July 2 - DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD

July 2 - DEVOTION TO THE PRECIOUS BLOOD
Tradition has it that after the burial of Jesus, the Blessed Virgin collected the blood shed along the Via Dolorosa and on Calvary to honor him, being the holiest relic left on earth by her Divine Son. From that day the relics of the Blood of Christ were the object of the most tender devotion. We can therefore say that devotion to the Most Precious Blood arose on Calvary and has always remained alive in the Church. Nor could it be otherwise, because the Blood of Jesus is Divine Blood, it is the price of our ransom, the pledge of God's love for souls; it has opened the gates of heaven to us, it perennially flows over thousands of altars and feeds millions of souls. Therefore the Lamb is worthy to receive honor, glory and blessing, because he was killed and redeemed us! We also have a lively devotion to the Precious Blood, because it will be a perennial source of graces. Let us look at the perfect model of all virtues in the bloodied Christ, let us adore and love him, and united with him in suffering, we implore the forgiveness of our sins.

EXAMPLE: S. Gaspare del Bufalo one day, more than ever bitter about the struggles he had to overcome in spreading the devotion to the Most Holy Blood, became reassured and predicted that a Pontiff who would favor and inculcated worship. This pope, we can say without danger of being wrong, was John XXIII. From the beginning of his pontificate he came publicly urging the faithful to cultivate this devotion; revealing that he himself recited the litanies of the Precious Blood every day in July, as he had learned as a boy in his father's house. Instead of entrusting it to a cardinal, he wanted to reserve for himself the Protector of the Congregation of the Missionaries of the Highest Blood and, speaking in St. Peter's Basilica, to the cardinals, bishops, prelates and thousands of faithful, on January 31, 1960 for the closing of the Synod Romano, exalted St. Gaspar as "The true and greatest apostle of devotion to the Most Precious Blood in the world". On January 24 of the same year he approved the Litanies of the Most Precious Blood for the Universal Church and on the following 12 October he wanted the addition of "Blessed his Precious Blood" to the invocations of "God be blessed" ». But the most solemn official act is undoubtedly the Apostolic Letter "Inde a primis" of 30 June 1960, with which, addressing the Catholic world, it approved, exalted and inculcated the cult towards the Most Precious Blood, pointing to it together with that for the Holy Name of Jesus and for the Holy Heart, a source of copious spiritual fruits and the remedy against the evils that oppress humanity. We can therefore call John XXIII "THE POPE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD" predicted by St. Gaspar.

PURPOSE: I will always nourish the most tender devotion to the Divine Blood of Jesus.

JACULATORY: May Jesus always be blessed and thanked, who with his Blood saved us.