The Month of the Precious Blood...

And more about some other matters.

Greetings all,

Sorry about falling behind again on my newsletter, the last two weeks have been unusually busy.

This week we enter the month of July, which is dedicated to the Precious Blood of Our Lord and begins quite appropriately with the Feast of the Precious Blood on July 1st. The Feast is of relatively recent origin, on August 10, 1849, Pope Pius XI placed the Feast in the General Roman Calendar on the First Sunday of July.

In reducing the number of feasts fixed for Sundays, Pope Pius X assigned the date of July 1st to this feast.

In 1933, Pope Pius XI raised the feast to the rank of Double of the 1st Class to mark the 1,900th anniversary of Jesus's death.

In Pope John XXIII's 1960 revision of the General Roman Calendar, it was made a Class I Feast.

The feast was deleted from the Novus Ordo Calendar in 1969, because, the explanation went, “the Most Precious Blood of Christ the Redeemer is already venerated in the solemnities of the Passion, of Corpus Christi, of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and in the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.”

It seems we had just too many feasts honouring Jesus, so we had to rein them in.

Of course, devotion to the Precious Blood of Christ is as old as the Faith. The salvific shedding of Christ’s blood was even foreshadowed by God in the Old Testament by the shedding of the blood of Abel, the sacrifices of Issac and Melchisedech, and most importantly, by the shedding of the blood of the lambs at Passover.

Tradition tells us that Our Lord shed His Precious Blood seven times:

1. The first shedding of blood was at His Circumcision

2. The shedding of blood in the garden of Olives

3. The shedding of blood at the scourging

4. Jesus shed His blood the fourth time when he was crowned with thorns

5. Jesus shed his blood the fifth time, carrying the cross

6. Jesus shed his blood the sixth time when He was crucified

7. The seventh and last time Jesus shed His blood was when His side was opened

If you’d like to read a fuller reflection on the sevenfold shedding of the Precious Blood, you’ll find an excellent one here:

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

The second matter I’d like to mention is our summer school. One of the principal comments I’ve received is that one month’s notice is simply not enough time for people to make themselves available to participate. This is a criticism that I can appreciate. One month’s notice is not bad for a single-day event, but a full week, with three hours of lectures might require a bit more lead time. So, I’ve decided not to go ahead with the summer school this year, and make plans for next summer, with reminders beginning in January.

That being said, don’t worry that we won’t have any opportunities for learning, something else will be starting in September, stay tuned for that in August.

Finally, I would like to offer another comment about appropriate attire for Mass. It continues to be an issue despite the sign I have placed in the church and the comments I made in my Corpus Christi homily.

First, for anyone who has not taken the opportunity to look at the sign, here it is:

Here also, are a few things to consider:

• Is what you wear to church something you would wear to a court appearance? At church, we are standing before the Judge of the Living and the Dead.

• Is what you wear to church something you would wear if you were invited to meet the queen? At church, you are in the presence of the King of Kings.

• Is what you wear to church something you would wear to a wedding? At church, you are experiencing a foretaste of the Wedding Feast of the Lamb.

• Is what you wear to church something you would wear to a funeral? Every Mass is the death of Our Lord on Calvary?

• If what you wear to church is something you would never wear to court, to a wedding, to a funeral, or to meet a world leader, you have more respect for man than for God, and that’s a problem.