July

July 30th — The Precious Blood in Holy Communion. 1.  If in other sacraments the Precious Blood is morally applied to the souls of those who receive them, in holy Communion it is physically communicated to body as well as soul.  We have the wonderful privilege of being brought into bodily contact with the Precious…

July 29th — The Precious Blood in the Sacrament of Penance. 1.  The task of the Precious Blood in Baptism is a comparatively light one side by side with that which it performs in the sacrament of penance.  In Baptism original sin is washed away; in penance, actual sin.  The former cleaves to us through…

July 28th — The Precious Blood in Baptism. 1.  In Baptism the Precious Blood washes away from the soul of the new-born child, or of the adult who approaches the sacrament in good dispositions, the stain of original sin.  This privilege extends to all, whether within the Church or outside of it, who are validly…

July 27th — The Seventh Shedding of the Precious Blood. 1.  Even when the work of redemption was consummated, and Jesus had breathed forth His soul into His Fathers hands.  He shed once more His Precious Blood for man.  It was to mark the completeness of His sacrifice that He thus poured forth, as it…

July 26th — The Sixth Shedding of the Precious Blood. 1.  Not the hands alone, that did for man those works of love, but also the feet, that went about doing good, were pierced by the cruel nails.  It seems as if men were bent on requiting the very limbs that were employed for the…

July 25th — The Fifth Shedding of the Precious Blood. 1.  On the summit of Calvary, stretched upon the rough cross, with His arms extended along the cross-pieces which are to form the horizontal part of it, lies the Son of God, already wounded, covered with blood, exhausted by suffering and by His repeated falls…

July 24th — The Fourth Shedding of the Precious Blood. 1.  After the scourging the soldiers devised a fresh torture for the Son of God.  They wove of the spiny branches of the thorn a sort of helmet or crown of thorns, and put it on His head, pressing it down with their spears.  The…

July 23rd — The Third Shedding of the Precious Blood. 1.  When Pilate found that he could not persuade the Jews to consent to the release of Jesus, he ordered Him to be scourged, hoping that they might be satisfied with something short of His death, and that their rage might be softened at the…

July 22nd — The Second Shedding of the Precious Blood. 1.  It is said that those who have suffered an extremity of anguish have sometimes been bathed in a perspiration which was tinged with blood.  In the Garden of Gethsemani, Jesus was bathed in a sweat of blood which poured down to the ground.  Ah,…