Nearing the Destination

Details: 23 April 2012

Blood

As our annual journey during the holy season of Lent nears its destination of Easter, the two weeks immediately preceding our celebration of the glorious triumph of our Lord are given over in the sacred liturgy to what is traditionally called "passiontide", a salutary and important opportunity to meditate prayerfully and thoughtfully on the shedding of Christ’s precious Blood in the horrible suffering and saving death that He underwent on our behalf. Passiontide should bring to mind the words in the Epistle to the Hebrews: "With blood almost everything is cleansed according to the Law (Leviticus 17:11), and without the shedding of blood there can be no pardon for sins" (Hebrews 9:22). The Old Testament and the Law of Moses contained many regulations and exhortations regarding blood. These, of course, were foreshadowings of what God’s providence had planned in the future. For instance, that same Epistle to the Hebrews beautifully tells us, "For if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkled ashes of a heifer sanctify the unclean unto the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the Blood of Christ, Who through the Holy Spirit offered Himself unblemished unto God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God" (Hebrews 9:13-14). Also conceptually linking the Old Covenant with the New are that Epistle’s proclaiming to us that the sprinkling of our Lord’s Blood "cries out to God more eloquently than the blood of Abel" (Hebrews 12:24; Genesis 4:10). In this matter Pope Benedict XVI calls the Epistle to the Hebrews "a great theological vision".

It is a true saying that "devotion to the Blood of Christ is the Christian’s response of love and gratitude to Jesus Who offered His Blood for mankind in His atoning sacrifice." Christ Himself spoke of It as the Blood of the New Covenant to be shed for many for the forgiveness of sins (Matthew 26:28). With His Blood He purchased His Catholic Church (Acts of the Apostles 20:28). His Blood is precious (1 Peter 1:19), and by It we are justified (Romans 5:9), cleansed (Hebrews 9:14; 1 John 1:7), washed from sin (Revelation 7:14 & 22:14), and redeemed for God (Revelation 5:9). Among the many saints, who found profound inspiration in meditating on the Blood of Jesus, were Saints Gertrude, Catherine of Siena, Gaspar del Bufalo, Mechtilde, Bonaventure, and Albert the Great. In our times, Blessed Pope John XXIII showed great devotion to our Savior’s Blood by approving the Litany of the Precious Blood for public and private recitation and by inserting into the Divine Praises (which are usually said after Benediction with the Most Blessed Sacrament) the phrase "Blessed be His Most Precious Blood". Blessed Pope John also, on June 30, 1960, wrote an Apostolic Letter (entitled in Latin "Inde a primis") calling on all the Bishops of the world to promote devotion to the most precious Blood of the Redeemer.

Old Testament

One of the primary "blood texts" in the Old Testament is found in the Book of Leviticus: "The life of a living body is in its blood" (17:11). Blood among primitive people was always seen as a mysterious substance. Living bodies have blood in them, but when blood is poured out, death follows. Therefore, God, condescending in His revelation to the often ignorant condition of mankind as He finds it, made blood and its significance in ancient times important in Hebrew cultic and moral practices. The fundamental principle was that life belongs to God and so blood too belongs to Him. God forbade men to eat blood (Leviticus 3:17), a prohibition that probably came from ancient hygienic concerns but which Moses made a religious precept. This part of the Kosher law was so deeply ingrained in Jewish consciousness that even at the beginning of the New Testament the early Christians were forbidden "to eat blood" to avoid offending the sensibilities of the recent Jewish converts (Acts of the Apostles 15:29). Also, anyone who sheds the blood of another human being (commits murder) must himself be put to death (Numbers 35:16-34 & Deuteronomy 21:8-9) according to the Law of Moses.

The Covenants with Abraham (Genesis 15:9-18 & 16:10-27) and Moses at Sinai were sealed in blood, in accord with Middle East practices in those times. For instance, Moses took the blood of a sacrificed animal and sprinkled it on the altar (representing God) and then on the people, saying "This is the blood of the Covenant" (Exodus 24:8). Then too it was the famous blood of a passover lamb on their doorposts and thresholds that saved the Hebrews in Egypt from experiencing the death of their first born (Exodus 12:1-30). In Jewish temple worship on the great feast of atonement (Yom Kippur) the Jewish high priest would enter the Holy of Holies with a bowl of animal blood, whisper the sacred name of Yahweh, and then proceed to sprinkle the propitiatory (the top of the ark) with the blood and also sprinkle the altar of holocausts and the altar of incense. The blood signified expiation, atonement, propitiation, and justification. That action was a solemn renewal of the Covenant and it restored or renewed the special relationship of the people with God. When the Jewish priests, the men physically descended from the family of Aaron in the tribe of Levi, would begin their ministry in the temple, in addition to being anointed with oil, their ears, hands, and feet were smeared with animal blood, to make them "holy to the Lord" (Exodus 29:21).

New Testament

Building on the symbolism of blood in the Old Testament, the New Testament tells us Christians the importance of the Blood of our Savior in regard to our destiny and our salvation. Saint Peter, our first Pope, says, "You know that you were redeemed from the vain manner of life handed down from your fathers, not with perishable things, with silver or gold, but with the precious Blood of Christ, as of a Lamb, without blemish and without spot" (1 Peter 1:18). Saint Paul assigns our redemption to Christ’s Blood. "In Him (Jesus) we have redemption through His Blood, the remission of sins, according to the riches of His grace" (Ephesians 1:7). The Apostle of the Gentles tells us we are justified by His Blood. "Christ died for us. Much more now that we justified by His Blood shall we be saved through Him from wrath" (Romans 5:9). Christ’s Blood gives us peace (Colossians 1:20), and it is displayed publicly as a propitiation for our sins (Romans 3:25). His Blood is the "great price" with which we have been bought back from the Devil, who from the beginning held all of humanity hostage (1 Corinthians 6:20 & 7:22; Acts of the Apostles 20:28).

Our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, notes that when the Roman soldier pierced the side of the already dead Jesus with a lance, at once there came out blood and water (John 19:34). That happened at the exact hour in which the paschal lambs were being slain in the temple in preparation for the Jewish Passover celebration. Since not a bone of Jesus was broken, just as those lambs had to have unbroken bones (Exodus 12:46), so "Jesus appears here as the true Paschal Lamb, pure and whole", an obvious reference to John the Baptist’s cry: "Behold the Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world!" (John 1:29). In passiontide, let that cry often be found in our hearts.