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Fourth Sunday
after Pentecost
Thoughts for the Week - Fr. R. Taouk
2nd July 2017
The Precious Blood of Jesus: The Price of Our Salvation
by Fr. Frederick Faber
Sin came. With sin came many fearful consequences. This
beautiful Earth was completely wrecked. It went on through
space in the sunshine as before; but in God's sight, and in
the destiny of its inhabitants, it was all changed. Jesus
could no longer come in a glorious and unsuffering
incarnation. Mary would have to die; and, though she was
sinless, she would need to be redeemed with a single and
peculiar redemption, a redemption of prevention, not of
rescue. She also, the Immaculate Mother and Queen of
Creation, must be bought by the Precious Blood. Had it not
been for Jesus, the case of Earth would have been hopeless,
now that sin had come. God would have let it go, as He let
the Angels go. It would have been all hateful and dark in
His sight, as the home of the fallen spirits is. But it was
not so. Earth was dimmed, but it was not darkened,
disfigured, but not blackened. God saw it through the
Precious Blood, as through a haze; and there it lay with a
dusky glory over it, like a red sunset, up to the day of
Christ. No sooner had man sinned, than the influence of the
Precious Blood began to be felt. There was no adorable
abruptness on the part of God, as with the Angels. His very
upbraiding of Adam was full of paternal gentleness. With His
punishment He mingled promises. He spoke of Mary, Eve's
descendant, and illumined the penance of our first parents
by the prophecy of Jesus. As the poor offending Earth lay
then before the sight of God, so does it lie now; only that
the haze is more resplendent, since the Sacrifice on Calvary
was offered. The Precious Blood covers it all over, like a
sea or like an atmosphere. It lies in a beautiful crimson
light forever, a light softening the very shades,
beautifying the very gloom. God does not see us as we see
ourselves, but in a brighter, softer light. We are fairer in
His sight than we are in our own, notwithstanding His
exceeding sanctity, because He sees us in the Blood of His
dear Son. This is a consolation, the balm of which is not
easily exhausted. We learn a lesson from it also. Our view
of creation should be like God's view. We should see it,
with all its countless souls, through the illuminated mist
of the Precious Blood. Its spiritual scenery should be
before us, everything, everywhere, goldenly red.
This is the shape, then, which our Father's love takes to us
His creatures. It is an invitation of all of us to the
worship and the freedom of the Precious Blood. It is through
this Blood that He communicates to us His perfections. It is
in this Blood that He has laid up His blessings for us, as
in a storehouse. This is true, not only of spiritual
blessings, but of all blessings whatsoever. That the
elements still wait upon us sinners, that things around us
are so bright and beautiful, that pain has so many balms,
that sorrow has so many alleviations, that the common course
of daily providence is so kindly and so patient, that the
weight, the frequency, and the bitterness of evils are so
much lightened - is allowing to the Precious Blood. It is by
this Blood that He has created over again His frustrated
creation. It is out of this Blood that all graces come,
whether those of Mary, or those of the Angels, or those of
men. It is this Blood which merits all good things for
everyone. The unhappy would be more unhappy, were it not for
this Blood. The wicked would be more wicked, were it not for
this Blood. The flames of Hell would burn many times more
furiously, if the shedding of this Blood had not allayed
their fury. There is not a corner of God's creation, which
is not more or less under the benignant control of the
Precious Blood.
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