Precious Blood Gems (October)
October 01, 2022
October 1 One Sunday, closing my book at the end of Mass, a picture of Our Lord on the Cross half slipped out, showing only one of His Divine Hands, pierced and bleeding. I felt an indescribable thrill such as I had never felt before. My heart was torn with grief to see that Precious Blood falling to the ground, and no one caring to treasure It as It fell, and I resolved to remain continually in spirit at the foot of the Cross, that I might receive the Divine Dew of Salvation and pour it forth upon souls. St. Thérèse of Lisieux
October 2 You have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. Letter to the Hebrews 12:22-24
October 3 Why, in making us drink from the chalice of His Divine Blood, should He not pour into our souls that spiritual gladness which excites charity and sustains fervor? Bl. Columba Marmion
October 4 In this world there is nothing of the Most High himself that we can possess and contemplate with our eyes, except his Body and Blood. St. Francis of Assisi
October 5 O Jesus, continue to grant me Your divine life. Let Your pure and noble Blood throb with all its might in my heart. I give You my whole being. Transform me into Yourself and make me capable of doing Your holy will in all things and of returning Your love. St. Maria Faustina Kowalska
October 6 We must have a “sense” of Christ’s Blood, that Blood which He shed to the last drop for us, and which, through the Sacraments, especially Penance, continually flows over our souls to cleanse them, purify them and enrich them with the infinite merits of the Redeemer. Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen
October 7 The greatest joy that we can afford the Admirable Heart of Mary, all aflame with love for souls which cost the Precious Blood of her son, is to work zealously and devotedly for their salvation. St. John Eudes
October 8 This life has been given us to search for God, death to find Him and eternity that we might possess Him. After walking along a road, there comes the moment when we arrive at its end. The son finds his Father and throws himself into the Father’s arms, arms of love; and that they might never be closed, his arms were left nailed to the cross; enter his side, opened by a lance to signify his love, from which flows blood that redeems and water that purifies. St. Alberto Hurtado Cruchaga
October 9 He died for us all upon the Cross, that, if it were possible to save us, we might be saved. And He calls upon us lovingly, begging us to accept the benefit of His meritorious and most Precious Blood. St. John Henry Newman
October 10 My God! Always crosses! But when Jesus gives us the Cross he loves us; all these crosses weigh terribly on my heart; but they also increase its strength and courage in fighting the Lord’s battles, because God’s works have always been born and grown like this; the Church was founded in the blood of the God-Man, and of the Apostles and Martyrs; all the Catholic Missions in the world which have borne fruit have developed in the image of the Church, and thus they have prospered, thus they have grown strong, thus they have made progress, in the midst of deaths, of sacrifice and in the shade of the saving tree of the Cross. St. Daniel Comboni
October 11 Unlimited is the effectiveness of the God-Man’s Blood — just as unlimited as the love that impelled him to pour it out for us, first at his circumcision eight days after birth, and more profusely later on in his agony in the garden, in his scourging and crowning with thorns, in his climb to Calvary and crucifixion, and finally from out that great wide wound in his side which symbolizes the divine Blood cascading down into all the Church’s sacraments. Such surpassing love suggests, nay demands, that everyone reborn in the torrents of that Blood adore it with grateful love. Pope St. John XXIII
October 12 Can you expect to go to Heaven for nothing? Did not our dear Savior track the whole way to it with His Blood and tears? St. Elizabeth Ann Seton
October 13 Every one of our neighbors is in God’s bosom, is a creature of God, and made in the image of the Holy Trinity. As believers, they are members of the body of Holy Church, whose head is Jesus Christ; and adopted child of God, purchased and sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ; a temple of the Holy Spirit, heir of Paradise, companion of the Angels and Saints, our brother or sister and table companion in the Church militant on earth, and then of the Church triumphant in Heaven. Bl. Gennaro Maria Sarnelli
October 14 The Redeemer’s Side was pierced on Mount Calvary and from it flowed His Precious Blood running like a torrent in flood through the centuries to cleanse men’s consciences, expiate their sins, impart to them the treasures of salvation. Ven. Pope Pius XII
October 15 All that we can do is utterly worthless in comparison with one drop of blood out of those which our Lord shed for us. St. Teresa of Avila
October 16 My continual prayers, communions, and so on, are always on behalf of poor sinners, offering them to God in the precious blood of Christ. St. Gerard Majella
October 17 I hunger for the bread of God, the flesh of Jesus Christ ….I long to drink of his blood, the gift of unending love. St. Ignatius of Antioch
October 18 Sometimes let us stir up in ourselves compunction for our sins, which were the cause of his great sufferings. Sometimes let us kindle in our souls an ardent affection, considering his great affection towards us, which upon the cross he declared and manifested to the whole world. And the benefit which he bestowed upon us in his passion, because he bought us with the inestimable price of his precious blood, of which only, we reap the benefit and commodity. St. Peter of Alcantara
October 19 When you are alone in your room, take your crucifix, kiss its five wounds reverently, tell it to preach to you a little sermon, and then listen to the words of eternal life that it speaks to your heart; listen to the pleading of the thorns, the nails, the precious Blood. Oh, what an eloquent sermon! St. Paul of the Cross
October 20 Had there been no cross, Christ could not have been crucified. Had there been no cross, life itself could not have been nailed to the tree. And if life had not been nailed to it, There would be no streams of immortality pouring from Christ’s side, blood and water for the world’s cleansing. St. Andrew of Crete
October 21 With what riches devotion to the Most Precious Blood adorns the soul! St. Gaspar del Bufalo
October 22 How can we not recognize repeatedly the value of every human being when, for each one, without distinction, Christ has shed His blood? Pope St. John Paul II
October 23 Because God’s glory shines through most brightly in the salvation of the souls that Christ redeemed with his own blood, let it be the chief concern of the apostolic life to bring salvation and an increase in holiness to as many souls as possible. St. Maximilian Kolbe
October 24 My neighbor, I love and cherish you for a thousand reasons. I love you because God wants me to love you; because God commands me to love you; because God himself loves you. I love you because God has created you in his image for the life of heaven. I love you because you have been ransomed by the blood of Jesus Christ. St. Anthony Mary Claret
October 25 The wine of Christ’s blood, drawn from the many grapes of the vineyard that he had planted, is extracted in the wine-press of the cross. When people receive it with believing hearts, like capacious wineskins, it ferments within them by its own power. St. Gaudentius of Brescia
October 26 I will glory not because I am righteous but because I am redeemed; I will glory not because I am free from sins but because my sins are forgiven me. I will not glory because I have done good nor because someone has done good to me but because Christ is my advocate with the Father and because the blood of Christ has been shed for me. St. Ambrose of Milan
October 27 To create the world cost God nothing; to save it from sin cost His Life Blood. Ven. Fulton Sheen
October 28 The apostolate does not come from a purely natural impulse to action, but is the fruit of a solid interior formation: it is the necessary expansion of an intense love of Jesus Christ and of souls redeemed by His Precious Blood, which is actuated by studying to imitate His life of prayer, of sacrifice, of inextinguishable zeal. Pope Pius XI
October 29 Let us contemplate with the eyes of our heart, Jesus, that is, our Saviour, the Lamb without spot, how He bore therein all our sins; how heavily, all alone, He trod the wine-press, that like the grape that is pressed with all care, He, too, might be pressed in the wine-press of His Passion, and might pour upon us richly, and give us to drink, the red wine of His precious Blood, so as to make us drunk with His love. Johannes Tauler
October 30 All things must be dipped in the blood of Christ and brought back into the Father by the mediation of the Son himself; just as the Father does everything through the Son, so must the flowing back match the flowing out. Meister Eckhart
October 31 The Blood of the Man-God being the pledge of peace between heaven and earth, the object of profoundest worship, yea, itself the very center of the whole Liturgy, and our assured protection against all the evils of this present life, deposits, even now, in the souls and bodies of those whom it has ransomed, the germ of eternal happiness. Dom Prosper Guaranger