This year let us reflect together on the Precious Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ trying to trace its path and see how that Blood, starting from Jesus Christ, comes to us benefiting our person, our life, the history in which we are immersed and the cosmos in which we live.  We can summarize this journey with a title that takes us through the whole of the Holy Land and at the same time the whole geography of salvation and the history of humanity in need of reconciliation in order to arrive at a redemption that is both personal and universal. The title I would give to this reflection is: from Nazareth to Gethsemane, from Gethsemane to Calvary, from Calvary to the altar and to each one of us.  It was in Nazareth that the eternal Word of the Father, his only-begotten Son, became flesh and became the son of man in the womb of the Virgin Mary. It is there that – as the Letter to the Hebrews says – “Since the children share blood and flesh, Christ also became a sharer in them, that he might bring to powerlessness through death the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil” (Heb 2:14). And St Francis in one of his writings recalls that “The Most High Heavenly Father, through his holy angel Gabriel, proclaimed this Word of the Father, so worthy, so holy and glorious, in the womb of the holy and glorious Virgin Mary, and from her womb he received the true flesh of our humanity and frailty” (cf. 2 Lfed 4:  FF 181).

All this takes place in Nazareth. In the mystery of the Incarnation from the first moment of its conception by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, in the DNA of that first human cell there is already present the One whom in Nicaea, 1700 years ago, with theological language we learned to profess true God and true Man. In the DNA of that first human cell which is the Word made flesh there is already all his will to share integrally our humanity and fragility in order to make us participants in divine life. The blood that the Son of God shares with his mother in the nine months of pregnancy and loving expectation that will be fulfilled at his birth in Bethlehem is already very precious.  From that moment on, the journey of the Son of God’s historical sharing of our human condition begins. It is from that moment on, the Precious Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ will be the inner engine that will lead Him to share every human situation of fragility and will lead Him to take charge of every human situation of fragility by giving himself tirelessly. That blood is most precious because it indicates the orientation and the option of an entire existence always aimed at doing the will of the Father and always aimed at giving oneself for the good and salvation of one’s brothers and sisters, that is, of every single human person and of the whole of humanity, and even beyond, for the redemption of the entire universe. The life of Christ entirely spent out of love is already blood shed, that is, it is already life given, life entirely given for love of the Father and for love of each one of us and of every creature.

In Gethsemane and then at Calvary, what we discover is how much it cost Jesus, in his humanity, to make a gift of his whole person and his whole existence. At Gethsemane, the blood shed is the sign of how difficult it is to conform one’s human will to the divine will. This difficulty will also emerge on the cross. In Gethsemane, everything is summed up in the prayer formula: “Father, if you wish, take this cup away from me! However, it is not my will, but yours that be done” (Lk 22:42). On the cross, everything is summed up with the words of the psalms that lead Jesus to pray at first with words that are difficult for us to understand on the lips of the Son of God: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mk 15:34 and Mt 27:46) and then with words that instead reveal His deep trust and the sense of abandonment with which he lives his self-giving: “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit” (Lk 23:46). That human will of the Son, who in the hour of agony here in Gethsemane, was able to tune himself fully into the Divine Will of the Father then, at Calvary on the Cross, brings to fulfilment the meaning of an entire existence. Indeed, it is that most Precious Blood which here in Gethsemane has only bathed this stone, then, on Calvary, is poured out to the last drop, “ut nos lavaret crimine”, as we sang at the beginning of the celebration, that is, “to wash us of all guilt” (V. Fortunato, Vexilla Regis Prodeunt, sec. VI-VII). This means that on Calvary, dying on the cross, Jesus gives his whole self and his whole life for our salvation. The Blood of Jesus is most precious because it is the sacrament of this gift, the sign and the effective instrument that allows us to receive the benefits and effects of that gift made once and for all in the heart of human history, which – thanks to that gift – is no longer the history of sin but has become the history of salvation.

This gift reaches us, by the will of Jesus Himself, through the Eucharistic celebration, in instituting which Jesus had wished to concentrate the gift of self that had characterized every moment of His life and ministry, had wished to anticipate the gift of Himself that He  would make on the Cross, and had wished to leave us a gift capable of transforming us in his image and likeness, reconciling us with God and with one another. As we say in the Eucharistic celebration, with a formula that blends the various traditions of the New Testament and which translated literally means: “Take and drink of it, all of you: this is in fact the cup of My blood, of the new and everlasting covenant, which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in memory of Me.”This is the most Precious Blood of Jesus, that is, His life entirely given which now becomes the gift that heals our life, puts us back in touch with God, renews our very capacity for giving, because through that blood it is divine life itself that flows in us, as Jesus had promised in the synagogue of Capernaum, to those who would “eat His very Flesh and drink His Blood” (cf. Jn 6).  For us who live in a context in which human blood is shed too easily and unscrupulously, in a context in which words such as forgiveness and reconciliation resound distant and almost unrealizable, in a context in which the only alliances we experience are alliances of power and prevarication; for us who live in this context, Jesus’ words acquire an even stronger meaning, the meaning of a possible hope for reconciliation and peace, the meaning of a possible respect for every human life, the meaning of a New Covenant because of its radically different quality from that of the covenants we see around us and on a global scale.

Let us ask with faith to God our Father, who in the Precious Blood of His only Son redeemed all humanity, to keep in us the work of His mercy. Let us ask Him that by celebrating the holy mystery of the most Precious Blood of his Son Jesus Christ we can truly obtain that fruit of reconciliation and peace, of new and eternal life, of universal redemption which in this mystery is contained, signified and given to us. Let us ask Him that the whole of humanity and the people who live in this Holy Land come to understand that we must no longer shed anyone’s blood but only learn to give our own, that is to say that we must no longer take the lives of others, but learn to give our own, just as the most genuine fruit of this earth did: Jesus Christ our brother, our Redeemer and our Lord. Amen.