The Most Precious Blood of Our Lord is a powerful spiritual weapon

The month of July is dedicated to the Precious Blood of Our Lord. It is a time to meditate and come to a greater love for the Blood that Our Lord has shed for us during His earthly life and for the Precious Blood that is given to us as a true drink at every Mass we participate in. The great love that Our Lord has for us is as such that He has poured out every ounce for us. Not only did he leave us the gift of his love in the chalice consecrated by the priest, but he gave us a weapon to help us in the spiritual battles that we must undertake in this life to obtain our Crown of Glory. Shortly after my husband and I got married, he developed debilitating and bizarre migraines that looked like a cross between a stroke and pulmonary embolism. One morning, after drinking a glass of sangria, which contains red wine, I found my husband unconscious and numb on the floor in our bathroom. I had to call an ambulance and he was rushed to the hospital. When he recovered, he spent 18 hours blindly due to the worst migraine he has ever experienced. After that incident, we decided it was best for him to refrain from taking the chalice to Mass and I would do the same as a sign of unity with him. The body and blood of Our Lord are present in both species. I abstained from the chalice for a few years, until shortly after my consecration to Mary. Not long after my consecration, my spiritual life grew with unprecedented intensity and I began to experience forms of spiritual warfare unknown to me. I started researching spiritual warfare and stumbled upon useful videos of the SSP priest and exorcist, Fr. Chad Ripperger. It was then that I learned that the Precious Blood is one of the most effective spiritual weapons at our disposal.

St. John Chrysostom he said of the Blood of Christ: Let us then return from that table like lions spitting fire, thus becoming terrifying to the Devil, and remaining mindful of our Head and the love he showed us. . . This Blood, if received worthily, casts out demons and drives them away from us, and even calls us angels and the Lord of angels. . . This blood, shed in abundance, has cleansed the whole world. . . This is the price of the world; with it Christ acquired the Church ... This thought will curb undisciplined passions in us. How long, in truth, will we be attached to present things? How long will we have to sleep? How long will we not have to think about our salvation? Let us remember what privileges God has granted us, let us give him thanks, let us glorify him, not only by faith, but also by our own works.

The Precious Blood fortifies us in our battles against the world, the devil and ourselves. We should walk away from the cup, with the Blood of the Lamb on our lips, kindled with love and prepared for the battle that awaits us, because the spiritual life is a battle. The shedding of every ounce of His blood for our good should have a profound impact on each of us each time we approach the cup to consume His Precious Blood. We should look at the cup with tender devotion and arduous love, knowing the gift that has been given to us. We are not worthy, but nevertheless He has given His Blood to each of us to strengthen us and so we can grow in a deeper intimacy with Him. He has given His priests the grace to carry His Precious Blood into their weak and vulnerable hands. because of His even greater love for them. It is in His Blood that we have been purified and it is through His Blood - and His Body - that we are united body and soul to Christ and to each other. Do we consider the gift we receive when we approach the Precious Blood at every Mass? St. John XXIII issued an apostolic exhortation on the Precious Blood, Sanguis Christi, in which he states: "As we now approach the feast and month dedicated to the honor of the Blood of Christ - the price of our redemption, pledge of salvation and eternal life - may Christians meditate on it more fervently, may they savor its fruits more frequently in sacramental communion. Let their meditations on the boundless power of the Blood be bathed in the light of sound biblical teaching and the doctrine of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church. How precious this Blood is is expressed in the song that the Church sings with the Angelic Doctor (sentiments wisely supported by our predecessor Clement VI): Blood of which only a drop has the world to overcome. The whole world forgives its world of sins. [Adoro te Devote, Saint Thomas Aquinas]

Unlimited is the efficacy of the Blood of the God-Man - as unlimited as the love that moved him to pour it out for us, first at his circumcision eight days after birth, and more abundantly later in his agony in the garden, in his scourging and crowning with thorns, in his ascent to Calvary and crucifixion, and finally by that great and wide wound on the side that symbolizes the divine Blood that cascades down in all the sacraments of the Church. Such a sure and fleeting love suggests, indeed demands, that all are reborn in the torrents of that Blood adore it with grateful love “. This month of July should be a time of greater devotion to the Precious Blood of Our Lord, but this month of devotion should extend to every time we place the sacred cup on our lips. In our sinfulness, weakness, frailty and spiritual battles, the Precious Blood reminds us how much we need Christ. Devotion to the Precious Blood leads us to surrender ourselves more fully to Him and to entrust ourselves to Him in every moment of our day. We cannot take a single step on the path of holiness without Him. This is why, if we want to cling to something in this life, we should cling to the cup of the Precious Blood of Our Lord, so that He can continue to wash us again. every time we receive; that we can turn white as snow.

Prayer to invoke the Precious Blood of Our Lord
Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus Your Son, I pray: May the Precious Blood of Jesus wash me on and through me. Let me heal every wound and scar, so that the devil finds no purchase in me. Make it saturate and fill my whole being; my heart, soul, mind and body; my memory and my imagination; my past and my present; every fiber of my being, every molecule, every atom. Let no part of me remain untouched by His Precious Blood. Run it on and around the altar of my heart on all sides. Fill and heal especially the wounds and scars of / caused by __________. These things I ask of you, Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus. Jesus, likewise grant that the light of Your Holy Cross shine in all these same parts of me and my life, that no darkness remain where the devil may hide or have no influence. Mary, refuge of sinners, pray that she will receive these graces that I ask for. Amen.