On this July 1st let us celebrate the Feast of the Most Precious Blood

Pope Benedict XVI celebrating Mass in London

Today, is a perfect day to implore Our Blessed Saviour that once again His Precious Blood may descend on the nation of Canada, a nation once with great hope, but a nation that has been utterly seduced by "the world, the flesh and the devil". 

Dropped from the Roman Calender in 1969, this beautiful Feast day is still retained as a Votive Mass. It was used by His Holiness, Pope Benedict, during his Apostolic Journey to Scotland and England in 2010. The Holy Father celebrated this Mass in Westninster Cathedral, a place of worship most dear to my heart. In fact, the most beautiful Novus ordo Mass I ever attended was the Feast of St. Peter and Paul in that Cathedral in 1997. 

The Eucharistic sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ embraces in turn the mystery of our Lord’s continuing passion in the members of his Mystical Body, the Church in every age. Here the great crucifix which towers above us serves as a reminder that Christ, our eternal high priest, daily unites our own sacrifices, our own sufferings, our own needs, hopes and aspirations, to the infinite merits of his sacrifice. Through him, with him, and in him, we lift up our own bodies as a sacrifice holy and acceptable to God (cf. Rom 12:1). In this sense we are caught up in his eternal oblation, completing, as Saint Paul says, in our flesh what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, the Church (cf. Col 1:24). In the life of the Church, in her trials and tribulations, Christ continues, in the stark phrase of Pascal, to be in agony until the end of the world (Pensées, 553, éd. Brunschvicg).

We see this aspect of the mystery of Christ’s precious blood represented, most eloquently, by the martyrs of every age, who drank from the cup which Christ himself drank, and whose own blood, shed in union with his sacrifice, gives new life to the Church. It is also reflected in our brothers and sisters throughout the world who even now are suffering discrimination and persecution for their Christian faith. Yet it is also present, often hidden in the suffering of all those individual Christians who daily unite their sacrifices to those of the Lord for the sanctification of the Church and the redemption of the world. My thoughts go in a special way to all those who are spiritually united with this Eucharistic celebration, and in particular the sick, the elderly, the handicapped and those who suffer mentally and spiritually.

(Pope Benedict XVI, September 18, 2010)

Today, may we somberly recall from whence we came, and to where we are going. I wish all readers a most blessed Feast Day. In your charity, please keep poor, apostate Canada, in your prayers.