Month of the Precious Blood (Day 3)
July 03, 2025
Day 3
A reading from the Book of Exodus (24:3-8)
Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the ordinances; and all the people answered with one voice, and said, ‘All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do.’ And Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord. He rose early in the morning, and built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and set up twelve pillars, corresponding to the twelve tribes of Israel. He sent young men of the people of Israel, who offered burnt-offerings and sacrificed oxen as offerings of well-being to the Lord. Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he dashed against the altar. Then he took the book of the covenant, and read it in the hearing of the people; and they said, ‘All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.’ Moses took the blood and dashed it on the people, and said, ‘See the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.’
RESPONSORY
Moses took the blood and dashed it on the people, and said, --
-- “See the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you.”
We have come to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
-- “See the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you.”
From “Ego and Archetype” by Edward Edinger (1998)
An important corollary image associated with the symbolism of Christ is the image of the blood of Christ. My attention was first directed to this theme when I encountered several dreams referring to the blood of Christ. Such dreams indicate that the blood of Christ is a living symbol which still functions in the modem psyche.
Since primitive times blood has carried numinous implications. The blood was considered to be the seat of life or soul. Since life ebbed away as one bled to death, the equation of blood and life was natural and inevitable. Since it carried these meanings, blood was the most appropriate gift to God, which accounts for the wide-spread practice of blood sacrifice.
Thus, understood psychologically, blood represents the life of the soul, of transpersonal origin, exceedingly precious and potent. It is to be reverenced as divine and any effort of the ego to manipulate, appropriate or destroy it for personal purposes provokes vengeance or retribution. Blood spilled requires more blood to pay the debt. The books must be balanced. Such thinking illustrates the law of the conservation of psychic energy. There is so much psychic life to be lived. If it is denied fulfillment in one area, it must be made up elsewhere. There must be blood for blood. Repression, which is internal murder, will out. It is a crime against life for which payment will be extracted.
Another feature of ancient blood symbolism is the notion that blood establishes a bond or covenant between the divine or demonic powers and man. The blood here serves as a kind of glue or binding agent. Half of it is thrown on Yahweh, represented by his altar, and half is thrown on the people. The people are thus united with God “in one blood.” God and people have participated in a joint baptism or solutio, which unites them in a communion. The idea of the “blood of the covenant” is picked up again in the New Testament and applied to the blood of Christ. Just as the blood of the sacrificial animals poured out by Moses cemented the old bond between God and Israel, so Christ’ s blood, willingly poured out by himself, cements the new bond between God and man. This parallel is made explicit in the Ninth Chapter of Hebrews (15-26).
This passage demonstrates how Hebrew myth and ritual merges with Platonic thought in evolving the Christian symbolism of the blood of Christ. The Hebrew “blood of the covenant” is considered a “copy” of the genuine article and it is sprinkled on the tabernacle of Yahweh which is a copy of the eternal heaven. This idea, together with the statement that Christ’s blood is only once for all time, implies psychologically that a transformation has occurred in the archetypal level of the collective psyche. God himself has undergone a change so that the cementing and redeeming fluid which unites man with God, i.e. the ego with the Self, is now continually available through the initiative of the Self as Christ.
In the new dispensation the “blood of the covenant” becomes the blood of the communion meal. This connection is made in the account of the last supper where it is said: “And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them saying, ‘Drink of it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.’’’ (Matt. 26:27-28RSV.See also Mark 14:23-24 and 1 Cor. 11:25). Thus the Old Testament injunction to eat no blood has been superseded, at least for symbolic and ritual purposes. Drinking the blood of Christ becomes a means of cementing the connection between God and man.
Understood psychologically, it is joint libido investment which generates brotherhood. People engaged in a mutual enterprise, sharing the same goals, the same ordeals and the same value-commitments are those who experience themselves as brothers of one blood. Likewise, in the inner life of the individual, it is from occasions of intense affect faced consciously that the ego discovers the existence of the Self and becomes bound to it. Libido intensity symbolized by blood is necessary to forge the connection between man and man and between man and God. With these observations in mind, the drinking of Christ’s blood in the ritual of the Roman Catholic Mass can be seen symbolically to represent a two-fold cementing process. First, the individual communicant cements his personal relation to God. Secondly, he becomes psychologically identified with all the other communicants as part of the mystical body of Christ. Christ’s action of offering his blood as a nourishing drink (like the pelican) is an expression of the positive mother archetype, or rather, that component of the Self. The same meaning must be attached to the cup or chalice symbolism which has gathered round the blood of Christ.
The Son is the cup, i.e. the human incarnation in personal, temporal life is the vessel which contains and transmits the archetypal life energy. For this life-fluid to be realized in its essential nature the cup, its particular personal container, must be emptied. In other words, archetypal life meaning which connects the individual with his transpersonal source must be extracted from the particular incarnations in which it expresses itself in one’s personal, concrete life.
The symbol of the blood of Christ is active in the modern psyche as evidenced by dreams of patients in psychotherapy. As previously indicated this symbol belongs to the phenomenology of the Self and its presence indicates that the transpersonal center of individual identity is activated and is pouring an influx of energy and meaning into the conscious personality. In summary, the blood of Christ represents the primal power of life itself as manifested on the psychic plane, with profound potentiality for good or ill. As a symbol of the fluid essence of Selfhood and totality it contains and reconciles all opposites. If it comes as a fiery influx of undifferentiated energy it can destroy the petrified or undeveloped ego. On the other hand it is the nourishing, supporting, binding, life-promoting energy which flows from the transpersonal center of the psyche and which maintains, validates and justifies the continuing existence of the personal center of the psyche, the ego. As a combination of water and fire, it is both comforting, calming, protecting and also inspiring, agitating and invigorating. It is the essence beyond time which carries and renders meaningful personal temporal existence. It is the eternal column on which the present moment of conscious existence rests. Whenever a sterile, stagnant, or depressing state of consciousness is released by an influx of meaningful images, feelings or motivational energies it can be said that an archetypal dynamism represented by the blood of Christ has begun to operate. Such experiences confirm the reality of the “power for redemption” which is the essential quality of the blood of Christ.
Musical Selection (with lyrics)
Collect
God of our salvation and our freedom,
you have redeemed us by the blood of your Son.
Hear the voices of your people
and grant that through you we may have life
and in you find eternal refuge.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God for ever and ever. Amen. (Friday of the Fourth Week of Easter)