July which is dedicated to The Precious Blood of Jesus.

[Denise]

by Father Frederick Faber, D.D.

“Thou shalt call his name, Jesus; for he shall save His people from their sins.”
Who else but Jesus can do this, and what else, even from him, do we require but this? For in this lie all things which we can desire. Of all miseries the bondage of sin is the most miserable. It is worse than sorrow, worse than pain. It is such a ruin that no other ruin is like unto it. It troubles all peace of life. It turns sunshine into darkness. It embitters all pleasant fountains, and poisons the very blessing of God which should have been for our healing. It doubles the burdens of life, which are heavy enough already. It makes death a terror and a torture, and the eternity beyond the grave an infinite and intolerable blackness.

Alas! We have felt the weightiness of sin, and know there is nothing like it. Life has brought many sorrows on us, and many fears. Our hearts have ached a thousand times. Tears have flowed. Sleep has fled. Food has been nauseous to us, even when our weakness craved for it. But never have we felt anything like the dead weight of mortal sin. What then must a life of such sins be? What must be a death in sin? What the irrevocable eternity of un-retracted sin?

From all this horror where shall we look for deliverance? Not to ourselves; for we know the practical infinity of our weakness, and the incorrigible vitality of our corruption. Not to any earthly power; for it has no jurisdiction here. Not to philosophy, literature, or science; for in this case they are but sorry and unhelpful matters. Not to any saint, however holy, nor to any angel, however mighty; for the least sin is a bigger mountain than they have faculties to move. Not to the crowned queen of God’s creation, the glorious and the sinless Mary; for even her holiness cannot satisfy for sin, nor the whiteness of her purity take out its deadly stain.

Neither may we look for deliverance direct from the patience and compassion of God Himself; for in the abysses of His wisdom it has been decreed, that without the shedding of blood there shall be no remission of sin. (cf. Hebrews 9:22) It is from the precious Blood of Jesus Christ alone that our salvation comes. Out of the immensity of Its merits, out of the inexhaustible treasures of Its satisfactions, because of the resistless power of Its beauty over the justice and the wrath of God, because of that dear combination of Its priceless worth and Its benignant prodigality, we miserable sinners are raised out of the depths of our wretchedness, and restored to the peace and favor of out Heavenly Father.

The Principle of Sacrifice

A characteristic of the devotion to the Precious Blood is the way in which it brings out and keeps before us the principle of sacrifice. Sacrifice is peculiarly the Christian element of holiness; and it is precisely the element which corrupt nature dislikes and resists. There is no end to the delusions which our self-love is fertile enough to bring forth in order to evade the obligation of sacrifice, or to narrow its practical application.

Blood flowing from The Lamb of GodIf it were enough to have correct views, or high feelings, or devout aspirations, it would be easy to be spiritual. The touchstone is mortification. Worldly amusements, domestic comforts, nice food, and a daily doing of our own will in the lesser details of life, are all incompatible with sanctity, when they are habitual and form the ordinary normal current of our lives.

Pain is necessary to holiness. Suffering is essential to the killing of self-love. Habits of virtue cannot by any possibility be formed without voluntary mortification. Sorrow is needful for the fertility of grace. If a man is not making constant sacrifices, he is deceiving himself, and is not advancing himself daily; he is not carrying the cross. These are the axioms which at all times offend our weakness and self-indulgence. But they are of peculiar importance in times like these, when comforts and even luxuries are almost universal. It is comfort that is the ruin of holiness.

Gayety, fashion, ostentation, expensiveness, dissipation, frivolity, and the other things which make up a London season, are undoubtedly not the component parts of sanctity. But in my estimation they are far less worldly, have far less of the poison of worldliness in them, than the daily worship of comfort which distinguishes the great bulk of quiet people in these days. Many are not attracted by balls, parties, and similar fashions of amusement, and therefore have no merit in keeping away from them. But these same persons may set a great value upon the uninterrupted course of the daily comforts. They rise when they will, and gather every convenience round their rising, Their meals must be elegant, and pleasant, and faultless. Their servant-machinery must go smoothly, anticipating want and keeping annoyances out of sight. Their time must be for the most part at their on disposal. They must have the pastime of amusing conversation and of social intercourse; and they must be able to satisfy their restlessness, when they please, by change of air and scene and company. There is generally a far greater intensity of worldliness in all this than in the pleasure-hunting riot of a London season.

Thus we often find, in connection with this last, great graces, generous sacrifices, unexpected mortifications, and unkilled heavenly longings. But these are hardly ever found in the quiet unobtrusive worship of domestic comfort. Yearly out of the dissipations of the great world come grand vocations whose peculiar glory is the frankness of their generosity. Nothing grand ever comes out of the daily round of comfort. The heroic things of Christian attainment have less chance in quiet gardens and by pleasant riversides than in the ballroom of the court. There is smoothness in the mere lapse of a comfortable life which is fatal to holiness.

Now, all the forms, and images, and associations, and pictures, and ideas, of the devotion to the Precious Blood breathe sacrifice. Their fragrance is the odor of sacrifice. Their beauty is the austerity of sacrifice. They tease the soul with a constant sense of dissatisfaction and distrust with whatsoever is not sacrifice; and this teasing is the solicitation of grace. In time they infect us with a love of sacrifice; and to gain this love of sacrifice is to have surmounted the first ascent of holiness, and to breathing the pure air and yet treading the more level road of the upper tableland of the mountains of perfection.

It is the very mission of the devotion to the Precious Blood to preach a crusade against quiet sinless comforts. The Mass is the compendium of the Gospel. It is a heresy in doctrine to acknowledge the Sacrament and to deny the Sacrifice. Worldliness is guilty of a similar practical heresy with regard to holiness. It admits the claims of all its obligations but one; and that is the obligation to sacrifice.

[MarieT]

just completed the Novena of the Precious Blood
Lord mercifully save your people

[Denise]

Thanks, Marie. ✝