Precious Blood Gems (June)
June 30, 2023
June 1. That expression which was committed to writing by Moses, and prophesied by the patriarch Jacob, namely, “He shall wash His garments with wine, and His vesture with the blood of the grape,” signified that Christ would wash those that believe in Him with His own blood. For the Holy Spirit called those who receive remission of sins through Him, His garments. St. Justin Martyr
June 2. If it should happen that sometimes you perceive the poor children who come to us to be covered with dust from the world’s highway, to speak of nothing worse, follow the example of the holy woman who with her veil wiped the Sacred Face of her Divine Master; and upon their countenances you will be able to discern the Blood of the Saviour, by Whom they have been cleansed. St. Mary Euphrasia Pelletier
June 3. I think of martyrs and potential martyrs in persecuted countries, of missionaries who endure any privation, any risk, to take Christ to the ends of the earth to be adored, to give him, as the bread of life, to any little spiritual starveling in pagan lands, who but for the Church would count for nothing in the world’s eyes, but who in the eyes of the Church is worth the shedding of Christ’s blood on the cross, and the lives of the martyrs given that his blood should flow for them in the chalice. Caryll Houselander
June 4 (Trinity Sunday). You are my Creator, eternal Trinity, and I am your creature. You have made of me a new creation in the blood of your Son, and I know that you are moved with love at the beauty of your creation, for you have enlightened me. St. Catherine of Siena
June 5. In His great providence, our loving Redeemer has offered a saving remedy to the human race, which He has saved from the Devil's ensnaring tyranny by the shedding of His own precious Blood. St. Boniface
June 6. Not one word or action is truly sincere when it is only cerebral, and when it is only cerebral then it is not a flow of vital blood. The more sincerity there is in the human word or action, the more there is the vital essence of blood. When it happens —and the Angels fall down in adoration when this occurs —that the human wish is in accord with the divine, the Holy Blood is then united to the vital essence of the human blood and the Mystery of the God-Man is repeated, and also the miraculous power of the God-Man is reiterated. Valentin Tomberg
June 7. Come, dear friend, let us drink with joy from the Savior’s fount. Although the blood of Christ—which heals by its own worth—redeems and crowns, there is water in it because it cleanses, restores, and cools. Adam of Perseigne
June 8. Why the Cross? Because Jesus takes upon himself the evil, the filth, the sin of the world, including the sin of all of us, and he cleanses it, he cleanses it with his blood, with the mercy and the love of God. Let us look around: how many wounds are inflicted upon humanity by evil! Pope Francis
June 9. Almighty Father, I place the Precious Blood of Jesus before my lips before I pray, that my prayers may be purified before they ascend to your divine altar. St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi
June 10. The blood of Jesus God’s Son cleanses us from all sin. For the sacrament of the Lord's passion has equally both freed us from all sins in baptism and the grace of our same redeemer forgives what ever we have committed through daily frailty after baptism, particularly when in the midst of the works of light which we do with humility we daily confess our errors to him, when we receive the sacraments of his blood. Venerable Bede
June 11 (Corpus Christi). Christ instituted the great Sacrament of love, wherein He left us His most adorable flesh and His most Precious Blood, so as never more to forsake us until the end of the world. What love for us, my dear brethren! A God wishes to feed our soul with His own Being! In this great and adorable Sacrament He offers Himself daily to the justice of God, makes satisfaction again for our sins, and obtains all kinds of graces for us. St. John Vianney
June 12. God the Father did not require the Blood of His Son, but, nevertheless, He accepted it when offered; it was not blood He thirsted for, but salvation, for salvation was in the blood. St. Bernard of Clairvaux
June 13. Discipline brings learning to fulfillment. The Son of God underwent the discipline of the Passion, that by his blood he might make peace between heaven and earth [cf. Col 1.20], reconciling the human race to God the Father. St. Anthony of Padua
June 14. From the wine cellar of his pierced side pours forth abundantly the wine of life-giving charity. Surely if Christ is the true vine, if his flesh is the grape of the vine, how will the blood which flows down from his flesh not be the wine? Or how would his bride the Church please her bridegroom if she did not possess in the sacred mysteries this wine coming from Christ himself? This is the wine which makes glad the heart of man (Ps 104:15), for the blood of Christ produces in the soul the intoxication of a sober love. Adam of Perseigne
June 15
The field where He hath planted us
Shall shake her fruit as Libanus,
When He hath sheaved us in His sheaf,
When He has made us bear His leaf.
We scarcely call that banquet food,
But even our Saviour’s and our blood,
We are so grafted on His wood. Gerard Manley Hopkins
June 16 (Sacred Heart). In Your inconceivable love, You allowed Your most holy side to be opened, And streams of Blood and Water gushed forth from Your Heart. Here is the living fountain of Your mercy,
Here souls receive consolation and refreshment. St. Faustina Mary Kowalska
June 17. Mary has a heart capable of embracing us all, and ardently desires that not one of those sons and daughters should perish whom her Divine Son redeemed with His precious Blood and His still more precious Death. St. Robert Bellarmine
June 18. If every time the blood is poured out it is poured out for the remission of sins, I ought to receive it always, that my sins may always be forgiven me; because I constantly sin, I constantly need to have the remedy. St. Ambrose of Milan
June 19. The Body of Christ, while it suffered, being pierced on the tree, and water and blood flowed from its side, yet because it was a temple of the Word was filled full of the Godhead. St. Athanasius of Alexandria
June 20. When we live in Christ, what more can we desire? We at once become spiritual in body and soul and in all our faculties because our soul is united to his soul, our body to his body, our blood to his blood. St. Nicholas Cabasilas
June 21. Our beloved Mother sprinkles us with his precious blood and makes our souls pliable and tender, and restores us to our full beauty in the course of time. Bl. Julian of Norwich
June 22. By the effusion of His Holy Blood, Christ has given so great efficacy and strength to the Holy Sacraments of His Church, that when we receive any one of them, we shall be sprinkled and made clean by the virtue of His Precious Blood. St. John Fisher
June 23. Oh my dear Jesus, I place them all within Thy wounds, and for all of them my suppliant prayers and sighs go up to Thee; for all of them, with my whole heart I beg for pity and mercy. Remember, O my God, that they have been created to Thine image, that they are the work of Thy hands, and that they have been purchased by Thy Precious Blood. St. Joseph Cafasso
June 24 If we enquire further into the significance of Jesus being pointed out by John, when he says, "This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world," we may take our stand at the dispensation of the bodily advent of the Son of God in human life, and in that case we shall conceive the lamb to be no other than the man. For the man "was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb, dumb before his shearers," saying, "I was as like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter." Hence, too, in the Apocalypse a lamb is seen, standing as if slain. This slain lamb has been made, according to certain hidden reasons, a purification of the whole world, for which, according to the Father's love to man, He submitted to death, purchasing us back by His own blood from him who had got us into his power, sold under sin. And He who led this lamb to the slaughter was God in man, the great High-priest, as he shows by the words: "No one takes My life away from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.” Origen of Alexandria
June 25. I want to embrace the foot of the cross, prostrate on the ground... Like this I will lie here to catch some of your blood, sweet Jesu; I will not stir from here until I am marked with your precious blood as one of your own flock, and my soul is softened in that pleasant bath. Richard Rolle
June 26. The price paid for each Christian is the redeeming Blood of Our Lord and he, I insist, wants us to be both very human and very divine, struggling each day to imitate him who is perfectus Deus, perfectus homo. St. Josemaria Escriva
June 27. The law by its shadows prefigured from of old the mystery of Christ: and of this He is Himself the witness where He said to the Jews, "If you had believed Moses, you would have believed also Me: for he wrote concerning Me." For everywhere He is set forth, by means of shadows and types, both as slain for us, as the Lamb without blame and true; and as sanctifying us by His life-giving blood. St. Cyril of Alexandria
June 28. If our flesh is not saved, then the Lord has not redeemed us with his blood, the eucharistic chalice does not make us sharers in his blood, and the bread we break does not make us sharers in his body. There can be no blood without veins, flesh and the rest of the human substance, and this the Word of God actually became: it was with his own blood that he redeemed us. St. Irenaeus of Lyons
June 29. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. St. Paul the Apostle
June 30 We were brought close to God by the blood of Christ in order to show how great is God’s affection toward us, since he allowed his own Son to die. We too, enduring in faith, should not yield to despair in any of the agonies inflicted on us for his sake, knowing that what he deserves from us exceeds all that our enemies can bring upon us. Ambrosiaster