April 1. Christ was led forth like a lamb; he was slaughtered like a sheep. He ransomed us from our servitude to the world, as he had ransomed Israel from the land of Egypt; he freed us from our slavery to the devil, as he had freed Israel from the hand of Pharaoh. He sealed our souls with his own Spirit, and the members of our body with his own blood.  St. Melito of Sardis

 

April 2 (Palm Sunday)  Name Jesus often, and invoke the aid of his passion, and implore him by his sufferings, and by his precious blood, and by his death on the cross. Fly into his wounds; creep into them with thy thought. They are all open. Ancren Rule

 

April 3. We begin the holy week of the great Easter in which, my beloved brethren, we should use more prolonged prayers, and fastings, and watchings, that we may be enabled to anoint our lintels with precious blood, and to escape the destroyer.  St. Athanasius of Alexandria

 

April 4. As we prepare to celebrate that greatest of all mysteries, by which the blood of Jesus Christ did away with our sins, let us first of all make ready the sacrificial offerings of works of mercy.  Pope St. Leo the Great

 

April 5  What is "the sprinkling of blood"? A lamb was slain in every household, and the blood was smeared on the door-posts, and this was a means of warding off the Egyptian destruction If then the blood of a lamb preserved the Jews unhurt in the midst of the Egyptians, and under so great a destruction, much more will the blood of Christ save us, who have had it sprinkled not on the door-posts, but in our souls.  St. John Chrysostom

 

April 6 (Holy Thursday). O charity of the Beloved! O love of the Bridegroom for his Bride the Church! His own blood, which on the morrow he must shed for her by the hands of unbelievers, today he offered her by his own most holy hands.  St. Anthony of Padua

 

April 7 (Good Friday)  Let us accept anything for the Word’s sake. By sufferings let us imitate His Passion: by our blood let us reverence His Blood: let us gladly mount upon the Cross. Sweet are the nails, though they be very painful. For to suffer with Christ and for Christ is better than a life of ease with others. St. Gregory Nazianzen

 

 

Sleep’st Thou indeed? or is thy spirit fled,  

At large among the dead?  

Whether in Eden bowers thy welcome voice  

Wake Abraham to rejoice,  

Or in some drearier scene thine eye controuls  

The thronging band of souls;  

That, as thy blood won earth, thine agony  

Might set the shadowy realm from sin and sorrow free. 

 

When tears are spent, and Thou art left alone  

With ghosts of blessings gone,  

Think thou art taken from the cross, and laid  

In JESUS’ burial shade;  

Take Moses’ rod, the rod of prayer, and call  

Out of the rocky wall  

The fount of holy blood; and lift on high  

Thy grovelling soul that feels so desolate and dry.  John Keble

 

April 9 (Easter Sunday)  The joyful mystery which is Easter has a meaning which affects every single Christian person. It affects us in the innermost sanctuary of our spiritual life. It gives us power to become like the Risen Christ. Easter is for all a mystery of death and life. As the clearly expressed commandment of the Church teaches, all of us are urged at this particular time to purify our conscience by confessing our sins and bathing in the Blood of Jesus. We are called to draw near to the Eucharistic feast and to do it with great faith. We are invited to nourish ourselves with the life-giving flesh of the Lamb of God. This illustrates just how the feast of Easter is an experience of the mystery of death and resurrection for all believers and for each of us personally. Pope St. John XXIII

 

April 10  My wish is that all of us, after these days of grace, will have the courage, yes, the courage, to walk in the presence of the Lord, with the Lord’s Cross; to build the Church on the Lord’s blood which was poured out on the Cross; and to profess the one glory: Christ crucified. And in this way, the Church will go forward. Pope Francis

 

April 11  “Do you see this cross, these thorns, these nails, these bruises, these tears, these wounds, this blood? They are all works of love; of infinite love. Do you see how much I have loved you? Do you really want to love Me? Then first learn how to suffer. It is by suffering that one learns how to love.”  St. Gemma Galgani

 

April 12. Both priest and (Carmelite) sister offer a host of holocaust for the salvation of the world. A Sister sanctifies herself, that by being more united to God, the blood of the Divine Prisoner which she receives in her soul might circulate through the other members of Christ's Body.  St. Teresa of the Andes

 

April 13  On what principle did the Blood of his Only begotten Son delight the Father, who would not receive even Isaac, when he was being offered by his father, but changed the sacrifice, putting a ram in the place of the human victim (Gen. 22:11)? Is it not evident that the Father accepts him, but neither asked for him nor demanded him; but on account of the Incarnation, and because Humanity must be sanctified by the Humanity of God, that he might deliver us himself, and overcome the tyrant, and draw us to himself by the mediation of His Son, who also arranged this to the honour of the Father, whom it is manifest that he obeys in all things? St. Gregory Nazianzen

 

April 14   Behold and see the virtue of this precious plenty of his dearworthy blood! It descended down into hell and burst their bonds and delivered them, all who were there who belong to the court of heaven. The precious plenty of his dearworthy blood overflows all the earth, and is ready to wash all creatures of sin who are of good will, have been, and shall be.  Bl. Julian of Norwich

 

April 15 (Divine Mercy Sunday)  O Jesus, be mindful of Your own bitter Passion and do not permit the loss of souls redeemed at so dear a price of Your most precious Blood. O Jesus, when I consider the great price of Your Blood, I rejoice at its immensity, for one drop alone would have been enough for the salvation of all sinners.  St. Faustina Mary Kowalska

 

April 16   With what riches devotion to the Most Precious Blood adorns the soul! St. Gaspar del Bufalo

 

April 17   I was made a sinner by deriving my being from Adam; I am made just by being washed in the blood of Christ. Shall generation by a sinner be sufficient to condemn me and shall not the blood of Christ be sufficient to justify me? . . . Such is the justice which man has obtained through the blood of the Redeemer. St. Bernard of Clairvaux

 

April 18  There are three things necessary for writing: paper, ink and pen. Christ’s hands were as it were paper, his blood ink, the nails the pen. Christ wrote us upon his hands for three reasons: first, to show the Father the scars of the wounds he bore for us, and so move him to mercy. St. Anthony of Padua

 

April 19  Beware that with consent of reason you rejoice not at another’s sin, though of small moment, or of any adversity; but mourn for your brother before our Lord, calling to mind that we are members one of another, all one body, and redeemed all with the same blood. Louis de Blois

 

April 20  The ancient body of Adam’s sin is trampled upon, God’s blood, the vine of everlasting life, flows out. Aemiliana Löhr

 

 

O ruby blood

which flowed from on high

where divinity touched.

You are a flower

that the winter

of the serpent’s breath

can never injure. St. Hildegard of Bingen

 

April 22  Look then, O my soul, on thy Bridegroom, Who is both thy God and thy Maker, and see how He hath gone up to the bed of His love; low wide He hath stretched out His arms to embrace thee; and how lovingly He hath invited thee to Himself, making use, as it were, of the words of the Song of Songs: “Come to Me, My sister, My bride, My dove; come, I say, into the holes of the rock, into My own sweet wounds. Come, for behold! I am ready, and our bed is covered with flowers, adorned with the roses of My wounds, and of My own precious blood. Come then, O my soul, with thy whole self, and see all that thy God hath suffered for thee.  Johannes Tauler

 

April 23  Christ did not  redeem us with corruptible things—with silver and gold but with his own Precious Blood, which he is known to have poured out as an innocent victim on the altar of the cross: not a mere measured drop of blood (which, however, because of its union with the Word would have sufficed for the redemption of all humanity) but as it were an unmeasured flood.  Pope Clement VI

 

April 24   The saints loved souls because they had cost the Precious Blood of Our Lord. They appreciated the soul of a poor child in rags and full of faults, the soul of a sinful man or woman, because God loves that soul and Our Lord shed His Blood for its ransom.  St. Mary Euphrasia Pelletier

 

April 25  Hear not one who is so presumptuous, but answer Your own Blood. You cannot fail Yourself; hear then, O Jesus, the voice of Your Blood.  St. Mary Magdalen dei Pazzi

 

April 26  Such was the will of the Father that His Son, Blessed and Glorious, whom He gave to us, and who was born for us, should by His own Blood, sacrifice, and oblation, offer Himself on the altar of the Cross, not for Himself, by whom “all things were made,” but for our sins, leaving us an example that we should follow His steps.   St. Francis of Assisi

 

April 27. The Blood that once lay in the cave at Olivet, that curdled in the thongs and knots of  the scourges, that matted His hair, and soaked His garments,  that stained the crown of thorns and bedewed the Cross…; that same Blood is living in the chalice, united to the Person of the Eternal Word, to be worshipped with the uttermost prostration of our bodies and our souls.  Frederick Faber

 

April 28. We must conclude, from what Jesus Christ is with regard to us, that we do not belong to ourselves, but, as the Apostle says, are entirely His, as His members and His slaves, whom He has bought at an infinitely dear price—the price of all His Blood.  St. Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort

 

April 29  Drunk as Christ was with love, he made a bath for you of his blood when this Lamb’s body was broke open and bled from every part … He was sold to ransom you with his blood. By choosing death for himself he gave you life.  St. Catherine of Siena

 

 

The temple in which our high priest offered sacrifice was not one made by hands but built by the power of God alone. For he shed his blood in the sight of the world, a temple fashioned by the hand of God alone. St. John Fisher