Blood of Jesus

“ If the wounds of the Martyrs plead so eloquently for us, how much more eloquent is the blood of Jesus shed daily upon our altars? His blood cries louder for mercy than the blood of Abel cried for vengeance. If God inclines His ear to us miserable sinners, how can He resist the pleadings in our behalf of the “Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world.” ”

“ Be it so, O Jesus, by the Blood which thou hast shed for us at thy scourging!
V. And forgive us our debts.
Oh, most patient Jesus! whose Blood has been poured out for us so often for the remission of our sins! For more than once thou enduredst to have thy garments violently and cruelly torn off thee by thy cruel tormentors, and thy wounds thus opened very often afresh, and widened the more, not without bitterest pain; doubtless, because man lost his robe of innocence by sinning, and very often defiled it when restored, by repeating his sins. ”

“ O LORD Jesus, compassionate Pelican, who hast cleansed us unclean in thine own Blood, I give thee thanks for the sweet and adorable Wound of love which thou didst receive on the cross, when thine all conquering love opened thy sweet-flowing Side, and wounded thy most sacred Heart with an arrow of love. Blessed for ever be that life-giving stroke and that most hallowed Wound; and blessed be the adorable Blood, and the water of salvation which gushed forth from it, to wash away all our sins! ”

“ The blood of victims with which Moses sprinkled the people of Israel could not, of itself, deliver men from sin, and make them pleasing to God, for its whole efficacy lay in its being the type of the Precious Blood of Jesus, which taketh away the sins of the world. That which Moses did, as a visible type, our Lord did in reality. By giving His Precious, Sin-cleansing Blood, He instituted the New Covenant of grace which redeemed man, and by the Sacrament and Sacrifice of His Body and Blood, He gave him a lasting memorial of His love, and an inexhaustible source of grace. ”

“ Because of his God-ward purpose of bringing men into a loving covenant with God, Jesus gave of his blood in the covenant-rite of circumcision. Because of his man-ward sympathy with the needs and the trials of those whom he had come to save, and because of the crushing burden of their death-bringing sins, Jesus gave of his blood in an agony of intercessory suffering. ”

“ Roman Catholics hold that it is the literal, material blood of Christ that saves the sinner, and hence their extreme belief in the dogma of transubstantiation, the real body and blood of Jesus being offered in the sacrifice of the Mass, and taken by the penitent in the Holy Communion. ”

“ The blood is the poured-out life of the Son of God, given as the price, the atonement, the substitute, for the forfeited life of the believer in Jesus Christ. Any poor sinner who receives Christ as God’s gift is cleansed from all sin by His Blood. ”

“ Behold and see! The precious plenty of His dearworthy blood descended down into Hell and burst her bands and delivered all that were there which belonged to the Court of Heaven. The precious plenty of His dearworthy blood overfloweth all Earth, and is ready to wash all creatures of sin, which be of goodwill, have been, and shall be. The precious plenty of His dearworthy blood ascended up into Heaven to the blessed body of our Lord Jesus Christ, and there is in Him, bleeding and praying for us to the Father,—and is, and shall be as long as it needeth;—and ever shall be as long as it needeth. ”

“ Of the blood which was to be poured out on Calvary, Jesus said: “This is my blood of the [new] covenant, which is shed for many.” [671] And of the sacramental union which could be secured, between his trustful disciples and himself, by tasting his blood, and by being nourished on his flesh, he said: “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have not life in yourselves. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life.” ”

“ Their blood also must be brought into the holiest place. The former rite signified that the slain beast bore the sin of the people, the latter that the people themselves were sanctified. Similarly Jesus suffered without the gate of Jerusalem, in reproach and ignominy, as the Sin-bearer, and also entered into the true holiest place, in order to sanctify His people through His own blood. ”

“ If Jesus Christ intrust to his care the souls he has bought by his own blood, what an awful account will he have to give in the day of judgment, if any of them perish through his neglect! Though the sinner, dying in his sins, has his own blood upon his head, yet, if the watchman has not faithfully warned him, his blood will be required at the watchman's hand. ”

“ When the lance pierced the Heart of Jesus, Blood and Water flowed out. Our Blessed Saviour, therefore, shed His Heart’s Blood for us, thereby giving us the greatest proof of His love. It was the love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus which impelled Him to suffer all the pain and shame that He endured, and to die for us on the Cross; so now, after His Body was completely covered with wounds, and had been tortured to death, He willed further to give His very Heart’s Blood for us, and permitted it to be pierced, so that it might pour out its last drops of Blood for us. ”

“ I showed him that a soldier is said to have shed his blood for his country when it was meant that he had poured out his life for it, that we should drink of the reality of the life of Jesus in our souls as saving us rather than hold on to the symbol of the blood. When Jesus died on the cross, shedding His blood for us it evidently meant that He poured out His life for us in His temptation combats against the hells as our champion. We are saved by His life as it finds expression in our life. ”

“ Our Lord remained for a short time on the ground, at the foot of the pillar, bathed in his own blood, and two or three bold-looking girls came up to gratify their curiosity away in disgust, but at the moment the pain of the wounds of Jesus was so intense that he raised his bleeding head and looked at them. They retired quickly, and the soldiers and guards laughed and made game of them. ”

“ Men's lives have been prolonged by the transfusion of blood from vigorous frames. Jesus Christ passes His own blood into our veins and makes us immortal. The Church chose for one of its ancient emblems of the Saviour the pelican, which fed its young, according to the fable, with blood from its own breast. ”

“ V. We beseech Thee therefore, help Thy servants, whom Thou hast redeemed with Thy Precious Blood.
Third Mystery
NEXT, in His cruel scourging, Jesus shed His Blood when His flesh was so torn that streams of blood flowed from every part of His body, all of which He offered all the time to His eternal Father in payment of our impatience and our softness. How comes it, then, that we do not curb our anger and love of self? Henceforth we will try our best to bear our troubles well, and, despising self, take peacefully the injuries which men may do us. ”

“ Everything else is but of a secondary consideration, when compared with the atonement that has been wrought out in behalf of man by the great Redeemer, yet, strange to say, there are those in the Christian world, so called, who profess to believe in Christianity and yet deny the efficacy of the atoning blood that was shed by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. More especially has this been the case for a few years past. ”

“ Many critical expositors deny that there was an actual extrusion of blood, on the grounds that the evangelist does not positively affirm it, and that the three apostles, who were the only human witnesses, could not have distinguished blood from sweat falling in drops, as they watched from a distance in the night, even if the moon, which at the passover season was full, had been unobscured. ”

“ There is a certain class of “practical occultists,” whose inner senses are opened to a great extent, and who have been taught by no one but the spirit within themselves and their own experience. They say that the “baptism of blood” means a penetration of the growing spiritual germ in man, through the flesh and blood and bones of the physical body, by which even the gross elements of the physical form are attenuated and purified,171 and that this process produces pains and sufferings, typically represented by the suffering, crucifixion and death of the man Jesus of Nazareth. ”