Month of the Precious Blood (Day 2)
July 02, 2025
Fr. John Colacino C.PP.S.
Day 2
 
A reading from the Book of Exodus (12:1-13)
 
The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you. Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household. If a household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbour in obtaining one; the lamb shall be divided in proportion to the number of people who eat of it. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a year-old male; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight. They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner organs. You shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the passover of the Lord. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both human beings and animals; on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgements: I am the Lord. The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. 

 

RESPONSORY

By faith Moses celebrated the Passover and the sprinkling of blood. 
-- God had something better in view for us.  
 
You know that you were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ as a Lamb without blemish and without spot.
 -- God had something better in view for us.
 

From a sermon by St. Aphraates of Persia (+345) 

The Passover of the Jews is celebrated on the fourteenth day during the night and on the following day. Our Passover is celebrated on the day of the passion, the Great Friday, on the fifth day, with its night and daytime. At Passover, the Jews escaped from slavery to the Pharaoh; on the day of the crucifixion we were delivered from captivity to Satan. They slaughtered a lamb from the flock and by means of its blood were kept safe from the destroyer; by the blood of the well-beloved Son we have been rescued from the corrupt works we used to do. They had Moses as their leader; we have Jesus as leader and Saviour. For their sake, Moses parted the sea and brought them across; our Saviour opened up the lower world and broke down its gates when he made his way into the depths of the abyss, opened its approaches and cleared a way for those who believed in him. To the Jews manna was given; to us the Saviour has given his body to eat. For them water gushed from a rock; for us the Saviour causes floods of living water to gush from his bosom. To them the land of Canaan was promised as an inheritance; to us the Lord has promised to give the land of Life. 

For the sake of the Jews Moses set up the bronze serpent in order to heal from serpents’ bites those who gazed on it; for our sake, Jesus nailed himself to the Cross in order that looking at it we might be saved from the wound of the serpent, that is, Satan. For them Moses set up the tent of covenant, in order that by offering sacrifices and oblations there they might be cleansed of their sins; Jesus, for his part, by rising from the dead raised up the fallen tent of David. He had told the Jews: When you have destroyed this temple which you see, I will raise it up in three days. The disciples understood him to be speaking of his body: when the Jews would destroy it, he would raise it up in three days. In this Tent he promised us Life, for in it our sins have been expiated. He called the tent of the Jews a ‘temporary tent’, since it was useful only for a short time; ours he called a temple of the Holy Spirit, and an everlasting one. 

As for the Passover lamb, listen to the Most Holy One ordering that it be eaten in a single house and not in several. This single house is the Church of God. In it, we eat the Passover lamb in haste, with fear and trembling, while remaining standing, for we are hastening to eat the Life given by the Spirit we have received. 

According to the prophecy of Jeremiah the people would be given a new covenant: I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel and with the House of Judah. It will not be like the covenant which I made with their ancestors on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt; it was they who broke that covenant of mine, therefore I rejected them! The God who promised to give a new covenant is the same God who called Abraham and gave this promise and blessing: Instead of being called Abram, as you have been until now, your name henceforward will be Abraham, for I will make you the father of a great number of people. Then he added: In your descendants all the nations of the earth will be blessed.

 

Musical Selection (with lyrics)

 
Collect
 

Almighty and eternal God, you have appointed your only-begotten Son the Redeemer of the world, and willed to be appeased by his Blood. Grant we beg of you, that we may worthily adore this price of our salvation, and through its power be safeguarded from the evils of the present life, so that we may rejoice in its fruits forever in heaven. Through the same Christ our Lord.  Amen. (Feast of the Precious Blood; Traditional)

 

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