His blood be upon us and on our children (Matthew 27:25)
Dearly beloved Children of God the Father, I welcome you to the month of July, the beginning of the second half of the year 2022. We rely on the grace and power of the Almighty God to see us through our endeavours for the remaining part of the year. In keeping with the Church’s venerable tradition of old, the month of July has been dedicated to the Most Precious Blood of Jesus. Pius IX instituted the feast of the Precious Blood of our Lord in 1849. The early Fathers say that the Church was born from the pierced side of our Lord, and that the sacraments were brought forth through His Blood. Among devotions to the humanity of Christ, the Precious Blood of Jesus has the most biblical precedent in the Old Testament and is mentioned a great deal in the New Testament. The book of Genesis exposes us to the first fratricide in world history, rising from the sin of hatred, when two brothers – Cain and Abel – make an offering to God. Abel’s sacrifice is pleasing to God but Cain’s is not accepted.
The murder of Abel happens and the thirsting earth soaks up Abel’s blood as it shouts to heaven for vengeance. This shouting prefigured the scene on Calvary, where Christ’s Blood cried to heaven for the redemption of humanity. Over time, as the book of Exodus presents to us, we see a people – the Israelites – oppressed by the Egyptians. In the actions of God leading up to the redemption of the Israelites, He commands the people to kill a lamb and sprinkle the doorposts of their houses with its blood that they may be saved from the calamity that was to befall Egypt. In those houses reddened by the blood of the lamb, all the dwellers, especially the male firstborns were saved from death. The blood on the doorposts was a type of the Blood of Christ since the blood of a lamb cannot save a man.
Reading the sacred books, it might be said that the entire Old Testament is a lesson in “blood sacrifice” as an anticipation of Christ’s obedient and merciful sacrifice on the wood of the cross. In the New Testament, the first drops of blood that flowed for our redemption was on the day of Jesus’ circumcision. On the night of his betrayal on Mount Olivet, Luke in his Gospel account gives a graphic representation of his Holy face, as one crimsoned with blood (see Luke 22:44). More of this divine Blood spurts out over the floor of the scourging space, under the raw strokes of the whip.
Continues NEXT WEEK
• Most Rev. Alfred Adewale Martins is the Archbishop of the Metropolitan See of Lagos.
