Homily for 16th
Sunday of Ordinary Time
July 22, 2018
Blood
When
someone donates blood to the Red Cross, they can save up to three lives. But I
know someone whose Blood saved a hundred billion people – the Precious Blood of
our Lord Jesus Christ.
A lot of
times in the Church, we talk about what we
should do. But today, let’s talk about what God has already done for us in
the shedding of His Blood. July is the month in the Church year dedicated to
the Precious Blood of Jesus. And today’s second reading speaks about the value
of this Blood and what it accomplished. So let’s take a look at why we should
speak about and reverence the Blood of Jesus.
In the
Jewish mindset, blood was equal to life. Still to this day, a devout Jew would
never consume blood – so no blood pudding or rare steak. To shed something’s
blood, even if a few drops were shed, is to deprive it of life. So it is hugely
significant that the Chosen People were saved and cleansed by blood.
You may
remember the Passover, when the Israelites had been slaves in Egypt for 400
years. God chooses to save them by having the blood of a lamb anoint the
doorposts of their houses. Only the houses where the blood covered the door
would be spared the death that awaited the first-born in Egypt.
Once
they were freed, God began to reveal Himself to them. He extended the offer of
friendship in the way of Covenants, and all Covenants were sworn through the
shedding of blood. In fact, after Moses read the Law to the people for the
first time, he splashed the blood of calves on the altar and on the people,
symbolizing the union between God and His people…but also foreshadowing the
Blood that would swear the New and Everlasting Covenant on the Cross.
But the
blood of lambs and calves could not take away sin and reconcile us to God. We
needed a sacrifice that was human, since it was humans who sinned. But we
needed a human who was perfect, to offer to God a sacrifice unsullied by sin.
That one Person was Jesus Christ, who was not afraid to shed His blood for the
salvation of the world.
Jesus
could have saved us with a single drop of His blood. He could have pricked His
finger and a thousand worlds would have been freed from sin. But He chose to
die in such a way that every drop of
His blood was shed, to show us the vast extremes that God would go to love us.
If you’ve
seen the movie “The Passion of the Christ”, you know how much blood was shed in
His Passion. During the production of the movie, Mel Gibson was highly criticized
for being anti-Semitic – people claimed that he portrayed the Jews as heartless
and that they seemed to be guilty for the death of Christ. In response to this
criticism, Gibson took out a scene which was directly from Scripture - where the
Jewish leaders shouted to Pontius Pilate, “Let His blood be upon us and upon
our children!”
When we
say “His blood be upon us,” we’re saying that we are responsible for that
person’s death. The Jewish leaders were speaking for all of us, for the whole human race, when they recognized their
responsibility for the death of Jesus. All
of us, without exception, are the reason why Christ died. It was our sins that put Him on that Cross, and
it was for our salvation that He shed
His Precious Blood.
But Pope
Benedict XVI made an interesting comment about this. He said that while “blood
on your hands” usually means guilt, with Christ’s blood it means forgiveness!
We should want to invoke Christ’s
blood to be upon us, because only those who have been cleansed by Christ’s
Blood are truly forgiven!
So what
does all this mean for us? A couple things. First, what an honor it is to be
able to receive Christ’s Blood in the Holy Eucharist! We believe in a doctrine called
concomitance (don’t worry, this won’t
be on a test). Concomitance means that when we receive the Sacred Body we also receive the Precious Blood. So even
if you just receive the Host, you are also receiving His Precious Blood. After
all, a body without blood is dead, but in the Eucharist we are receiving His
Living Body, so we believe that we receive both Body and Blood together! This
is how we steep ourselves in His mercy and protection – by receiving His
Precious Blood worthily every week!
And even
when we cannot receive Him, we can invoke His Precious Blood upon ourselves. A
couple weeks ago I was with our Trinity kids at Brownstone Park, which is this
outdoor water park over by Hartford where you can cliff jump, zip line into
water, and lots of other things. I was preparing to go on the tallest zip line,
over a hundred feet tall, and was being clipped in by one of the Brownstone
employees. As he’s clipping me in, I noticed that he was wearing a chain…with a
pentagram around his neck! (A pentagram is a Satanic symbol – a five-pointed
star surrounded by a circle). Standing on a hundred-foot cliff with a member of
the Church of Satan is not a comfortable
experience! As I was standing there, feeling quite creeped out, I immediately
invoked the Blood of Jesus Christ, asking His blood to cover me and to cover
this heavily-tattooed man. Knowing that spiritually I was covered in the
Precious Blood of Christ brought me great comfort…as he pushed me off the cliff
(which was what he was supposed to do, since I was clipped into my zip line!).
What a
great value there is in the Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ! His Blood
has saved us, redeemed us, freed us. His Blood was the price paid for our
salvation. This month, we honor His Precious Blood and acknowledge all that He
has done for us out of love!
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