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Author Topic: July Meditations on The Most Precious Blood  (Read 8288 times)

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Offline Binechi

Re: July Meditations on The Most Precious Blood
« Reply #25 on: July 24, 2017, 06:44:55 AM »
http://catholicharboroffaithandmorals.com/July%2024th.html



July 24th

The Fourth Shedding of the Precious Blood


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 long sharp thorns pierce through the flesh, and the Precious Blood trickles down over His forehead and fills His eyes, blinding Him, and causing Him fresh pain and misery.

This crowning of thorns was to atone for our proud thoughts, impure thoughts, uncharitable thoughts; the trickling blood, covering His sacred face for our wretched vanity and desire to beautify ourselves in the sight of men; the blinding of His eyes for our immodest looks, careless looks, looks of curiosity and pride. O, my Lord, how varied were the sufferings Thou hadst to undergo for my manifold sins!

Each form of suffering endured by the Son of God will have its own appropriate reward for His Sacred Humanity. As for each stripe a fresh ray of glory, for each insult a new song of praise from Angels and Saints, so the crown He will wear in Heaven will be glorious in proportion to the suffering and the ignominy of the crown of thorns. The same will be true of all His Saints. Every pang they have suffered for Him will have its own glorious recompense. So, too, all that we endure for Him will have a corresponding and appropriate reward in Heaven.
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Offline Binechi

Re: July Meditations on The Most Precious Blood
« Reply #26 on: July 25, 2017, 01:39:49 PM »
        July 25th

The Fifth Shedding of the Precious Blood


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 upon the way. Surely the executioners will be satisfied with the ordinary method of tying His arms to the Cross, and leaving Him thus to die. No; for the innocent, spotless Lamb of God, new tortures are in store. Huge nails are placed in the centre of His Hands, and, with cruel strokes of a heavy mallet, driven through His delicate, sensitive palms. The blows are struck; the Precious Blood gushes forth, and Jesus moans under the exquisite pain which thrills through every nerve.

O Jesus! How can we bear to see Thee thus wounded! Those Hands were ever stretched forth to do good to all, to heal sorrows, and cure diseases. They never did aught but good. How then can cruel men be so ungrateful, so barbarous, so impious as to requite Thee thus? O, may I learn to sorrow with Thy anguish, and, like Thy most Holy Mother, to join my compassion to Thy Passion.

Yet sad and strange to say my actions correspond but ill to the expressions of my sorrow. It is for the sins committed by my stretched-out hands that Thou are suffering; for my selfishness, unkindness, immodesty, anger, covetousness. How shall I compensate Thee for my share in this cruelty? O, show me how, and help me to do so.
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Offline Binechi

Re: July Meditations on The Most Precious Blood
« Reply #27 on: July 26, 2017, 07:48:24 AM »


July 26th

The Sixth Shedding of the Precious Blood


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 with evil the very limbs that were employed for the good of man. They not only hated Jesus without a cause, but they hated Him for His love to them. Such is man when he is in Satan's power. Such have I too often been; so ungrateful to God, rebelling against the means, which He employed to heal my soul and deliver me from sin.

What must have been the unutterable agony of those Three Hours during which the Sacred Body of our Lord was hanging with all its weight on the Wounds in His Hands and Feet! Who can describe it? The agony that racked each nerve, so that there was no sound part in His Body; the utter exhaustion; and, worst of all, the agonizing thirst that was the effect of the continual streams which drained His Sacred Body of the Precious Blood. Wo can imagine it? "Behold and see, all who pass by the way, whether there is any sorrow like to My sorrow?"

Yet these Wounds, inflicted by man's malignity, are now employed by Jesus as arguments, pleading for mercy for sinners at His Father's hands. O Jesus, when shall I forgive, as Thou didst forgive me? When shall I learn that it is a privilege and a glory to return good for evil, and so to resemble Thee?
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Offline Binechi

Re: July Meditations on The Most Precious Blood
« Reply #28 on: July 27, 2017, 07:20:35 AM »
       July 27th

The Seventh Shedding of the Precious Blood


Even when the work of redemption was consummated, and Jesus had breathed forth His Soul into His Father's 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 were, the last drop that still lingered in His Sacred Heart. It was a sign that He kept nothing in reserve. He proved His inexhaustible love to man by this last act, wherein which He bequeathed to man the last trace of life that still remained. O undying, unwavering love of Jesus, that loved us with an extremity of love unto the very end.

The water and the blood that issued from our Lord's side were the symbols of the two chief sacraments: the water, of Holy Baptism, and the blood, of the Blessed Eucharist. Thus it was that Christ is said, by this piercing of His side, to have laid the foundations of the Church; and as Eve, the spouse of Adam, was formed from the side of Adam, so the Church, the sacred Spouse of Christ, was formed from His side when the spear of the centurion pierced it. Pray for an intense love of Holy Church, on account of the love that Christ bears to His own true spouse.

The centurion little knew the meaning and import of his act when he pierced the side of Jesus. Tradition describes him as having some affection of the eyes, and the blood sprinkled upon him cured his sight in a moment. At the same time grace touched his heart, and he was converted. O wondrous power of the Sacred Blood of Christ!


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Offline Binechi

Re: July Meditations on The Most Precious Blood
« Reply #29 on: July 28, 2017, 07:47:58 AM »
July 28th

The Precious Blood in Baptism


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 baptized with water, if the words prescribed are used, and the intention on the part of him who administers it is to do that which the Catholic Church does in the baptism of her children. Thus through the power of the Precious Blood hundreds and thousands of little children are enabled to see the face of God for ever in Heaven.

It is not merely the absence of what is hateful to God that is the result of Baptism. The soul of the baptized child receives a share of all the perfections and graces won for us by the Precious Blood. It is not merely cleansed, but sanctified. It is not colorless like water, but red with the charity of which the Precious Blood is the sign and symbol. It is filled with all the gifts of the Holy Ghost; the virtues of faith, hope, and charity are poured into it. It is exceedingly beautiful in God's sight, for it has a supernatural likeness to Him.

This beauty remains in the soul of'all baptized persons until they commit a mortal sin. It goes on increasing with every action done for God. Nothing can take it from us except a deliberate or grave act of disobedience to His holy law. Pray for a continually increasing sense of the incomparable beauty of baptismal innocence.
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