A Sunday Thought to Start the Week Off Right
June was dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. culminating in our observance of the great solemnity of the Sacred Heart on the Friday following Corpus Christi. Now it's July, the month dedicated to Our Lord's Precious Blood.
Recognition and devotion to the Sacred Heart didn't begin with the St. Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690), but her writings inspired a generous increase in observation. The Jesuits, the largest of all religious orders in the Church, took this devotion under their wing and once enthusiastically promoted it.
Devotion to the Precious Blood, by contrast, has never been so well organized and promoted, but it's importance shouldn't be underestimated. We are all saved by His Precious Blood. His Love for us flowed through His Precious Blood, most profoundly expressed as He shed it to the last during His Passion and Death on the Cross.
On this first Sunday of July, I thought we could all take a few moments to think about how Our Lord's Precious Blood has touched us in our own lives. My own reflection brings to mind an acquaintance of mine, a writer of some renown. While we didn't speak at great length about religion, he described himself as a non-believer, although his background was Jewish.
This non-believing Jew taught me something about the Bible that I hadn't really understood well: the fact that it is great literature. In fact, he considered it the greatest. He told me he read the Bible all the time, deriving inspiration for his own writing. Just from his anecdotal comments and the few examples he gave, I realized his knowledge of the Bible ran much deeper than mine. As a result, I realized I had been reading the Bible mostly as "prescriptions" rather than literature. I re-doubled my efforts to read and study Scripture not so much as "rules," more as "reality." The world depicted in those ancient books came alive for me, thanks to him.
Over time this new approach to reading Scripture has helped me apply various passages to our contemporary world, and to my own life, in a much more natural, seamless fashion than I could before. Psalm 78 provides a recent example. I had been thinking about the relentless creep of secularism and paganism in our post-Christian world. These words jumped out as I read the Psalm:
These sacred words describe our contemporary condition so much more effectively than even the best articles in good Catholic publications. I think they serve as a good example of how great literature can express reality some much more clearly and convincingly than even the sharpest intellectual analysis. And the last two lines remind us that our current plight stems not simply from the work of the devil, or the misguided, sometimes evil intentions of those who would see God expunged from daily experience. Our fallen human nature, and the sinful lives that we lead, play an important role here. It reminds us of the importance of not only living "good" lives, but of striving to sanctify the very fiber of our being. To paraphrase St. Paul: We - each and every one of us - need to excise the "old man" and put on the new life of Christ. Any resistance to - never mind rolling back of - this creeping secularism and paganism must begin there.
Let's now connect all this with Our Lord's Precious Blood and the fact that my writer acquaintance was a Jew. By the grace of God, I recently read a comment that connected the Precious Blood with this writer, indeed with all Jews. The comment referred to the so-called "blood libel" in St. Matthew's Gospel. The Jewish crowd speaks these words to Pilate when the Procurator proclaims that Jesus is innocent: "His blood be upon us and upon our children." (Mat. 27:25) Historically, this has been interpreted as a curse of some sort upon all Jews. But the comment I read saw it differently. The author interpreted the words in light of the love and mercy contained in Our Lord's Precious Blood. And so those words could become a source of salvation for the Jews, rather than condemnation.
Now, I'm no theologian, so I can't vouch for this interpretation. And perhaps it doesn't hold water from the point of view of a Scripture scholar. But when you consider the awesome reality that we are saved by Our Lord's Precious Blood, it's certainly not an absurd thought, is it?
I hope we can all take some today and throughout the month of July to meditate on this awesome reality of the Precious Blood.
Recognition and devotion to the Sacred Heart didn't begin with the St. Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690), but her writings inspired a generous increase in observation. The Jesuits, the largest of all religious orders in the Church, took this devotion under their wing and once enthusiastically promoted it.
Devotion to the Precious Blood, by contrast, has never been so well organized and promoted, but it's importance shouldn't be underestimated. We are all saved by His Precious Blood. His Love for us flowed through His Precious Blood, most profoundly expressed as He shed it to the last during His Passion and Death on the Cross.
On this first Sunday of July, I thought we could all take a few moments to think about how Our Lord's Precious Blood has touched us in our own lives. My own reflection brings to mind an acquaintance of mine, a writer of some renown. While we didn't speak at great length about religion, he described himself as a non-believer, although his background was Jewish.
This non-believing Jew taught me something about the Bible that I hadn't really understood well: the fact that it is great literature. In fact, he considered it the greatest. He told me he read the Bible all the time, deriving inspiration for his own writing. Just from his anecdotal comments and the few examples he gave, I realized his knowledge of the Bible ran much deeper than mine. As a result, I realized I had been reading the Bible mostly as "prescriptions" rather than literature. I re-doubled my efforts to read and study Scripture not so much as "rules," more as "reality." The world depicted in those ancient books came alive for me, thanks to him.
Over time this new approach to reading Scripture has helped me apply various passages to our contemporary world, and to my own life, in a much more natural, seamless fashion than I could before. Psalm 78 provides a recent example. I had been thinking about the relentless creep of secularism and paganism in our post-Christian world. These words jumped out as I read the Psalm:
O God, the heathens are come into they inheritance,
they have defiled thy holy temple:
they have made Jerusalem as a place to keep fruit.
They have given the dead bodies of thy servants
to be meat for the fowls of the air:
the flesh of thy saints for the beasts of the earth.
They have poured out their blood as water,
round about Jerusalem
and there was none to bury them.
We are to become a reproach to our neighbors:
a scorn and derision to them that are round about us.
How long, O Lord, wilt thou be angry for ever:
shall thy zeal be kindled like a fire?
These sacred words describe our contemporary condition so much more effectively than even the best articles in good Catholic publications. I think they serve as a good example of how great literature can express reality some much more clearly and convincingly than even the sharpest intellectual analysis. And the last two lines remind us that our current plight stems not simply from the work of the devil, or the misguided, sometimes evil intentions of those who would see God expunged from daily experience. Our fallen human nature, and the sinful lives that we lead, play an important role here. It reminds us of the importance of not only living "good" lives, but of striving to sanctify the very fiber of our being. To paraphrase St. Paul: We - each and every one of us - need to excise the "old man" and put on the new life of Christ. Any resistance to - never mind rolling back of - this creeping secularism and paganism must begin there.
Let's now connect all this with Our Lord's Precious Blood and the fact that my writer acquaintance was a Jew. By the grace of God, I recently read a comment that connected the Precious Blood with this writer, indeed with all Jews. The comment referred to the so-called "blood libel" in St. Matthew's Gospel. The Jewish crowd speaks these words to Pilate when the Procurator proclaims that Jesus is innocent: "His blood be upon us and upon our children." (Mat. 27:25) Historically, this has been interpreted as a curse of some sort upon all Jews. But the comment I read saw it differently. The author interpreted the words in light of the love and mercy contained in Our Lord's Precious Blood. And so those words could become a source of salvation for the Jews, rather than condemnation.
Now, I'm no theologian, so I can't vouch for this interpretation. And perhaps it doesn't hold water from the point of view of a Scripture scholar. But when you consider the awesome reality that we are saved by Our Lord's Precious Blood, it's certainly not an absurd thought, is it?
I hope we can all take some today and throughout the month of July to meditate on this awesome reality of the Precious Blood.
Happy Sunday!
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