The Most Precious Blood of Jesus

Feast Day: July 1

The Feast of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus, observed on July 1st, honours the redeeming Blood shed by Our Lord Jesus Christ for the salvation of the world. Of all the devotions centred on the humanity of Christ, the devotion to His Precious Blood is among the most ancient and most profound, rooted directly in the words of Our Lord Himself at the Last Supper: This is the cup of my Blood, the Blood of the new and everlasting covenant, which will be shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.

The blood of Christ was first shed at His circumcision eight days after His birth, the first of seven times He would pour out His Blood for mankind. He shed it again in the agony of Gethsemane, when His sweat became as drops of blood falling to the ground. It flowed from His shoulders under the scourging at the pillar, from His brow beneath the crown of thorns, from His hands and feet at the nailing to the cross, and finally in the great wound of the lance that pierced His side after death, from which blood and water flowed as the sacramental springs of the Church.

The theological significance of the Precious Blood is immense. In the Old Testament the blood of animals was used for ritual purification and for the sealing of the covenant. The blood of the Passover lamb, sprinkled on the doorposts of the Israelites, was a figure of the Blood of Christ that protects the faithful from the destroying angel. Saint Paul writes that we are justified by His Blood and that through His Blood we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. The Letter to the Hebrews contrasts the repeated animal sacrifices of the old covenant with the single, definitive sacrifice of Christ, whose Blood purifies the conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

Pope Pius IX extended the feast to the whole Church in 1849, at a time when Europe was convulsed by revolution, as an act of thanksgiving for the restoration of papal authority. Pope John XXIII raised it to a first-class feast in 1960. The month of July is dedicated to the Precious Blood, and the faithful are invited throughout this month to meditate on the price of their redemption and to respond with gratitude and love. The Litany of the Precious Blood, approved for use in the Church, offers the faithful a series of invocations that unfold the rich theology of this devotion.