appear without sin to them that
expect Him, unto salvation.
POSTCOMMUNIO
Ad sacram, Dómine, mensam admíssi,
háusimus aquas in gáudio de fóntibus Salvatóris: sanguis ejus fiat nobis,
quǽsumus, fons aquæ in vi- tam ætérnam saliéntis: Qui tecum vivit et regnat.
POSTCOMMUNION
We, who have been admitted to the
holy Table, O Lord, have drawn waters with joy from the fountains of the
Saviour; may His Blood, we beseech Thee, be within us as a fountain of water
springing up unto eternal life: Who with Thee liveth and reigneth.
SECOND POSTCOMMUNION – OCTAVE DAY OF ST.
JOHN THE BAPTIST
Sumat Ecclésia tua, Deus, beáti
Joánnis Baptístæ generatióne lætitiam: per quem suæ regeneratiónis cognóvit
auctórem, Dóminum nostrum Jesum Christum Fiiium tuum: Qui tecum vivit et
regnat.
May Thy Church, O God, be joyful at
the birth of blessed John the Baptist: through whom she knew the Author of her
regeneration, our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son: Who with Thee livest and
reignest.
