In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Our Lady of the Eucharist, St. Joseph.
Our patron saints and guardian angels.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Today we celebrate a feast of the old calendar,
a feast of the precious blood of our Lord.
It was at one time celebrated separately from Corpus Christi,
but after the council, the two were combined together.
Corpus, the body and blood of Christ, was combined and celebrated on what we now celebrate as Corpus Christi.
Probably to bring together into people's minds that the body and blood are both
God is truly present, you know, in the body and blood of our Lord.
The real presence is what we really focus on at Corpus Christi,
and that's probably the church wants to bring.
We want to bring the attention to the faithful that our Lord is truly present,
body, blood, soul, and divinity, in the host,
and he's truly present under the appearance and the precious blood,
body, blood, soul, and divinity.
So it's probably a good reason why the church combined those two together,
because sometimes people start looking at the communion now that we receive in some places under both species,
because sometimes people start looking at the communion now that we receive in some places under both species,
is somehow that they're getting more of God because they receive both of the host and the precious blood.
And it's not the way it works.
Your disposition is what determines the amount of grace you get,
not how many hosts you consume or how much precious blood you drink.
But this is what has to be sometimes even those little basics need to be taught today.
But today we focus on the precious blood of our Lord because the church in this case is trying to bring out the sacrificial nature of the Mass.
When people speak about the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass,
sometimes they forget to put in the part that is usually the title of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass,
that it is a sacrifice.
We go to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
We just don't go to the Mass.
Because it is that sacrificial nature of the Mass which really makes it such an awesome event
that we're going to Calvary and that the shedding of the blood of our Lord
is where really the sacrifice comes out, you might say,
that aspect of the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist.
Because it is the shedding of our Lord's blood,
it's the separation of the body from the blood that indicates, you might say,
in sacramental symbolism, the death of our Lord.
And we know that his death came about on Calvary because he gave up his spirit.
And then after he passed away, the soldier pierced his side
and his precious blood flowed from his wounded side,
symbolizing, of course, the giving forth of the sacraments of the blood and water,
symbolizing the sacraments of the Church, namely baptism and the Eucharist.
And even St. Paul reminds us how important is the precious blood of God.
He says,
I know at what a great price you have been redeemed.
And he goes, you know, it's not some gold,
it's not some gold of silver or precious material element,
it's but rather the precious blood of God that has been poured out for us.
The most precious thing that can possibly be,
the price that has been paid for us,
is our Lord's shedding of his blood.
And this was all prefigured in the Old Testament
to help catechize the Jews about the importance of,
first and foremost, the seriousness of sin.
That the only way to make atonement for sin is the shedding of blood.
And so that's why they had to sacrifice the Paschal Lamb,
they had to sacrifice so many different animals
and pour blood on the altar.
As you know, even Moses,
when he instituted the priesthood in the Old Testament,
he took the blood of the bull and he sprinkled it on the altar,
and he sprinkled it on the priests,
and then he sprinkled it on the people.
You're probably glad you don't have the old rite,
because if we sprinkled you with blood every Sunday,
you wouldn't want to come to Mass.
But we sprinkle you with holy water.
But that was to give them the indication,
the nature of that the blood has to be shed for them.
They are the cause of someone becoming a victim for them.
And therefore, that blood that was being shed
was to remind them that there can be no atonement for sin
without the shedding of blood.
So that's why in that case,
we really want to,
and the Church's main purpose,
and the Church has maintained a votive Mass
for the precious blood of our Lord,
to remind us of this great sacrifice
that He has paid for us.
How much, you know, we have been purchased at,
and how precious we are in God's eyes,
because when He looks down on us,
He sees the blood of His Son,
you know, sprinkled on us.
He sees the blood of His Son,
you might say, on our lips.
Just as the blood was put on the mantles of the houses
in the Old Testament when the Angel of Death passed over,
now instead of seeing the blood of our Lord
around the Paschal Lamb,
around the doorpost,
rather now He sees the blood of His Son
on the lips of those who receive Him in Holy Communion.
And that, you know, we are truly signed
with this precious blood of Christ.
When we were washed clean at baptism
by the blood of our Lord,
and that we today, you know,
still want to be mindful of that
when we receive Holy Communion,
that the sacrificial nature
of why we're able to receive Him in Holy Communion
in the first place is because
our Lord has paid the price.
And we are, you might say,
every time we come to Holy Communion,
we are cashing in.
We are receiving some of that sacred deposit
of His body, blood, soul, and divinity
to be shared to us for our salvation
and our redemption and to be our,
as He shared, as He poured forth His life blood,
to give His life for us,
He gives it to us to give us supernatural life.
It really is, you might say,
long before we ever had blood transfusions,
our Lord has given us His blood
to flow through our veins
when we receive Him in Holy Communion
to make us truly one with Him
in this great sacrament of love.
That we celebrate.
So today, as we look to our Lord on the cross,
we want to thank Him for the shedding
of His sacred blood for us
and that we will ask our Lady in a special way
who stood there at the foot of the cross
as our Lord's blood was poured forth for us,
that His blood will not be shed for us in vain,
but that we will truly be
purchased and remain always
our Lord's people.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.