Precious Blood Gems (April)
April 30, 2025
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 hand 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. The sacred blood of Christ has quenched the flaming sword that barred access to the tree of life. (Pope St. Leo the Great)
April 3. A few drops of blood renew the whole world, and do for all men what the rennet does for the milk: joining us and binding us together. (St. Gregory Nazianzen)
April 4. The Holy Spirit enters the soul, sealed with that precious seal of the blood of the Word, the Lamb that was slain. Indeed it is this blood that urges him to come, although the Spirit is moved of himself and desires to come. (St. Mary Magdalene of the Incrnate Word de’Pazzi)
April 5. I blush and tremble when I consider the terrible judgment impending on ecclesiastical superiors who live at their ease in rich palaces, whilst so many souls redeemed by the blood of Christ are perishing. (St. Vincent Ferrer)
April 6. 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 Kowalska)
April 7. Some will represent to Jesus Christ on the day of judgment the robe of innocence that you helped them keep in all its purity. Others who have committed sin and who with your help have washed away their sins in the blood of the Lamb will represent to him the trouble you took to lead them back on the path of salvation. (St. John Baptist de la Salle)
April 8. The Israelites 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. (St. Aphraates of Persia)
April 9. Sinners have encrusted their heart in a diamond rock that can never be shattered except by blood. Still, I tell you, in spite of their hardness, let them while they still have time and freedom to choose to seek the blood of my son and with that same hand let them pour it over the hardness of their heart: It will shatter the diamond and they will know the fruit of that blood which was paid out for them. (St. Catherine of Siena)
April 10. When my soul is sad and weary through desolation and abandonment, where shall I find refreshment, and peace, if not in your most precious blood, which rejoices the soul by the visits of its grace. (Bl. Concepción Cabrera de Armida)
April 11. A tear of Mary, that is really something! A tear of the Most Pure One for me, a poor man sunk in the flood of the divine Anger and the divine Repentance. A tear of the Mystical Rose for me alone, in this stinking pit where I rot away while awaiting a death that will perhaps be horrible! For after all, She can have wept only in the way her Son shed His Blood, that is to say for each man in particular, considered by Her and by Him also as of a value equal to all the universe. (Léon Bloy)
April 12. How is it that we do not die of love in seeing that God Himself could do no more than shed His divine blood for us drop by drop? When as man He was preparing for death, He made Himself our food in order to give us life. God becomes food, bread for his creatures. Is this not enough to make us die of love? (St. Teresa of the Andes)
April 13 (Palm Sunday). The passion of him by whose blood our delinquencies have been blotted out is solemnly read, solemnly celebrated every year, so that our memories may be the more happily refreshed by this annual devotion, and our faith rendered more brilliantly illustrious by the faithful people assembling in great numbers. (St. Augustine of Hippo)
April 14 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 15 The whole world is the chalice of Christ’s blood and water. The whole world partook of them in communion at the hour of Christ’s death. And the whole world hides the blood and water within itself....This blood and water made the world a place of the presence of Christ’s power, prepared the world for its future transfiguration, for the meeting with Christ in glory. (Sergei Bulgakov)
April 16 If anger has remained locked up in the breasts of any of you, at least let the approaching day of the Lord's passion thrust it out, because he, after all, was not angry with his killers, but as he hung on the cross poured out for them both his prayers and his blood. (St. Thomas of Hippo)
April 17 (Holy Thursday). The life of man finds its greatness and its holiness in flowing out, so to say, upon the altar, there to mingle with that Precious Blood which is daily shed in that hallowed place: for, if the life of man is as a valueless drop of water, when lost in the Blood of Christ it acquires an infinite value and can merit the divine mercy for us. He who knows what the altar is, from it learns to live; to live by the altar is to be holy, pleasing to God,—and to go up to the altar to perform the sacred Mysteries is to be clothed upon with the most sublime of all dignities after that of the Son of God and His holy Mother. (Bl. Columba Marmion)
April 18 (Good Friday). Before the crucifixion the disciples did nothing, or if they did it was not known; but after the crucifixion they accomplished marvels, that is to say, after the sacred blood had cancelled the bond that stood against us; after that blood had cleansed us from our uncleanness; after death had been dealt a death-blow by a death; after God, through his humanity, had conquered him who was destroying humanity; after sin had been put to death through obedience; after Adam had been restored to grace by the second Adam; after error had been corrected through the Virgin. (Eusebius of Emessa)
April 19 (Holy Saturday) For the earth did not cover the blood of Christ, because Holy Church has already preached the mystery of his redemption in all parts of the world. . . . The very blood of redemption that is received is the cry of our Redeemer. . . . In order then that the sacrament of the Lord’s passion may not be unproductive in us, we must imitate what we receive, and preach to everyone else what we venerate. (Smaragdus)
April 20 (Easter Sunday). The Blood of the Man-God being the pledge of peace between heaven and earth, the object of profoundest worship, yea, itself the very center of the whole Liturgy, and our assured protection against all the evils of this present life, deposits, even now, in the souls and bodies of those whom it has ransomed, the germ of eternal happiness. (Prosper Guaranger)
April 21. O Christian soul, soul raised up from grievous death, soul redeemed and freed by the blood of God from wretched bondage: arouse your mind, remember your resurrection, contemplate your redemption and liberation. (St. Anselm of Canterbury)
April 22. You that have been born again through the blood of Christ. I beg you, by the name that has been invoked over you, by that altar which you have approached, by the sacraments you have received, by the judgment that is to come of the living and the dead; I beg you, I bind you by the name of Christ, … to ensure that the sacrament abides in you of the one who did not wish to come down from the cross, but did wish to rise again from the grave. (St. Augustine of Hippo)
April 23 The newly-baptized, whom we call ‘little children’, having made their declaration of faith in the name of Christ, have had all their sins washed away by his blood. (St. Augustine of Hippo)
April 24 Three days later this body is raised up gloriously as a sign of the triumph of the sacrifice of the blood that was shed. (St. Oscar Romero)
April 25. The Precious Blood which we worship is the Blood which the Saviour shed for us on Calvary and reassumed at His glorious Resurrection; it is the Blood which courses through the veins of His risen, glorified, living body at the right hand of God the Father in heaven; it is the Blood made present on our altars by the words of Consecration; it is the Blood which merited sanctifying grace for us and through it washes and beautifies our soul and inaugurates the beginning of eternal life in it.” (Pius Parsch)
April 26. See how we were bought: Christ hangs upon the cross, see at what a price He makes His purchase. . . . He sheds His blood, He buys with His Blood, He buys with the Blood of the Spotless Lamb, He buys with the Blood of God’s only Son. He who buys is Christ; the price is His Blood; the possession bought is the world. (Ven. Pope Pius XII)
April 27 To be always generous with God, to go on and on giving him of our best in spite of weariness and disillusionment, to despise soft options, and interpret our duty in terms of love, not in terms of mere justice, to be ready if we might to give him more than he asks of us, ready if that were possible to give him more than he deserves of us - that is the meaning of our devotion to the Precious Blood; may his grace make us worthy of it. (Ronald Knox)
April 28. Faithful soul, living image of God, redeemed by the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ, it is the will of God that you be holy like Him in this life and glorious like Him in the next. Your sure vocation is the acquisition of the holiness of God, and unless all your thoughts and words and actions, all the sufferings and events of your life tend to that end, you are resisting God by not doing that for which He has created you and is now preserving you. (Saint Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort)
April 29. Hide yourself under the wings of God’s mercy, for he is more ready to pardon than you are to sin. Immerse yourself in the blood of Christ, where your soul will grow fat on hope. (St. Catherine of Siena)
April 30. I tour the world in spirit, seeking all the souls redeemed by the most precious blood of my Divine Spouse. (St. Marie of the Incarnation Guyart)