Apostolic Letter of Pope John XXIII
ON PROMOTING DEVOTION TO THE MOST PRECIOUS BLOOD OF OUR LORD JESUS
CHRIST
To his Venerable Brother Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, Bishops and
other Local Ordinaries in Peace and Communion with the Apostolic See
Venerable brethren: greetings and apostolic blessings.
From the very outset of our pontificate, in speaking of daily devotions
we have repeatedly urged the faithful (often in eager tones that frankly
hinted our future design) to cherish warmly that marvellous manifestation
of divine mercy toward individuals and Holy Church and the whole world
redeemed and saved by Jesus Christ: we mean devotion to his Most Precious
Blood.
From infancy this devotion was instilled in us within our own
household. Fondly we still recall how our parents used to recite the
Litany of the Most Precious Blood every day during July.
The Apostle's wholesome advice comes to mind: "Keep watch, then, over
yourselves, and over God's Church, in which the Holy Spirit has made you
bishops; you are to be the shepherds of that flock which he won for
himself at the price of his own blood."[1] Now among the cares of our
pastoral office, venerable brethren, we are convinced that, second only to
vigilance over sound doctrine, preference belongs to the proper
surveillance and development of piety, in both its liturgical and private
expressions. With that in mind, we judge it most timely to call our
beloved children's attention to the unbreakable bond which must exist
between the devotions to the Most Holy Name and Most Sacred Heart of Jesus
-- already so widespread among Christians -- and devotion to the incarnate
Word's Most Precious Blood, "shed for many, to the remission of
sins."[2]
It is supremely important that the Church's liturgy fully conform to
Catholic belief ("the law for prayer is the law for faith"[3]), and that
only those devotional forms be sanctioned which well up from the unsullied
springs of true faith. But the same logic calls for complete accord among
different devotions. Those deemed more basic and more conducive to
holiness must not be at odds with or cut off from one another. And the
more individualistic and secondary ones must give way in popularity and
practice to those devotions which more effectively actuate the fullness of
salvation wrought by the "one mediator between God and men, Jesus Christ,
who is a man, like them, and gave himself as a ransom for them all." [4]
Through living in an atmosphere thus charged with true faith and solid
piety the faithful can be confident that they are "thinking with the
Church" and holding fast in the loving fellowship of prayer to Christ
Jesus, the high priest of that sublime religion which he founded and which
owes to him its name, its strength, its dignity.
The Church's wonderful advances in liturgical piety match the progress
of faith itself in penetrating divine truth. Within this development it is
most heart-warming to observe how often in recent centuries this Holy See
has openly ap proved and furthered the three devotions just mentioned.
From the Middle Ages, it is true, many pious persons prac ticed these
devotions, which then spread to various dioceses and religious orders and
congregations. Nevertheless it remained for the Chair of Peter to
pronounce them orthodox and approve them for the Church as a whole.
Suffice it to recall the spiritual favours that our predecessors from
the sixteenth century on have attached to prac ticing devotion to the Most
Holy Name of Jesus, which in the previous century St. Bernardine of Siena
untiringly spread throughout Italy. Approval was given first to the Office
and Mass of the Most Holy Name and later to the Litany.[5] No less
striking are the benefits the popes have attached to practising devotion
to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, whose rise and spread owe so much to
the revelations of the Sacred Heart to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque.[6] So
highly have all the popes regarded this devotion that again and again in
their official acts they have expounded its nature, defended its validity,
promoted its practice. Their crowning achievement on this devotion are
three splendid encyclicals.[7]
Likewise the devotion to the Most Precious Blood, which owes its
marvellous diffusion to the 19th-century Ro man priest, St. Gaspar del
Bufalo, has rightly merited the approval and backing of this Apostolic
See. We may recall that by order of Benedict XIV the Mass and Office in
honour of the divine Saviour's adorable Blood were composed. And to
fulfill a vow made at Gaeta Pius IX extended the feast to the whole
Church.[8] Finally, as a commemoration of the nineteenth centenary of our
redemption, Pius XI of happy memory raised this feast to the rank of
first-class double, so that the greater liturgical splendour would
highlight the devotion and bring to men more abundant fruits of the re
deeming Blood.
Following our predecessors' example we have taken further steps to
promote the devotion to the Precious Blood of the unblemished Lamb, Jesus
Christ. We have approved the Litany of the Precious Blood drawn up by the
Sacred Congregation of Rites and through special indulgences have
encouraged its public and private recitation throughout the Catholic
world. Amid today's most serious and pressing spiritual needs, may this
latest exercise of that "care for all the churches"[9] proper to our
sovereign office awaken in Christian hearts a firm conviction about the
supreme abiding effectiveness of these three devotions.
As we now approach the feast and month devoted to honouring Christ's
Blood ---- the price of our redemption, the pledge of salvation and life
eternal -- may Christians meditate on it more fervently, may they savour
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 truly precious is this Blood is voiced in the song which the
Church sings with the Angelic Doctor (sentiments wisely seconded by our
predecessor Clement VI [10] ) :
Blood that but one drop of has the world to win
All the world forgiveness of its world of sin. [11]
Unlimited is the effectiveness of the God-Man's Blood -- just as
unlimited as the love that impelled him to pour it out for us, first at
his circumcision eight days after birth, and more profusely later on in
his agony in the garden,[12] in his scourging and crowning with thorns, in
his climb to Calvary and crucifixion, and finally from out that great wide
wound in his side which symbolizes the divine Blood cascading down into
all the Church's sacraments. Such sur passing love suggests, nay demands,
that everyone reborn in the torrents of that Blood adore it with grateful
love.
The Blood of the new and eternal covenant especially deserves this
worship of latria when it is elevated during the sacrifice of the Mass.
But such worship achieves its normal fulfilment in sacramental communion
with the same Blood, indissolubly united with Christ's eucharistic Body.
In intimate association with the celebrant the faithful can then truly
make his sentiments at communion their own: "I will take the chalice of
salvation and call upon the name of the Lord. . . The Blood of our Lord
Jesus Christ preserve my soul for everlasting life. Amen." Thus as often
as they come worthily to this holy table they will receive more abundant
fruits of the redemption and resurrection and eternal life won for all men
by the Blood Christ shed "through the Holy Spirit."[13] Nourished by his
Body and Blood, sharing the divine strength that has sustained count less
martyrs, they will stand up to the slings and arrows of each day's
fortunes -- even if need be to martyrdom itself for the sake of Christian
virtue and the kingdom of God. Theirs will be the experience of that
burning love which made St. John Chrysostom cry out:
Let us, then, come back from that table like lions breathing out fire,
thus becoming terrifying to the Devil, and remaining mindful of our Head
and of the love he has shown for us. . . This Blood, when worthily
received, drives away demons and puts them at a distance from us, and even
summons to us angels and the Lord of angels. . . This Blood, poured out in
abundance, has washed the whole world clean. . . This is the price of the
world; by it Christ purchased the Church... This thought will check in us
unruly passions. How long, in truth, shall we be attached to present
things? How long shall we remain asleep? How long shall we not take
thought for our own salvation? Let us remember what privileges God has
bestowed on us, let us give thanks, let us glorify him, not only by faith,
but also by our very works. [14]
If only Christians would reflect more frequently on the fatherly
warning of the first pope: "Look anxiously, then, to the ordering of your
lives while your stay on earth lasts.
You know well enough that your ransom was not paid in earthly currency,
silver or gold; it was paid in the precious blood of Christ; no lamb was
ever so pure, so spotless a victim."[15] If only they would lend a more
eager ear to the apostle of the Gentiles: "A great price was paid to
ransom you; glorify God by making your bodies the shrines of his
presence."[16] Their upright lives would then be the shining ex ample they
ought to be; Christ's Church would far more effectively fulfill its
mission to men. God wants all men to be saved,[17] for he has willed that
they should all be ransomed by the Blood of his only-begotten Son; he
calls them all to be members of the one Mystical Body whose head is
Christ. If only men would be more responsive to these promptings of his
grace, how much the bonds of brotherly love among individuals and peoples
and nations would be strengthened. Life in society would be so much more
peaceable, so much worthier of God and the human nature created in his
image and likeness.[18]
This is the sublime vocation that St. Paul urged Jewish converts to fix
their minds on when tempted to nostalgia for what was only a weak figure
and prelude of the new covenant: "The scene of your approach now is mount
Sion, is the heavenly Jerusalem, city of the living God; here are gathered
thousands upon thousands of angels, here is the assembly of those
first-born sons whose names are written in heaven, here is God sitting in
judgment on all men, here are the spirits of just men, now made perfect;
here is Jesus, the spokesman of the new covenant, and the sprinkling of
his blood, which has better things to say than Abel's had." [19]
We have full confidence, venerable brethren, that these fatherly
exhortations of ours, once brought to the attention of your priests and
people in whatever way you deem best, will be put into practice not just
willingly but enthusiastically. As a sign of heavenly graces and our
affection we im part our most heartfelt apostolic blessing to each of you
and to all your flocks, and particularly to those who respond with devout
generosity to the promptings of this letter.
Given at St. Peter's in Rome, the eve of the feast of Our Lord Jesus
Christ's Most Precious Blood, June 30, 1960, the second year of our
pontificate.
1. Acts 20:28.
2. Matthew 26 :2&
3. Encyclical "On the Sacred Liturgy," America Press edition (New York:
1954), No. 46.
4. I Timothy 2:5-6.
5. Acta Sanctae Sedis 18 (1886) :509.
6. Cf. Office for the feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, 2nd
nocturn, lesson 5.
7. "On the Consecration of mankind to the Sacred Heart of Jesus,"
The
Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII (New York: 1903), 454-- 461;
"The Reparation Due to the Sacred Heart," The Catholic Mind
26 (1928): 221-235; "On Devotion to the Sacred Heart," The Pope
Speaks 3 (1956): 115-149.
8. Decree "Redempti Sumus," Aug. 10, 1849, Decreta Authentica S.RC.
(Rome: 1898), II, No. 2978.
9. II Corinthians 11:28.
10. Bull "The Only Begotten Son of God," Jan. 25, 1343, The Sources of
Catholic Dogma (St. Louis: 1957), No. 550.
11. Hymn "Adoro te devote." Translation from Poems of Gerard Manley
Hopkins (Oxford: 1930), No. 89.
12. Luke 22:43.
13. Hebrews 9:14.
14. "Homily 46," Commentary on Saint John the Apostle and Evangelist
(Fathers of the Church, New York: 1957), 469, 471-472.
15. 1 Peter 1:17-19.
16. I Corinthians 6:20.
17. Cf. I Timothy 2:4.
18. Cf. Genesis 1:26.
19. Hebrews 12:22-24.