FEAST OF THE MOST PRECIOUS BLOOD OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST
From the Liturgical Year - Vol.12 by Dom Gueranger
John the Baptist has pointed out the Lamb, Peter has firmly established his throne, Paul has prepared the bride; their joint work, admirable in its unity, at once suggests the reason for their feasts occurring almost simultaneously in the cycle. The alliance
being now secured, all three fall into shade; whilst the bride herself, raised up by them to such lofty heights, appears alone before us, holding in her hands the sacred cup of the nuptial-feast.

This gives the key of to-day's solemnity, revealing how its
appearance in the heavens of the holy liturgy at this particular
season is replete with mystery. The Church, it is true, has already
made known to the sons of the new covenant, in a much more solemn
manner, the price of the Blood that redeemed them, its nutritive
strength and the adoring homage which is its due. On Good Friday
earth and heaven beheld all sin drowned in the saving stream, whose
eternal flood-gates at last gave way beneath the combined effort of
man's violence and of the love of the divine Heart. The festival of
Corpus Christi witnessed our prostrate worship before the altars
whereon is perpetuated the Sacrifice of Calvary, and where the
outpouring of the precious Blood affords drink to the humblest little
ones, as well as to the mightiest potentates of earth, lowly bowed in
adoration before it. How is it, then, that holy Church is now
inviting all Christians to hail, in a particular manner, the stream
of life ever gushing from the sacred fount? What else can this mean,
but that the preceding solemnities have by no means exhausted the
mystery? The peace which this Blood has made to reign in the high
places as well as in the low; the impetus of its wave bearing back
the sons of Adam from the yawning gulf, purified, renewed and
dazzling white in the radiance of their heavenly apparel; the sacred
Table outspread before them on the waters' brink, and the chalice
brimful of inebriation--all this preparation and display would be
objectless, all these splendours would be incomprehensible, if man
were not brought to see therein the wooings of a love that could
never endure its advances to be outdone by the pretensions of any
other. Therefore, the Blood of Jesus is set before our eyes at this
moment as the Blood of the Testament; the pledge of the alliance
proposed to us by God, the dower stipulated by eternal Wisdom for
this divine union to which he is inviting all men, and its
consummation in our soul which is being urged forward with such
vehemence by the Holy Ghost.

'Having therefore, brethren, a confidence in entering into the Holies
by the Blood of Christ,' says the apostle, 'a new and living way which
he hath dedicated for us through the veil--that is to say, his
flesh--let us draw near with a pure heart in fullness of faith,
having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies
washed with clean water, let us hold fast the confession of our hopewithout wavering, for he is faithful that hath promised. Let us
consider one another to provoke unto charity and to good works. And
may the God of peace who brought again from the dead the great Pastor
of the sheep, our Lord Jesus Christ, in the Blood of the everlasting
Testament, fit you in all goodness, that you may do his will: doing
in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight, through Jesus
Christ, to whom is glory for ever and ever. Amen!'

Nor must we omit to mention here, that this feast is a moment of one
of the most brilliant victories of holy Church in our own age. Pius
IX had been driven from Rome in 1848 by the triumphant revolution;
but the following year, just about this season, his power was
re-established. Under the aegis of the apostles on June 28 and the
two following days, the eldest daughter of the Church, faithful to
her past glories, swept the ramparts of the eternal city; and on July
2, Mary's festival, the victory was completed. Not long after this, a
twofold decree notified to the city and to the world the Pontiff's
gratitude and the way in which he intended to perpetuate, in the
sacred liturgy, the memory of these events. On August 10, from Gaeta
itself, the place of his exile in the evil day, Pius IX, before
returning to reassume the government of his States, addressing
himself to the invisible Head of the Church, confided her in a
special manner to his divine care, by the institution of this day's
festival; reminding him that it was for his Church that he had
vouchsafed to shed all his precious Blood. Then, when the Pontiff
re-entered his capital turning to Mary, just as Pius V and Pius VIII
had done under other circumstances, the Vicar of Christ solemnly
attributed the honour of the recent victory to her who is ever the
help of Christians; for on the feast of her Visitation it had beengained; and he now decreed that this said feast of July 2 should be
raised from the rite of double major to that of second class
throughout the whole world. This was a prelude to the definition of
the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, which the immortal Pontiff
had already projected, whereby the crushing of the serpent's head
would be completed.