“Precious Blood, ocean of divine mercy: Flow upon us! Precious Blood, most pure offering: Procure us every grace! Precious Blood, hope and refuge of sinners: Atone for us! Precious Blood, delight of holy souls: Draw us! Amen.” St Catherine of Siena
Dear Friends,
As the month of May is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the month of July has traditionally been dedicated to the Most Precious Blood of Christ. In some places and in certain particular calendars, the feast of the Most Precious Blood of Christ is still observed on 1 July. Sacred Scripture abounds with texts to deepen our knowledge and love of this great mystery. Above all, we recall the Incarnation of the Word who came as the Lamb of God to carry the sins of the world The chalice of the passion and the Eucharistic chalice of the New Covenant brought about by the shedding of His blood are two more instances of references found in the Bible. Moreover, St John recounts how Jesus Christ was pierced by the lance and from His wounded side, there flowed blood and water.[i]
Thus, the month of July offers us a suitable time to deepen our love for the Cross of Christ upon which He shed His most precious blood for the forgiveness of our sins. We present for this month’s reflection an excerpt from Fr. Miguel Angel Fuentes book on Redemptive Pain.
“The Cross Has Wings”
Dear sick friend:
You have in your hands a small book that I have put together to accompany you in your suffering. In it, I have gathered reflections and prayers that may help you lift your heart to God during the long hours of weakness.
Pain is a vocation. Although it may seem strange and even scandalous for many to hear such a statement, it is so, and it must be understood this way by us who have received the grace of faith. Jesus was called beforehand by the prophet Isaiah “a man of sorrows, acquainted with suffering”; and all of us have been called by God the Father to become “conformed to the image of His Son.” Padre Pio wrote: “Be certain that the more pleasing a soul is to God, the more He will test it. Therefore, courage! and always go forward.” The Angel of Fatima exhorted the little shepherds: “Accept and bear with submission the sufferings that the Lord sends you.”
Souls privileged with the “spirit of faith” have deeply understood this mystery. Like all mysteries, God does not reveal it to those who “think” themselves wise, but to those who are humble, even to little children. Francisco, one of the Portuguese shepherd children to whom the Virgin appeared in Fatima, at only nine years old said to his sister Jacinta, aged six: “Let us offer this sacrifice for the conversion of sinners,” and joining his hands he prayed: “O my Jesus, it is for Your love and for the conversion of sinners.”
For this same reason, Mother Teresa of Calcutta used to say: “Love until it hurts; if it hurts, it is the best sign.” Pain is the greatest sign of love.
Only in this way can we understand why the saints have come to speak of the Cross, of pain, of martyrdom, as a joy. Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, who received the revelations of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, wrote: “When I see my sufferings increase, I experience the same joy that the most greedy and ambitious feel when they see their treasures increase.” And Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus came to exclaim: “I have reached the point of not being able to suffer, because all suffering is sweet to me.” The saints fell in love with the Cross; Don Orione wrote: “Jesus is loved and served on the Cross and crucified with Him, not otherwise.” Saint Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort exclaimed: “If the head is crowned with thorns, shall the members be crowned with roses? If the Head is mocked and covered with mud on the way to Calvary, will the members wish to live perfumed upon a throne of glory?” The great missionary of the East, Saint Francis Xavier, wrote in his letters: “Those who delight in the Cross of Christ our Lord rest while living in these labors and die when they flee from them or find themselves outside of them.” Saint Teresa of Jesus asked God: “To suffer or to die.” And Saint Ignatius of Antioch, still very close to the time of the Apostles, wrote in one of his letters on the way to martyrdom: “I well know what is good for me… Let fire, the cross, packs of wild beasts, tearing, dismemberment, dislocation of bones, mutilation of limbs, the crushing of my whole body, all the cruel torments of the devil come upon me, provided that I may attain Christ”; and elsewhere he pleaded: “Allow me to imitate the Passion of my God.”
What a mystery this is, whose secret understanding is given to so few!
Luke John Hoocker was a boy who lived only five years, in Avondale, Pennsylvania (United States); he died in 1996. From a very young age, cancer manifested in him, making him intimately acquainted with pain and suffering. However, the Holy Spirit taught him the mystery of suffering; at four years old he was able to tell his mother not to ask for painkillers for his suffering because “I must suffer for sinners.” He was fascinated by “crosses”; after an operation he had a scar on his stomach in the shape of a cross, and he would always draw crosses like the one he bore. One day, as a gesture of kindness, he drew a cross for a sister of the Servants of the Lord and the Virgin of Matará who was visiting him, and gave it to her with the explicit instruction that she “should share it with the other sisters.” The secret? The same as that of all the saints: the love of God.
A few months before he died, on October 18, the feast of Saint Luke, he asked his father to make him a song to “Saint Luke John” (that is, to himself, already considered a saint); his father said to him: “You are going to lose your humility,” but he replied: “Dad, aren’t saints those who love God very much? Well, I love Him very much.” One day, while he was at Mass, he gazed at the crucifix and said to his mother: Mom, do you see? The Cross… has wings to carry me to Heaven. Might it not also have wings for us?
May Our Lady of the Precious Blood obtain for us the grace to deepen our love for the cross and to always hold in veneration the Precious Blood shed by her Son for our redemption. May we find in His Precious blood solace, peace, and fortitude.
References
Feast of the Precious Blood
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