The Most Precious Blood of Jesus

The Feast of the Precious Blood
by Fr. Johann Evalgelist Zollner, 1883


"Converse in fear during the time of your sojourning here; knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible gold or silver, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb unspotted and undefiled."
-- Pet. 1: 18.

On this day, the Church celebrates the feast of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus Christ. This feast, which had been celebrated in some dioceses since the fifteenth century, on Monday after Trinity Sunday, was extended by Pope Pius IX. over the whole Christian world, and its celebration prescribed for the first Sunday of July. The time of persecution and suffering had already begun for the Sovereign Pontiff. Compelled by a revolution to leave Rome, he repaired to Gaeta, in the kingdom of Naples, where he lived in exile for seventeen months, till April, 1850. Here it was that on the tenth day of August, 1849, he instituted the feast of the Precious Blood. That most sacred blood is the price of our Redemption, and is poured out daily in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, whence it flows into the channels of the seven Sacraments, as an atonement for our sins and for our sanctification. For, as in Egypt, God was propitiated by the blood of the paschal lamb, the type and figure of the true Lamb of God, so He is propitiated by the blood of his Son, the true Paschal Lamb, which speaketh better than Abel's. Herein is the strongest evidence of the infinite love of Jesus Christ, who not only once, but seven times, shed his precious blood amidst the most cruel sufferings for our salvation. Let this seven-fold shedding of the precious blood be the subject of our present meditation.

Offering of the Precious Blood

Eternal Father, I offer You the Most Precious Blood of Jesus Christ in Atonement for my sins, and in supplication for the holy souls in purgatory and for the needs of Holy Church. 

(500 days indulgence. An indulgence of 3 years if recited 

during the month of July) 


In The Liturgical Year, Dom Prosper Gueranger explains the centrality of the Precious Blood in the Mass:

The Blood of the Man-God, being the pledge of peace between Heaven and earth, the object of profoundest worship, the centre of the whole liturgy, and our assured protection against all the evils of this present life, deposits, even now, in the souls and bodies of those whom it has ransomed, the germ of eternal happiness; The Church, therefore, in her Collect, begs of the Father, Who has given us His Only-begotten Son, that this Divine germ may not remain sterile within us, but may come to full development in Heaven.

July is the month of devotion to the precious Blood of Jesus.

Ejaculation to be Said in Reparation for Blasphemies

Eternal Father, by the most precious Blood of Jesus Christ, glorify His most holy name, according to the intention and the desires of His adorable Heart. 

(Indulgence of 300 days. --Pius X, 1908)

How few there are who avail themselves of the precious Blood of Jesus to purchase their salvation!--St. Ignatius

“It is written: You shall be holy, for I am holy. And if you invoke as Father him who, without respect of persons, judgeth according to every one’s work: converse in fear during the time of your sojourning here. Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things as gold or silver, from your vain conversation of the tradition of your fathers: But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb unspotted and undefiled...” (1 Peter 1:16-19)

Through the veins of Jesus flows Divine Blood.

Heb. xii. 24: "But you are come to Jesus the mediator fo the New Testament,

and to the sprinkling of blood, which speaketh better than that of Abel."

Prayer of Petition

Lord Jesus Christ, who camest down from heaven to earth from the bosom of the Father, and didst shed Thy Precious Blood for the remission of our sins: we humbly beseech Thee, that in the day of judgment we may deserve to hear, standing at Thy right hand: "Come, ye blessed." Who livest and reignest forever and ever. Amen.

(ROMAN MISSAL: Indulgence of 5 years)