The Precious Blood of Jesus:

Interesting observations:

1. We do not adore the Precious blood directly at Mass.  The cup in which it is offered is in the way! 
2. The words of consecration emphasize the cup: “Take this all of you and eat of it, for this is my body…”   *But*: “Take this all of you and drink from it, for this is the chalice of my blood.”  The words of consecration refer directly to the body, but what is most referred to in the second instance is the cup that contains the Precious Blood.
3. The words of institution relating to the Precious Blood also refer to the forgiveness of sins and the command “Do this in memory of me.” 
4. On Good Friday, we do not celebrate a Mass.  We consume the body of Christ, which is consecrated the day before, on Holy Thursday, but we do not consume the Precious Blood (nor does the priest—the Precious Blood is not a part of the Good Friday liturgy)
   1. St. Thomas gives an interesting reason for this:

First, why no Mass on Good Friday?:

“The figure ceases on the advent of the reality. But this sacrament is a figure and a representation of our Lord’s Passion…And therefore on the day on which our Lord’s Passion is recalled as it was really accomplished, this sacrament is not consecrated. 

St. Thomas is referring to the fact that the Eucharist symbolically refers to the Passion of Jesus.  Since we are recalling (reenacting in some sense) the Passion of Jesus on Good Friday, the symbolic reference to it is set aside so as not to distract from us from it. 

Likewise, we will not receive the Eucharist in heaven because we will be in full possession of Christ.  We will not need the foretaste of heaven because we will have fully arrived.  This is foreshadowed in the Old Testament on the day that the manna ceases after the Jews have arrived in the Promised Land (Joshua 5:12).  The manna was given as a foretaste of the Promised Land, so it ceases when the Israelites come into its full possession (Ex 16:31).  There is a wonderful explanation of this aspect of the manna from Exodus here:   https://www.faithandculture.com/home/2020/6/15/the-manna-and-coriander-seed

Second, why no Precious Blood?  St. Thomas gives 2 reasons. 

“Nevertheless, lest the Church be deprived on that day of the fruit of the passion offered to us by this sacrament, the body of Christ consecrated the day before is reserved to be consumed on that day; but the blood is not reserved, on account of danger, and because the blood is more specially the image of our Lord’s Passion.” Summa Theologica (III, q. 83, a. 2, ad. 2), 

Why does it symbolize the Lord’s Passion to a greater extent than the body of Christ?

Jewish thought regards blood as especially linked to life.  It is not hard to see why.  Death is often associated with the loss of blood and blood loss is a cause of death.  The Jews no doubt gave special significance to the pouring out of blood and the loss of life in a sacrificial context.  The preferred way of sacrificing an animal was to cut its neck.  The pouring out of the blood of the animal is the decisive “point of no return”; it is irrevocable moment in the act of sacrifice.  When the blood of the animal is spilled out, it cannot be returned.  The deed is done. 

This leads to an intimate association between the gesture of “pouring out” a sacrifice and total self-abandonment.  We hear St Paul refer to his own death as the “pouring out” of a “libation” (a libation is a liquid sacrifice that is poured out into the ground): “For I am already being poured out like a libation, and the time of my departure is at hand” (2 Tim 4:6). 

            The Greek word that indicates the process of “pouring out” is kenosis.  The word appears many times in St. Paul’s letters.  It denotes that aspect of sacrifice that entails self-abandonment, a complete “letting-go” of self.  This is the most fearsome aspect of sacrifice, but also its most ecstatic.  It is the “leap” aspect of a sacrifice, the irrevocable “yes, I do!”  It cannot be withdrawn and is either exhilarating or terrifying, often both.

For this reason I think the Precious Blood has a particular relationship to “life changing sacrifices.”  I mean here the sacrifices we offer that cannot be undone or redone.  I have in mind self-offerings like baptism, first holy communion, marriage, ordination to the priesthood, permanent consecrations, things like that.  These are the self-offerings that leave a permanent mark on us and define us our lives.  We calculate and discern these sacrifices before saying “yes” to them, but the decisive moment is an irrevocable leap, a pouring out of one’s self that cannot be taken back. 

We offer up all kinds of sacrifices in the course of our lives, but these irrevocable, life-defining sacrifices are the most precious in the eyes of the Lord.  They are the ones that make us most like him in his final, irrevocable offering of self on the Cross. The words of institution associated with the Precious Blood seem to emphasize this:

Take this, all of you, and drink from it:
for this is the chalice of my blood,
the blood of the new and eternal covenant.
which will be poured out for you and for Many
for the forgiveness of sins.
Do this in memory of me.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen remarked that the phrase, “Do this in memory of me” refers us to something larger than simply repeating the ritual associated with the Mass.  It indicates the larger imitation of the sacrifice of Christ.   We are to take our humanity into our hands, as Christ did his on Holy Thursday at the Last Supper, and offer our humanity generously to God and to neighbor.  This sacrificial offering of self is at the center of our discipleship. 

The practice of a life changing “pouring out” of self brings us into contact with the essence of divine love.  God’s love is “kenotic,” it pours itself out.  The love of the Trinity has been explained in terms of each of the divine persons pouring himself out into the others and simultaneously being filled up by the others.  The kenotic love of the three persons is an eternally reciprocated gift that unites them as one God.  This love is made visible for us in the sacred humanity of Jesus, and the decisive moment of this “visibility” is the moment when Jesus’ heart is pierced with a lance and blood and water flow out.  John seems to realize that he has seen something important in the spectacle of the blood and water flowing out of the side of Jesus.  In John 19:35 we hear his astonishment at the sight of the heart of Christ pouring itself out.  It is as though he realizes that he is seeing something that was hidden from all eternity, the kenotic (self-emptying) love of God, a love given to us as the heart of Jesus continues to empty itself for us at the Mass. 

Now since it was preparation day, in order that the bodies might not remain on the cross on the sabbath, for the sabbath day of that week was a solemn one, the Jews asked Pilate that their legs be broken and they be taken down. So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and then of the other one who was crucified with Jesus.  But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs, but one soldier thrust his lance into his side, and immediately blood and water flowed out.

An eyewitness has testified, and his testimony is true; he knows that he is speaking the truth, so that you also may [come to] believe.  For this happened so that the scripture passage might be fulfilled:

“Not a bone of it will be broken.”

And again another passage says:

“They will look upon him whom they have pierced” (Jn 19:31-37).

T. S. Eliot uses the image of blood in an interesting way that resonates with the themes we have been considering.  He wrote a poem called “The Waste Land” that describes a wasting and desolation of the “land,” which is a symbolic reference to society and culture.  Eliot makes clear that the cause of this “wasting” is the absence of love.  Lovelessness has rendered the land desolate, but a return to love and the values and virtues associated with love can return the land to fruitfulness and vitality.  At the end of the poem the long-awaited thunder finally “speaks” and provides the arid waste land with life giving rain.  What does the thunder say?  It says, “DA.”  “Da” is a sacred syllable in Sanskrit, the ancient language associated with Hinduism.   It is the Sanskrit word for “God.”  This syllable also happens to be the root of the Sansrkit words “Datta,” which means “give,” “Dayadhvam,” which means “sympathize,” and “Damyata,” which means “control.”  In short, these three words point to the virtues needed to renew the waste land: we must learn to give ourselves generously; to sympathize with one another, and practice the self-control that virtue requires.  These words and the virtues they describe all have “God” at their root.  This is the passage of the Waste Land associated with “datta,” which denotes “give.” 

DA

Datta: what have we given?

My friend, blood shaking my heart

The awful daring of a moment’s surrender

Which an age of prudence can never retract

by this, and this only, we have existed

Which is not to be found in our obituaries

Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider

Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor

In our empty rooms. 

The experience of making an irrevocable gift of self is described as blood “shaking the heart.”  The sort of giving described involves the blood.  It requires courage because it is irrevocable and life defining.  Eliot seems to think that modernity is characterized by a lack of this kind of courage.  It is characterized by a false prudence (as opposed to real prudence, the queen of the virtues) that avoids all risks, including the risks associated with love.  As far as Eliot can tell, this false prudence is a principal cause of the land’s desolation and the broken heartedness of many. 

The next few lines are obscure but wonderful once understood.  Our “obituaries” as well as what the “beneficent spider” conceals are the way we define our own lives.  An obituary is the human attempt to define human existence.  We write obituaries to describe what a person was all about in life.  The “beneficent spider” is an image taken from the play called “the White Devil” by John Webster, a contemporary of Shakespeare.  The spider referred to by Eliot lives in a graveyard and spins his web over the epitaphs written on tombstones.  These epitaphs function similarly to obituaries.  They are the expressions of significance of the lives of the people memorialized on the tomb.  From the perspective of God and the authoritative meaning he gives to human life, the meanings we presume to give to our lives are silly and trite.  The spider is beneficent because he weaves a web these sorry attempts.  Meaning and identity really come from him and taking up with courage life changing sacrifices that demand a life changing gift of self.