Precious Blood Gems (August)
August 31, 2025
August 1. My Lord, since you have resolved to take human flesh, would not a single prayer offered by you be sufficient for the redemption of all men? What need, then, was there of leading a life of poverty, humiliation, and contempt, for thirty-three years, of suffering a cruel and shameful death on an infamous cross, and of shedding all your blood? I know well, answers Jesus Christ, that one drop of my blood, or a simple prayer, would be sufficient for the salvation of the world. But neither would be sufficient to show the love which I bear to men. (St. Alphonsus Liguori)
August 2. "I do no good . . . I always fall back into the same faults, my life is useless. Why am I not sad?" Dear Souls, were I not afraid of hurting your feelings I would tell you to be ashamed of such words!Does not the Blood of Jesus count? — that blood, which is offered up every day on the altar to purify your soul and to which you can unite your intention? (St. Peter Julian Eymard)
August 3. If you really grasped a great truth, that souls ransomed by the Man-God's blood are so precious that, even if every human being, past, present, and to come, were to spend, to save just one single one, every thing they have by way of talents, wealth and life, it would still be time well, nay admirably well spent. (St. Eugene de Mazenod)
August 4. It is without doubt very humiliating for the good God to come into our hearts, but it is to find there a soul that He loves, that He has bought at the cost of His Blood. (St. John Vianney)
August 5. The pure and holy vessel of the mystery receives and guards in its dimly shining depths the divine drops of the gracious, fruitful blood, which is sheer fire, sheer love. I had a further thought, an insight or rather, an intuition. The chalice represents the created universe. (Romano Guardini)
August 6 (Transfiguration) “Hear Him,” Who redeems the world by His blood, Who binds the devil, and carries off his chattels, Who destroys the bond of sin, and the compact of the transgression. (Pope St. Leo the Great)
August 7. Christ himself, the Messiah whom the Father has sent, is the living water which fills the well of his Church; his blood poured out on the cross is the healing water for man, made sick and blind through sin. (Aemiliana Löhr)
August 8. O my neighbor, I love you and cherish you for a thousand reasons. I love you because God wills and even commands me to love you. I love you because God himself loves you and because you were created by God in his image and likeness, and for the glory of heaven. I love you because you are redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ and because of the great sufferings Jesus has borne for you. (St. Anthony Mary Claret)
August 9. The world is in flames. Are you impelled to put them out? Look at the cross. From the open heart gushes the blood of the Savior. This extinguishes the flames of hell. Its precious blood is poured everywhere—soothing, healing, saving. (St. Theresa Benedicta of the Cross/EdithStein)
August 10. Reflect, O thou who passest here, how short is this life. Turn back, steer for the shore of Paradise, that thy bark may find harbour with the Saviour. Receive grace, thou who partakest of these holy mysteries. It is God, the supreme glory, light, wisdom, power, who at the Altar appears as wine, yet is in truth Blood. This miracle of infinite love flows from thy side, O Christ, Whence thou pourest also the waters of baptism to save our souls. (Inscription in the Baptistery of the Basilica of St. Lawrence; Rome)
August 11. How can man complain when he beholds Christ hanging on the cross and covered with blood? (St. Clare of Assisi)
August 12. Don’t stop repeating this brief prayer in your mind and heart: “Blood and wounds of my Jesus, be my strength, my support, my weapons in spiritual, moral, physical, and temporal combat. Be my victory, my merit, my virtue.” (Bl. Clelia Merloni)
August 13. Having blessed the cup in the Name of God, you received it as the antitype of the Blood of Christ. Therefore do not spill from it, for some foreign spirit to lick it up because you despised it. You will become as one who scorns the Blood, the price with which you have been bought. (St. Hippolytus of Rome)
August 14. God sends His only begotten Son, who with His life and His teaching shows them a clear and safe way. With His Most Holy Blood, which has infinite value, He washes away the dirt and heals the wounds. And lest the soul lose hope because of fear, for violating divine justice, God sends the One who is the personification of His love, the Bride of the Spirit of motherly love, the Immaculate, all beautiful, without stain (even though she is the daughter of a human being), sister of human beings, and appoints her to distribute generously his mercy toward souls. (St. Maximilian Kolbe)
August 15. Jesus Christ, who came into this world to teach us and save us, did not think of his Mother when it was a question of his office as Redeemer: he looked upon others only in so far as they concerned this work of Redemption. Those who cooperated with him are his brothers; those to whom his Precious Blood gives new life are his children; his Mother is she who is perfectly submissive to the will of his Father. (St. Claude del la Colombiere)
August 16. We so grow in love when we recognize God’s great goodness at work in us that we would rather die than transgress our dear Creator’s command. This holy trembling brings us to tremendous love, a love we draw from the fountain of the blood of God’s Son, which was shed for our redemption just to wash away the guilt of sin. (St. Catherine of Siena)
August 17. Contemplation does not ignore the 'historical Gethsemane,' does not ignore the mystery of evil, guilt and its bloody atonement. (Joseph Pieper)
August 18. In the midst of the shedding of so much blood by human hatred, by the greed to possess and the passion for honor, our Mother the Church desires that we look on that other blood, divine blood shed for love, out of desire to give itself, for the highest ambition of making us happy. The blood of hatred washed in the blood of love. (St. Alberto Hurtado Cruchaga)
August 19. Good works take their rise, gain strength and are perfected only at the foot of the Cross. Our Lord wills that we follow Him to Calvary, in order. to allow us to participate in the work of the redemption of souls which He effected by the shedding of His precious Blood. If you encounter trials suffer patiently and in silence, do not by your own fault lose the merit which God has given you the means of acquiring. (St. John Eudes)
August 20. We possess a double token of our salvation, the twofold outpouring of blood and Spirit. (St. Bernard of Clairvaux)
August 21. Christ founded [the Church], gaining it at the price of His blood, and made it the depositary of His doctrine and His laws, bestowing upon it at the same time an inexhaustible treasury of graces for the sanctification and salvation of men. (Pope St. Pius X)
August 22. The whole of Mary, and all the benignity of her queendom, and all the glory of her exaltation, and all the splendor of her graces, and all the mystery of her mother hood, are because of the Precious Blood. (Frederick Faber)
August 23. Jesus is "a Spouse of blood." He wishes for Himself all the blood of our hearts. You are right—it costs us dear to give Him what He asks. But what a joy that it does cost! It is happiness to bear our crosses, and to feel our weakness in doing so. (St. Thérèse de Lisieux)
August 24. Christ declared the cup, which is of the same creation as ourselves, to be his blood, and taught that it was the new offering of the new covenant. It is this offering which the Church has received from the Apostles and which, throughout the whole world, it offers to the God who gives us food, as the first fruits of his own gifts under the new covenant. (St. Irenaeus of Lyons)
August 25. True hope is only born from the Blood of Christ and blood poured out for him. There is blood which is the sign of death, but there is also blood that expresses love and life. (Pope Benedict XVI)
August 26. O Jesus, we implore you, and we shall always implore you, be pleased to grant us peace in our time; support the whole world with the power of your mercy, so that free from all sin men may be preserved from all evil; through the merits of your divine blood. To you be love, honor, and glory for ever and ever. Amen. (Pope St. John XXIII)
August 27. A widow possesses a perfect model of the manner in which she ought to comport and conduct herself during life. The Church, which I purchased by My blood and have established on earth, is My bride, I am her Spouse. Now, since My Ascension My bride has remained a widow because I am ascended up into Heaven. Nevertheless, I am with her and shall ever be with her by the Sacrament of My Love and by My graces, but I shall be with her after a visible manner only in Heaven. Now, My daughter, what does the Church do? She has her eyes constantly fixed on Me. Her heart is united to Me by indissoluble ties. She lives in the fidelity of the love she has sworn to Me, and she will persevere to the end. She is not attached to the perishable goods of this world. I am her riches, her all. She longs only for the moment when she will possess Me. She asks only for the eternal consummation of our union in the Kingdom of My Father. She passes on her way doing good. (Marie Lataste)
August 28. Once only did he shed the blood of one who was born just and needed no justification; once that blood had been shed the seducer lost his claim upon all his captives. Those for whom innocent blood had been poured out are redeemed, and released from captivity (St. Augustine of Hippo)
August 29. Age upon age rolled on, and the promise, still unaccomplished, gradually assumed certain developments. Each generation saw the Lord, by means of the prophets, adding some new feature to the characteristics of this Brother of our race; in Himself so great that the Most High would call Him 'My Son'; [Ps. ii 7] so impassioned for justice that He would shed the last drop of His Blood to ransom earth's whole debt. (Prosper Gueranger)
August 30. The New Testament offers only the one sacrifice of the Immaculate Lamb, whose precious blood flows for the effective purification of all the ages. (Bl. Ildefonso Schuster)
August 31. Through the sacrament of baptism you were made a temple of the Holy Spirit. Do not drive away such a dweller by your wicked actions and subject yourself again to servitude under the devil, because your price is the very blood of Christ, because he will judge you in truth who has redeemed you in mercy, Christ our Lord. (Pope Saint Leo the Great)