When we pray “blessed be the most precious Blood of Jesus” we acknowledge Christ saved us through his bloody death on the Cross. Blessing the most precious Blood of Jesus doesn’t mean we are worshipping just his Blood. This is a misunderstanding. We are worshipping Christ as a whole and by blessing the most precious Blood we acknowledge the lengths he was willing to go to rescue us from death.
The Church especially dedicates the month of July to the most Precious Blood of Jesus and many prayers and devotions honor the bloody sacrifice Christ made for our salvation as the paschal Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
When we receive Jesus in the Eucharist we receive all of him, his Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. In this way, our devotion to the holy Eucharist is also devotion to the Blood of Christ. We know this to be true because we have witnessed many Eucharistic miracles over the last 1200 years, and in them the consecrated host will bleed. The most famous and scientifically thorough example is the Eucharistic miracle of Buenos Aires in 1996.
In Eucharistic adoration, we are adoring the Blood of Christ, which is also contained in the sacred host in the Monstrance. Although we don’t see it with our eyes, Christ is present to us in his glorified Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. We know this with certainty because he is fully God and fully man, united in one person, and present in his glorified body.
Modern science acknowledges and understands that human life is quite literally in the blood. Our blood transmits the breath of life by carrying food, water, and oxygen from our lungs to every cell in our body. Our white blood cells also defend us against diseases, and as long as we are alive we have white blood cells in our bodies. White blood cells rapidly deteriorate after death, however, and most are unrecognizable within a few days post-mortem.
In the Eucharistic miracle of Buenos Aires, however, white blood cells were found on the 3-year-old sample they sent to the lab. When it was tested, the living white blood cells indicated that the heart muscle was inflamed and under severe stress. So in other words, after being stored for three years and then sent to a laboratory to be tested, the heart tissue taken from the consecrated Host was miraculously found to have living white blood cells. This is medically impossible.
"The human heart is heavy and hardened. God must give man a new heart. Conversion is first of all a work of the grace of God who makes our hearts return to him: “Restore us to thyself, O Lord, that we may be restored!”
God gives us the strength to begin anew. It is in discovering the greatness of God’s love that our heart is shaken by the horror and weight of sin and begins to fear offending God by sin and being separated from him. The human heart is converted by looking upon him whom our sins have pierced:
"Let us fix our eyes on Christ’s blood and understand how precious it is to his Father, for, poured out for our salvation, it has brought to the whole world the grace of repentance" [St. Clement of Rome, Ad Cor. 7, 4: PG 1, 224].
We Bless the Most Precious Blood in the Eucharist
As Christians we must have faith to believe that Jesus is truly present to us in his redeeming precious Blood when we receive him in the Eucharist at Mass and visit him in Adoration to pray. We were ransomed with the precious Blood of Christ, a spotless unblemished lamb who chose to die a bloody death so that we might taste heaven. When we bless the most precious Blood we are loving both God and each other with a pure heart of gratitude.
In the First Century, St. Ignatius of Antioch famously wrote, “I have no taste for corruptible food nor for the pleasures of this life. I desire the bread of God, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ . . . and for drink I desire his blood, which is love incorruptible” (Letter to the Romans 7:3 [A.D. 110]).
Catechetical Meditation of "Blessed be the Most Precious Blood of Jesus”
You Were Ransomed by the precious Blood of Christ
Now if you invoke as Father him who judges impartially according to each one’s works, conduct yourselves with reverence during the time of your sojourning, realizing that you were ransomed from your futile conduct, handed on by your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ as of a spotless unblemished lamb.
He was known before the foundation of the world but revealed in the final time for you, who through him believe in God who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.
Since you have purified yourselves by obedience to the truth for sincere mutual love, love one another intensely from a pure heart.
You have been born anew, not from perishable but from imperishable seed, through the living and abiding word of God, for:
“All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of the field; the grass withers, and the flower wilts; but the word of the Lord remains forever.”
This is the word that has been proclaimed to you.
"The Church is the Bride of Christ: he loved her and handed himself over for her. He has purified her by his blood and made her the fruitful mother of all God’s children."
Now let’s contemplate passages from Psalm 22, which is a prophecy of the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ. Slowly meditate on this passage, reflecting on what “Blessed be the Most Precious Blood” means. Take your time. Pause over a word or phrase that speaks to your heart. Reread the passage again, and then ask God to give you the grace to desire to bless the most precious Blood of Christ and praise his precious Blood from your heart. If you’d like to write a blessing in your own words, take a moment to journal.
Catechetical Meditation of "Blessed be the Most Precious Blood of Jesus”
"The Deer of the Dawn" A psalm of David
Many bulls surround me;
fierce bulls of Bashan encircle me.
They open their mouths against me,
lions that rend and roar.
Like water my life drains away;
all my bones are disjointed.
My heart has become like wax,
it melts away within me.
As dry as a potsherd is my throat;
my tongue cleaves to my palate;
you lay me in the dust of death.
Dogs surround me;
a pack of evildoers closes in on me.
They have pierced my hands and my feet
I can count all my bones.
They stare at me and gloat;
they divide my garments among them;
for my clothing they cast lots.
Let us Pray:
Now that we understand the catechetical meaning of “Blessed be the Most Precious Blood of Jesus”, let’s bless the most precious Blood in prayer and believe with our whole hearts that Jesus is truly present to us, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, miraculously and concretely in his glorified body, when we receive him during holy Communion at Mass. What a gift!
The 5th Catechetical Meditation of the Divine Praises prayer
Let Us Bless the Most Precious Blood of Jesus
Jesus Christ, I praise you and I bless you because it is right and just. You chose to come down from heaven and become incarnate of the Virgin Mary to live, suffer, and die for my sins. You shed your most holy and precious Blood so that I might have eternal life with you in heaven. In your eternal goodness you come to me in the Eucharist to feed me your Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, so that I might have life in me. I bless your most precious Blood because I am truly grateful for the depths you went to save me from my sin. With all my heart I bless your precious Blood. I adore and I love your most precious Blood, the Blood of everlasting life. I bless you with my very life in service to your Kingdom. AMEN.
In Conclusion:
We pray “Blessed be the most precious Blood of Jesus” because it is right and just. We also want to make reparations for those who do not believe in the redemptive power of the most precious Blood of Jesus. We bless the precious Blood of Jesus when we receive him bodily in holy Communion for all those who deny the miracle of transubstantiation. Our blessings are a loving effort to compensate for all those who deny the power of the most precious Blood of Jesus Christ in their lives through belief in heresies, whether they suffer from vincible or invincible ignorance.
We remember the words that Jesus tenderly spoke from the Cross when he said, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do” [Luke 23:34].